A special session of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) convened on Thursday in Doha to discuss the need to boost defense ties cooperation among its member states following Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar earlier this month.
A statement, reminiscent of the wording of NATO’s Article 5, issued by the GCC’s Joint Defense Council after the meeting, said “an attack on one GCC member is an attack on all.”
The statement included five pledges: to increase intelligence sharing, increase the sharing of satellite imagery, speed up development of early warning systems, update regional defense plans, and conduct joint military exercises.
According to the UAE-based “The National” website, GCC members could consider revisiting the proposal put forward by Egypt in 2015 to formalize that cooperation by way of an alliance similar to NATO.
While it was adopted in principle at the time, the Arab nations could not agree on issues such as where the alliance headquarters would be based and how its command structure would be formed.
The US Breaking Defense website said those fundamental issues probably remain, citing retired Kuwaiti air force Col. Zafer Al Ajami, who said that while the Israel attack has “intensified debates on collective Gulf security” and identified critical shortcomings in the region’s air and missile defenses, “political divisions may hinder [the formation] of a formal Arab-NATO.”
Analysts, however, say that Israel’s attack has likely undermined GCC’s traditional trust with the US.
Breaking Defense cited Rashid Al Mohannadi, a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, as saying, “The assumption that if we were American allies we wouldn’t be attacked by American allies, turned out to be false.”
Another commentator, IISS senior fellow for Middle East policy Hasan Alhasan, said that some Arab states wonder if the US has “the political will to use its… political, economic and diplomatic leverage to restrain Israel from [conducting] further attacks.”
“I think this is where the US is quite unreliable,” Alhasan added, a view Al Ajami shares. Al Ajami said the Israeli strikes have indicated that US protection in the region is now “viewed as conditional and politically volatile.”
As the war in Gaza enters its third year along with attacks by Israel in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iran, The National said the GCC fears that as Israel “enjoys ironclad support from US President Donald Trump,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will stop at nothing in the dealing with perceived enemies across the region – this could be the motivation to form its own NATO.
The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.