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
As the Gulf's cohesion continues to erode, could a united political front composed of Saudi Arabia and the UAE be the glue the region needs?
There’s going to be a new acronym in the Middle East that is likely to transform regional politics. What it will be has yet to be formalized but, on June 6, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates announced the formation of the Saudi-Emirati Coordination Council. The new council is probably the death knell of the Gulf Cooperation Council, established in 1981 as a mechanism to safeguard the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf from becoming embroiled in the Iran-Iraq war, which had started the year before and was going to continue until 1988…