Introduction
Recently, diplomatic
problem raise up between Arabian countries where Saudi Arabia and their three
biggest alliances, Bahrain, Egypt, and Uni Emirate Arab (UEA), has confirmed
that they were breaking diplomatic relationship with Qatar. The problem was
caused by Qatar’s state run news when they published a fake article stated that
Qatar is helping the biggest radical Islamic group in the world, ISIS, and
Qatar.’ ruling emir was quoted praising Israel and Iran. As a result, Saudi
Arabia and its alliances hang up the air, sea, and land travel from and to
Qatar. A longstanding war between Saudi Arabia and Qatar has exploded more than
diplomatic warfare, but also threatening US led fight against ISIS and setting
off instability in Gulf region where countries such Yemen, Libya, and Maldives
also joined Saudi Arabia to diplomatically boycott Qatar (Aleem, 2017).
As a richest oil and gas
country, Qatar will feel the pain because Uni Emirate Arab block the trade and
travel in and out of Qatar where Qatar also relies on their neighbors for its
trading activities. A lot of ship transporting food to Doha stopped in UEA’s
big cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi and it still remain uncertain what will
be the effect from the UEA’s bans on their movements. The tension between those
countries are not recently happening, nevertheless both countries have been
raised into extraordinary level of breaking off diplomatic relationship and
travel blockade. This conflicts also sketched Qatar’s determination on pursuing
their independent policy, containing agreements with Iran, where the country is
competing against Saudi Arabia for Influence in the region (Venkataramakrishnan, 2017).
Objective
of The Paper
Qatar’s agency have been
hacked by unauthorized hackers where stated that Qatar is financially help
biggest radical Islamic group in the world in running terrorism activities.
When the news published and came into Saudi Arabia, UEA and its alliances
decided to suspend Qatar from any kind of travel activities and break the
diplomatic relationship among them. Therefore, this paper will entirely discuss
about the detail conflict itself, parties being involved directly and
indirectly to the conflict, how does the countries negotiate to find the
solution for the problem, as well as the conclusion and recommendation to
overcome the Middle East region’s conflict.
Analysis
and Literature Review
As stated in the
introduction part, the parties being involved directly in Middle East region’s
conflict are Saudi Arabia and its alliances against Qatar. Saudi Arabia is the
party who decided to break diplomatic ties with Qatar because of fake issues
stated that Qatar royal family have intentionally supporting terrorist and
backing Iran when a whole Arabian countries united against it. On the other
side, Qatar is the party who feel the pain due to Saudi Arabia’s suspension on every
travel routes and Gulf States are turning away from Qatar. Moreover, there is
the biggest indirectly party who involve in this conflict which is United State
of America and their president, Donald Trump. White House have informed that
Trump was hoping to scale back recent situation in Gulf region and hoping both
parties come together to bring Gulf states in right track. Trump also decided
to do his first international trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to show his support
on Arabian countries against terrorism. In his speech, Trump underlined that
Arabian countries must certify that Terrorist have no reserve on their land (Hodali, 2017). However, what Trump
doing in Riyadh was make the troublesome dual role for Qatar for US in its
fight against Terrorism in Middle East because Qatar was becoming complicated
challenges for US itself. On one side, US know Qatar is a potential source of
support in funding radical group considers as terrorists associations, such as
ISIS. On the other side, it also help the Pentagon to control bases in
territory to serve as intermediary among US and Islamic groups across regions.
This means that US are willing to work with Qatar out of a belief that
positives overshadowed by clear negatives, including unofficial support of US
for militant and radical activities in Middle East region (Aleem, 2017).
On the basis of
negotiation, Qatar was try to negotiate with Arabian countries to cut off the
suspension on Qatar. Qatar are trying to negotiate by discovered a concrete
evidences to influence Saudi Arabia and its alliances that Qatar are not
supporting Islamic Radical Group in Middle East. For instance, Qatar supported
Muslim brotherhood in Egypt during Arab spring ultimately came a cropper when
brotherhood government was collapsed by the military soon after the revolution.
As many point out, it is not Qatar’s support for radical Islamic groups that
has infuriated Saudi Arabia. It is the fact that Qatar does not support the
same things as them led to the recent conflict (Venkataramakrishnan, 2017). As a huge natural
gas reserve, Qatar try to negotiate Saudi Arabia to cut off the bans because
Qatar cannot operate independently without Saudi Arabia. The location of Qatar
is comprehensively dependence on crossing its border with Saudi Arabia. As a
result of suspension was sent Qatar into panic situation because Qatar stock
was falling down and local residents rushed to local markets to stock up on
supplies (Cooper, 2017). As the consequences faced by Qatar,
the right negotiation can be the best solution to calm down the tension among
both countries and make strong diplomatic relationship between Saudi Arabia and
Qatar as before.
Furthermore, cultural
approach will slightly help to overcome the conflict among both parties. As
largest country in Gulf state, Saudi Arabia has advocated common regional
policies under its cultural leadership. Nevertheless, rapid development of oil
and gas in Qatar has allow the country leftover the capital to create their own
global influence. It means that in term of cultural relationship, both
countries are demanded each other to influence other countries in Arab region.
Moreover, Qatar ambitious development has included opening its society into
global cultural, educational, and business influences. Qatar also have been
chosen as a host country for 2022 World Cup. Qatar also has emphasized its
intention to work with global partner, included Saudi Arabia, which can be
beneficial not only for Qatar itself but also for surrounding Gulf region.
