Common US-Qatari goals in military and security: interests after 1990

Abstract

The strategy and objectives of the US Central Command are derived from the US National Security Strategy and its orientations, as well as from the US military strategy. In fact, the US Central Command, which has been organized and provided with sufficient and necessary assistance by the United States to enable it to protect US interests in the area of responsibility, represents a serious threat to the peoples of this region and to all forms of growing movements, particularly nationalist movements hostile to the United States.

The United States has not been satisfied with the above military measures to ensure its hegemony and monopoly over the Arabian Gulf region, but has also sought to establish a set of defensive arrangements and involve the countries of the region, specifically the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, in these arrangements with the aim of legitimizing them.

The GCC states have entered into bilateral security agreements with influential states in the international system, led by the United States, in an attempt to create a kind of regional interconnectedness with these countries. Perhaps most important of all the above is building international legitimacy for the US military presence in the Arabian Gulf region, in form and substance, despite the dangerous repercussions of this presence on Arab national security, especially after it was transformed from a temporary presence to a permanent one. This was announced by William Cohen, the former US Secretary of Defense, in late October 2000, when he said, “The US forces will remain forever, and there is no justification for their withdrawal.” His companion, William Dowd, also confirmed this during his tour of the Gulf, when he said, “We will be here permanently.” As for Colin Powell, the former US Secretary of State, he said that the US military presence in the Arabian Gulf is a long-term goal and not merely a temporary deterrent against President Saddam Hussein.