Obama is Right: The Gulf Arabs Ride Free on Terrorism

David Andrew Weinberg

Security, Middle East

Saudi Arabia and its neighbors are breaking their counterterrorism promises.

President Obama missed the last real opportunity of his administration to urge the Arab Gulf monarchies to finally adopt a no-tolerance rule toward all terrorist groups and to end the inexcusable impunity of terror financiers in their territory. Rather than calling out how certain Gulf states have failed to honor their commitments in this regard, President Obama used language that patted them on the back for half measures during his visit to Riyadh last Thursday for a Gulf leadership summit.

Back in September 2014, just before the start of international airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria, the United States released a document called the Jeddah Communiqué. In it, the State Department announced that the Gulf monarchs and several other Arab allies of the United States had committed to “countering financing of ISIL and other violent extremists, repudiating their hateful ideology, ending impunity and bringing perpetrators to justice.” And just this past week, the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council reiterated their “shared commitment to defeat terrorism in all its forms.”

So how have the GCC states actually fared, compared to their promises? Well, if you listen to President Obama this week, they’ve already succeeded. He bragged to the press in Riyadh on Thursday that “during the course of our administration, the GCC states have extensively cooperated with us on counterterrorism” and “on curbing the financing of terrorist activities.” The summit’s joint communiqué said the United States “commended” the Gulf states for their “rigorous efforts. . . to prevent terrorist attacks,” including their efforts to “counter violent extremism.”