Therefore, Qatar has intended cultural foreign policy to resolve the conflict by
mediating among Islamic groups and Arab Government. While some view have
criticized those policy, Qatar could argue that this mediating strategy through
cultural policy is the best solution to overcome conflict because inhibiting
Islamic political opposition has not worked (Mednicoff, 2017).
Based on the given
evidences above, I am quite sure that will be the winner party in this
negotiation because the measures of Arab nation to cut off diplomatic ties with
Qatar was unjustified. Arab nations justified their decision based on
allegation and claims only where fake news published that Qatar was supporting
Islamic radical groups without basis in fact. Moreover, cutting of diplomatic
ties and suspending borders is not best solution to resolve the conflict,
whereas, it can cause instability problem. Therefore, Qatar use their power to
negotiate and sit together to address the differences among Arab countries,
because Qatar also aimed in helping Gulf Cooperation Council stay united (Al Jazeera Media Network, 2017). As the biggest
country in Gulf region, Saudi Arabia has their power to influence Arab
countries with their regional policies under its leaderships. However, Qatar
can still win the negotiation in this conflict, because the rapid development
of massive oil wealth. Qatar have improves their nations as a biggest country
in exploring oil and gas, which allow the country to excess capital to
establish their own global influence. Therefore, Qatar can influence their
power to humiliate the regional influenced policy of Saudi Arabia leadership (Mednicoff, 2017).
Moreover, the conflict
between Qatar and Saudi Arabia can be solved with the help of third party as a
mediator. As a neutral country, UEA believe that Indonesia as a best mediator
to help intercede d the diplomatic country between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Furthermore,
UEA believe that Indonesia is a very kind country and having a good
relationship with all countries in the world. Indonesian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs have contacted by the UEA minister and given some message for
Indonesia. UEA minister stated that Indonesia will be the best mediator during
the negotiation between Qatar and Saudi Arabia because Indonesia have equal
position in term of external politic and will give the best contribution for
creating peace in the world. This means, Third party will play significant
roles during the negotiation of both conflicted parties. Third party will
listen to the problems, gathering all the best alternatives offered by both
conflicted parties, and try to figure out the win-win solution where both
conflicted parties can resolve the problem and feel happy with the solution (Hanggoro, 2017).
Conclusion
and Recommendation
In conclusion, the
beginning of Middle East conflict started when Saudi Arabia, as large country
in Gulf Region, influenced other by using regional policies under its
leadership which created a high tension among the Arab countries. Then, there
is an unauthorized news stated that Qatar, as a richest country, supporting and
financing the Islamic radical groups such as ISIS. Spontaneously, Saudi Arabia
get angered because they were fighting against those radical groups and try to
influence other Arab countries to break off diplomatic ties by suspending Qatar
from land, sea, and air travel. As a result, Qatar will feel the pain because
the country is not able to operate their trading activities and start causing
the decreasing in Qatar’s stock. Then, Qatar try to sit together with Saudi
Arabia in term of negotiation to overcome the problem and find the win-win
solution. So, negotiation is expected to re-improve diplomatic relationship
between Qatar and Saudi Arabia as usual.
At last, I would like to
recommend that Qatar and Saudi Arabia should use Best Alternative to a
Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) during the negotiation process. BATNA is critical
in the negotiation process because both Qatar and Saudi Arabia cannot make a
wise choice to accept negotiated covenant without knowing the alternatives. On
the other term, if Qatar offered agreement is better than Saudi Arabia’s BATNA,
means Saudi Arabia have to accept the agreement deals. However, if Qatar
offered agreement that are not even better than Saudi Arabia BATNA, means Saudi
Arabia have to reopen the negotiation for Qatar to improve the agreement (Spangler, 2012). As my
recommendation, I expected that BATNA will help the negotiation process to
solve the conflict and re-improve the diplomatic ties among both countries.
References
Al
Jazeera Media Network. (2017, June 5). Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Bahrain
cut ties to Qatar. Retrieved from
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/saudi-arabia-uae-egypt-bahrain-cut-ties-qatar-170605031700062.html
Aleem, Z. (2017, June 6). Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic war
with Qatar, explained. Retrieved from Vox:
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/6/6/15739606/saudi-arabia-ties-qatar-trump
Cooper, L. (2017, June 08). Understanding The Diplomatic
Crisis Between Saudi Arabia And Qatar. Retrieved from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/06/08/understanding-the-diplomatic-crisis-between-saudi-arabia-and-qat_a_22130233/
Hanggoro, M. A. (2017, June 15 ). UEA minta Indonesia
bantu penyelesaian konflik Qatar-Liga Arab. Retrieved from merdeka.com:
https://www.merdeka.com/dunia/uea-minta-indonesia-bantu-penyelesaian-konflik-qatar-liga-arab.html
Hodali, D. (2017, June 6). Saudi Arabia vs. Qatar vs.
Iran. Retrieved from http://www.dw.com/en/saudi-arabia-vs-qatar-vs-iran/a-39137531
Mednicoff, D. (2017, June 7). Why have other Gulf states
cut ties with Qatar? Retrieved from
http://theconversation.com/why-have-other-gulf-states-cut-ties-with-qatar-78906
Spangler, B. (2012, July). Best Alternative to a
Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). Retrieved from
http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/batna
Venkataramakrishnan, R. (2017, June 05). How a ‘fake’
speech led to unprecedented tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Retrieved from Scroll.in: https://scroll.in/article/839681/how-a-fake-speech-led-to-unprecedented-tensions-between-qatar-and-saudi-arabia
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