Evolving Empire: America's "Emirates" Strategy in the Persian Gulf

Abstract

This article examines U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf and juxtaposes American efforts in Iraq with those in the Gulf Cooperation Council states. As the U.S.‐led effort to pacify and democratize Iraq continues to founder and with civil war underway in parts of the country, Washington pursues another imperial strategy in the Persian Gulf better suited to American security preferences and more likely to succeed, at least in the short term. In pursuing an “emirates” strategy, Washington seeks to indulge its historic preference for an informal empire in the Gulf that relies on cooperation with pro‐American monarchs. While the Bush administration has touted Iraq's potential to remake the Middle East into a democratic haven, America seems prepared to rely on familiar autocrats to help it tackle terrorists in Southwest Asia and preserve Western access to critical supplies of hydrocarbons should Iraq's democratic rehabilitation prove unsuccessful.

Empire?

“…Both of these lenses are appropriate when examining the question of the American empire, as some argue that the United States qualifies as an empire by both means. 60 These two methods of acquiring empire are not mutually exclusive, however. Lundestad argues that the United States, at the behest of its allies, formed a series of both formal and informal arrangements this way in post-war Europe that some consider imperial.…”

What’s This, Then? “Romanes Eunt Domus”?1

“…This conflation operates in a more subtle way in the context of discussions of American “informal empire.” One of the major arguments against the existence of an American Empire pivots on the United States’ current lack of territorial ambitions (see Ignatieff 2003b: 22; Schmitt and Landler 2004:10). Some respond that “America, consonant with its republican ideology and preponderant air‐naval power, favors informal imperial arrangements” (O’Reilly and Renfro 2007:139). Analysts often draw parallels with Rome and Britain, both of which controlled informal empires at various times and in various places (e.g., Kurth 1997:5; Freedland 2002).…”

The Emperor Wore Cowboy Boots

“…10 10 See, for example, Ikenberry and Kupchan’s (1990) arguments for how powerful states normatively socialize other states into accepting them as hegemons, or O’Reilly and Renfro’s (2007) discussion of the sort of domestic gains that can be made by imperial allies and proxies. …”