The End of the Gulf Crisis Is Big News—But Middle East Sands Always Shift

Jan 5, 2021
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Also published in The Hill
About the Authors
Simon Henderson
Simon Henderson

Simon Henderson is the Baker Senior Fellow and director of the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at The Washington Institute, specializing in energy matters and the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf.

Articles & Testimony

The rift’s closure, while quite welcome, won’t produce instant Gulf unity or make the Iran nuclear issue any easier to solve.

It appears that the Gulf crisis is over. The schism between U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, on the one hand, and Qatar, on the other, is ending today in a flurry of Arab robes and face-masked embraces at a desert air strip in northwest Saudi Arabia. This being the Middle East, the wording must be cautious and it’s wise to include a “probably” or “perhaps” somewhere. But there is no doubting the potential significance of the news. An often absurd tiff between Washington’s allies has been taken off the front burner...

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