Thirty-six years have passed since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the formation of the Arab and international coalition that liberated it, in what came to be called the Second Gulf War - preceded by the first, when Iran and Iraq fought for eight years (1980-1988). The Third Gulf War came with the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. We are now in the Fourth Gulf War, currently underway between the United States and Iran, but in reality the war stretches across the Gulf, the Red Sea, and the two straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb.
Now the Saudi initiative to establish the Maritime Defense Alliance, signed by 14 Arab and Islamic states, breathes life into that larger alliance which took shape in the corridors of the United Nations and other international organizations for the recognition of the Palestinian state. This time the alliance takes on a defensive character, aimed at strengthening collective maritime security and safeguarding freedom of navigation and global trade in the face of any aggression against Arab countries.
This time the alliance carries out a "defensive" mission to restore strategic balance in the region, and its domain is maritime: to uphold international rights of passage through the straits that connect the blue waters of the Arabian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean. Here the alliance performs an international function, preserving freedom of global trade and the balance required between supply and demand in the world energy market.
I watched the Second Gulf War- the war to liberate Kuwait - hour by hour and at first hand, through my work in Qatar, which ran from August 22, 1990, until July 1, 1993, and continued into the period when the question of security in the Gulf region was posed with real force. There was much in that war for Arabs to take pride in, when they determined that no Arab country may wrong another. For the sake of that just cause, the clamor of the moment was set aside - much as it is now, when the cards are shuffled between right and duty on one side and the Palestinian cause on the other. That just position was enough to form an Arab coalition that played an effective part within the international coalition led by the US.
The Arab coalition was necessary then to the legitimacy and the honor of a successful undertaking, and it is necessary now for the return of balance to a region worn out by disorder and by the entanglement of the fifth Gaza war with the Fourth Gulf War.
In the Second Gulf War, the Arab presence was not only a matter of participating in the war and shaping its direction, including the decision not to cross into Iraqi territory once Kuwait was liberated and the mission complete, but a good deal more. There was the convening of the Madrid conference for peace in the Middle East, which led, among other things, to the Oslo Accords, which in turn paved the way for the first Palestinian authority on Palestinian soil in history. "Gulf security" thus encompassed part of Arab national security, alongside the solidarity of the Gulf Cooperation Council states.
The role the US played in the war involved mobilizing close to half a million American troops, which raised the idea of security agreements establishing logistical bases to receive forces and guarantee their readiness should Washington be compelled to come again.
The essential virtue of the Saudi initiative to form this Arab maritime and defensive alliance is that member states become part of the strategic planning process for the coming phase - whether that involves military operations, diplomatic negotiations, or mediation efforts, as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Türkiye, and Pakistan are already doing.
No less important than any of this is that the alliance will look at the region as a whole from a comprehensive strategic vantage point, in order to achieve regional stability across all the fronts bearing on a resolution of the Palestinian question and on the cases where the national state has been undermined in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.
The Second Gulf War was a response to a shock to the regional security of the Middle East in a case of aggression against the sovereignty of a sister state. Now, in the fourth war, the danger is no less severe, as the region at large is subjected to acts of aggression and assaults on national sovereignty.
