Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Foreign Policy Discourse: Iranian Threat, Gulf Crisis and the Question of Khalijism

Since the establishment of the Gulf Cooperation Council in 1981, the international and regional political discourse regarding the council’s establishment, achievements and challenges have revolved around loose and foggy concepts like: ‘GCC foreign policy’, ‘GCC collective security’, ‘GCC security alliance’, and ‘GCC influence on Gulf security’. While these concepts have also featured in the political discourses of GCC members, they are not reflective of the principles enshrined in any of the articles of the GCC Charter. This evokes questions about the true principles that underpin the founding of GCC. Thus far, the purported rationale and objective of the GCC are perplexing. Discourses relating to ‘Gulf Security’ prominently feature in the foreign policy of GCC states. The security actions taken by Gulf leaders against their neighbours, however introduces tensions in terms of how Gulf security has been conceptualised in relation to the ‘Iranian threat’. This has made it difficult to define the meaning and function of the GCC’s founding political concepts: ‘cooperation’, or ‘unification’. The GCC is in crisis not only because of GCC members' contradictory policies toward Iran evidenced by their discursive struggle concerning the Iranian threat, but also because the GCC’s identity is in crisis. This serves to question the meaning of Khaliji identity as it underpinned the establishment of the institution on the ideas of solidarity, unity, and belonging to Khaliji identity. This has supported its establishment by using the concepts of: khalijouna wahed (our Gulf is one entity) and albeit al Khaliji (Gulf house: family). However, this research shows through discourse analysis, that these concepts cannot be stabilised in the Khaliji context. This inability to stabilise the political meaning of these ideas in GCC foreign policy discourse, has to do with the internal divisions within the GCC itself, exemplified in their ideological struggles.