Britain and the Arab Gulf after Empire

Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, 1971-1981

Simon C. Smith

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781317559306
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Politics & International Relations
• Categoria: International Relations

Although Britain's formal imperial role in the smaller, oil-rich sheikdoms of the Arab Gulf – Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – ended in 1971, Britain continued to have a strong interest and continuing presence in the region. This book explores the nature of Britain's role after the formal end of empire. It traces the historical events of the post-imperial years, including the 1973 oil shock, the fall of the Shah in Iran and the beginnings of the Iran-Iraq War, considers the changing positions towards the region of other major world powers, including the United States, and engages with debates on the nature of empire and the end of empire. The book is a sequel to the authors' highly acclaimed previous books Britain's Revival and Fall in the Gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, 1950-71 (Routledge 2004) and Ending Empire in the Middle East: Britain, the United States and Post-war Decolonization, 1945-1973 (Routledge 2012).

1 The trials of independence, 1971–1972

In his message to US President Lyndon Baines Johnson relaying the British government’s decision to withdraw from East of Suez by 1971, Prime Minister Harold Wilson wrote: ‘Believe me, Lyndon, the decisions we are having to take now have been the most difficult and the heaviest of any that I, and I think all my colleagues, can remember in our public life’.¹ However, he went on to insist:

We are not taking them in a narrow or partisan spirit. We are taking them because we are convinced that, in the longer term, only thus can Britain find the new place on the world stage that I firmly believe the British people ardently desire. And when I say ‘the world stage’ I mean just that.²

Despite Wilson’s penchant for extravagant prose, this pledge regarding the continuation of Britain’s world role was no mere rhetorical flourish.

In the aftermath of the 1956 Suez crisis, British policy-makers had endlessly debated the degree to which a formal presence in the Gulf was necessary for the maintenance of British interests there.³ While British officials in the Gulf, and to a lesser extent the Foreign Office itself, made the case for a continuing presence, the cost-conscious Treasury challenged this position, preferring instead to rely on normal commercial processes for the preservation of Britain’s economic stake in the region. In many ways, neither side decisively won the argument. Nevertheless, the decision to accelerate the run-down of Britain’s presence East of Suez following the devaluation of sterling towards the end of 1967 meant that the Treasury’s reasoning would have, ipso facto, to guide British policy-making towards the Gulf. Although the Treasury’s approach ultimately prevailed, there was a clear recognition among British decision-makers that Britain could not simply retreat from areas which remained vital to its long-term well-being.

During Cabinet discussions at the beginning of 1968 on withdrawal from East of Suez, Foreign Secretary George Brown intoned: ‘Even if we ceased to be a world power, we should continue to retain world interests and to need friends and allies to defend them’.⁴ In a subsequent paper for the Cabinet, Brown asserted:

I believe that a military presence is not the only way to exercise influence. There is still a good deal we can do in the parts of the world from which we are withdrawing militarily. If we cannot totally replace the degree of protection for our interests which we lose when we withdraw our military presence we can at least mitigate the consequences by maintaining a British presence through non-military means.⁵

Outlining to Parliament on 16 January Britain’s intention to withdraw from East of Suez, Harold Wilson declared: ‘On the Gulf, we have indicated to the Governments concerned that our basic interest in the prosperity and security of the area remains’.⁶ Shortly after this announcement, the Political Resident in the Gulf, Sir Stewart Crawford, emphasized that it would ‘remain an important British interest on both political and economic grounds that peace and stability should be maintained in the Gulf in the long term’.⁷ Crawford was quick to add that

it remains important that British firms should do their utmost to earn a substantial share of the sterling which the oil exports of the area will bring to the Gulf States, and that British Government policies should continue to encourage the Governments of the Gulf States to be good holders of sterling.⁸

With similar cold logic, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office observed in May 1968 that

After we have given up our political position in the Gulf, we shall still depend on the area generally for about half our oil, while access to oil in the Gulf area is a major factor in the contribution which British oil companies make to our foreign exchange earnings through their overseas operations.⁹

Equally, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the FCO, Sir Paul Gore-Booth, remarked:

It was clear we could not simply retire into our shell once our troops left the regions in question. We had a general interest in the peace, stability and prosperity of the areas and we had also a substantial economic stake, in the form of investments and export markets, which were important for our future solvency and standard of living.¹⁰

