(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The idea was first proposed by Saudi Arabia at the PGCC meeting in December 2011, in which Saudi officials lamented the low level of military cooperation and called for more interaction between the six members of the bloc. The de facto annexation of Bahrain to Saudi Arabia would have been the first step, but the proposal failed to gain the needed support at the last PGCC meeting.
Saudi Arabia is the only government that is enthusiastically insisting on the establishment of such a union. The idea is being mocked by many Arab governments, including Jordan and Morocco, and none of the other members of the PGCC have given a positive response. The proposal shows that Riyadh is very concerned about the Arab revolutions and their potential impact on the balance of power in the region.
There are many other obstacles in the way of the establishment of such a union. For over three decades, the members of the PGCC have failed to reach an acceptable level of cooperation, and they still have many disputes on a variety of issues.
Thus, the proposal for a Saudi-Bahrain union is viewed by many analysts as a continuation of the Saudi Arabian government’s intervention in Bahrain, which began in early 2011, to suppress the popular protests in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom. In other words, Saudi Arabia’s military intervention did not quell the uprising and the proposal for a union is another hasty decision meant to prevent Bahrain’s contagion from reaching the shores of Saudi Arabia.
Bahrain is different than Saudi Arabia from both the geographical and cultural perspectives. It is also home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, and any move to annex Bahrain must first be endorsed by the United States. All this makes the idea of a union between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain more and more difficult to conceive.
Mohammad Farazmand is a political analyst who formerly served as Iran’s ambassador to Bahrain.
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