A year after the start of the Saudi-led siege of Qatar, the Gulf Cooperation Council is all but dead. The GCC was created by Saudi King Khalid in May 1981 during the Iran-Iraq War to provide strength through unity for the gulf monarchies; the United States was its midwife. Never a tight union, the GCC nonetheless was a useful means to coordinate policy and enhance the influence of Saudi Arabia and the other five monarchies.
The decision announced on June 5, 2017, by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to break relations with Qatar and impose a blockade on trade on the emirate came shortly after President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh last year, his first foreign stop as president. It remains unclear today how much the Saudis told the Americans about the plan to attack Qatar and how much Trump’s team understood what they were told. Confusion was the hallmark of the American response to the blockade. It still is.
