U.S.-G.C.C. Relations: Recommendations for the Next Administration

By Gerald M. Feierstein | Director of the Center for Gulf Affairs - The Middle East Institute | Nov 09, 2016

http://www.mei.edu/content/article/us-gcc-relations-recommendations-next-administration

The United States will confront a new and very different set of challenges in its relationship with the G.C.C. states over the coming four years. For the first time since the end of World War II, a new administration will come to power in Washington next January facing a ‘trust deficit’ in its management of relations with its G.C.C. partners. The overwhelming Congressional vote to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the JASTA legislation was interpreted in the region as a lessening of popular support for the U.S.-G.C.C. relationship. The vote thus reinforced growing skepticism in the Gulf that the United States will remain a reliable and consistent guarantor of regional security and stability that is the predictable consequence of a series of U.S. actions and policy choices from Syria to the Arab Spring to the Iran nuclear deal. This is not to say that the administration’s decisions in all of these cases were flawed, but they did engender doubts among our partners.
Challenges in U.S.-G.C.C. Relations http://www.mei.edu/content/article/us-gcc-relations-recommendations-next-administration