In July 1968, the Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart, and the Commonwealth Secretary, George Thomson, produced a wide-ranging assessment of the non-military means of maintaining British influence which included the strength of the British economy and of the pound sterling, and what they identified as ‘political power’ exercised through British membership of the Commonwealth, political alliances, and other associations and informal groupings.¹¹ The importance, and indeed necessity, of preserving influence was highlighted by the recognition that ‘other powers, whether friendly or hostile, compete with us for influence. Reluctance on our side to take part in the competition will not make our competitors slacken their efforts; it will only increase their success’.¹² Stewart and Thomson pragmatically concluded that ‘Our political influence will be reduced and the nature of our influence will change from that of a power with a global military role to one with world-wide economic interests. We need to maintain these interests if we are going to restore our economic position’.¹³ Indeed, in no real sense was there an acceptance that the end of formal empire would equate with a concomitant abandonment of Britain’s global economic interests, represented most explicitly by the £1 billion British investment in Persian Gulf oil production.¹⁴ As the US Ambassador in London, Walter Annenberg, presciently noted:

The British economic stake on both sides of the Gulf, already immense, is as likely to increase as decrease in the future, and the oil interests and earnings from the Arab side will continue to be vitally important to the UK, just as they are on the Iranian side. The UK may not continue its special political and military relationship with the small Arab states but it will have a strong incentive to work hard through diplomatic and political channels to register its continuing stake in Gulf affairs.¹⁵

The unexpected defeat of the Labour Party in the June 1970 general election left Edward Heath’s Conservative government with the task of shaping British policy towards the Gulf.

Shortly after the Conservatives’ victory, the new Foreign Secretary, Alec Douglas-Home, turned his attention to the timetable for Britain’s departure from the Gulf and the relinquishment of its formal responsibilities as set out by the previous Labour government. In response to Conservative backbench MP Patrick Wall’s suggestion that the existing withdrawal plan should be countermanded,¹⁶ Douglas-Home pointed out that there was ‘no harm’ in letting the Rulers think that it was continuing since this served to ‘encourage them to hasten the process of making the Union of Arab Emirates a working reality’.¹⁷ ‘[E]ven if we withdraw completely by the end of 1971’, Douglas-Home declared, ‘we would retain major economic interests in the Gulf area’.¹⁸ Douglas-Home’s personal representative in the Gulf, the former Political Resident Sir William Luce, was of a similar opinion.

Following extensive consultations, Luce produced a report towards the end of 1970 on future British policy in the Gulf. Observing that the real threat to stability in the region came from ‘subversion and revolution by Arab nationalist and left-wing elements’, Luce indicated that ‘The presence of a British battalion will not deter the threat, indeed it could encourage it’.¹⁹ Consequently, he recommended that any new agreement reached with the Gulf States should not include any ongoing specific defence commitment and the withdrawal of British units stationed in the Gulf be completed by the end of 1971 as planned. Luce also advocated that the existing exclusive agreements with the Gulf States be terminated by the same date, justifying this stance with the observation that the British announcement in January 1968 had ‘generated a firm expectation, and indeed a determination in and around the Gulf, that the nine States will become fully responsible for the conduct of all their affairs in the course of 1971’.²⁰ Nevertheless, Luce did not envisage that British military withdrawal and the termination of the exclusive agreements would equate with an ending of Britain’s involvement in the region.

At the beginning of his report Luce outlined Britain’s aims in the Gulf which included preserving ‘as much influence as possible’ with a view to maintaining regional stability and limiting communist influence to the ‘greatest extent possible’, sustaining the ‘uninterrupted flow of oil on reasonable terms’, and increasing B...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Map: The Modern Gulf
• Introduction
• 1 The trials of independence, 1971–1972
• 2 The oil revolution, 1973
• 3 Challenges and opportunities, 1974–1977
• 4 Revolution and reaction, 1978–1979
• 5 War and peace, 1980
• 6 The empire strikes back? 1981
• Conclusion: imperialism after empire?
• Appendix 1 British Ambassadors to the Gulf States
• Appendix 2 Heads of the FCO’s Arabian/Middle East Department
• Appendix 3 Secretaries of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
• Appendix 4 British Prime Ministers
• Appendix 5 Gulf Rulers
• Bibliography
• Index