Last month, while Bashar Al Assad was winging his way to Moscow to escape rebel justice in Damascus, senior officials of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Bahrain were in nearby Manama cementing a partnership that could hold the keys to defeating once and for all the authoritarian depredations epitomized by modern Syria and its enablers.
On December 7, on the margins of the annual Manama Dialogue and without much fanfare, the UK accepted a joint invitation from the United States and Bahrain to accede to the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement (C-SIPA). It may not sound like much, but this multilateral partnership had been years in the making and could well prove a strategic game changer.
Ever since the first Gulf War in the early 1990's, the holy grail for American defense planners has been a fully integrated security architecture for the region: an interlocking, interconnected network combining command and control with land, sea, and air defense assets deployed in the CENTCOM area of responsibility. For their part, our Gulf Arab allies have always wanted an American security guarantee that they could count on: "If we're attacked, you will defend us. Full stop. No 'if's', 'and's' or 'but's'."
Until now, neither side has gotten what they want. The United States has highly favorable base access agreements that allow us to project significant force in the region, but we have not succeeded in establishing the fully integrated air defense and other networks that would represent a quantum leap in preparedness and deterrence.
Despite Washington's repeated assurances that it is committed to the region's defense, our partners have remained skeptical. For too long, they have been disappointed by the gap between words and deeds. In 2013, when Bashar al Assad killed over 1,000 civilians with sarin gas, President Obama did nothing, despite his earlier declaration that the United States would consider the use of chemical weapons in Syria a red line. In 2019, the U.S. ignored Saudi calls for retaliation in response to an Iranian attack that destroyed oil refineries and related infrastructure and took 50% of Saudi Arabia's daily production -- or about 5% of global supply -- off the market. The Biden administration's betrayal of its Afghan allies and disastrous withdrawal had our Arab partners shaking their heads in dismay and disbelief.
During his first term, President Trump tried to resolve this discrepancy between aspirations and reality by promoting a security partnership between the U.S., the GCC states, Jordan and Egypt. Dubbed the "Middle East Strategic Alliance", the project never really got off the ground, largely because it was launched in 2017, which didn't leave much time to bring it to fruition, and because closing the deal on the Abraham Accords took precedence.
Nevertheless, Bahrain's leaders saw merit in the idea and resolved to keep it alive. With an "if you build it, they will come" conviction, the Bahrainis believed it was possible to negotiate a "NATO-like" arrangement with the United States that would provide reliable security guarantees. Moreover, and with MESA firmly in mind, the agreement would be open to others joining down the road.
Almost one year of negotiations were capped off by the signing of the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement in September 2023. What MESA started, C-SIPA kept alive.
It provided a Gulf Arab state security guarantees with teeth. According to the agreement, Washington pledges to "meet at the most senior levels to determine additional defense needs and to develop and implement appropriate defense and deterrent responses" in the event of external aggression or the threat of external aggression. This is the closest the U.S. government has ever come to an "Article 5" NATO commitment with an Arab state, and its precedent-setting scope has not gone unnoticed by Bahrain's neighbors.
Moreover, it goes way beyond security by including economic and scientific cooperation as core components. Joint commitments covering technology and trade underscore a fundamental but oft-overlooked reality: economic and technological integration are indispensable components for strengthening alliances and deterring adversaries. Great Britain's accession brings the vision of a truly meaningful alliance between the leaders of the free world and like-minded states of the region one step closer to reality. As the much-heralded AUKUS partnership impacted strategic calculations in the Pacific, so the Bahraini-US-UK agreement will shift the regional balance of power decidedly in our favor, and it provides a working structure for others to join.
President Trump's return to office gives him a chance to complete the unfinished business of this first term. MESA, The Abraham Accords (to which Bahrain was among the first signatories) and C-SIPA include all the elements necessary for a transformative political, military and economic alliance between the U.S. and the nations of the Arabian Gulf. By fusing them into a single construct, President Trump could produce lasting peace, economic growth, political stability and prosperity for both America and the Arab states that are looking to us for leadership. It is a worthy endeavor and one certainly deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize.
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