Quiet pragmatist who brought calm to troubled waters

In the course of his 50-year reign, the achievements of Sultan Qaboos for his country, and his impact on the region and the world, have been significant. The sultan’s success in bringing countries and individuals together is a testimony to his prowess as a force for balance among competing parties.

This model of balance led many Western nations to turn repeatedly to Muscat to act as a mediator in resolving thorny regional issues — from the kidnapping of Americans and Europeans to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Oman mediated between Tehran and Washington for prisoner releases, including the freeing of three US hikers jailed in Iran on suspicion of being spies after they strayed across the border in 2009. Oman was also the first Gulf state to receive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in October 2018.

From the beginning, Sultan Qaboos visualized the future. In 1971, Oman joined the United Nations and the Arab League. More important, by the mid-1970s, with the help of British and Iranian military forces, he had brought under control the communist-inspired Dhofar rebellion that had erupted during the 1960s in the southwest corner of Oman. By the end of the 1970s, the domestic political situation in Oman had stabilized, allowing Sultan Qaboos to devote more attention to foreign policy, and to implementing his policy of neutrality and independence, maintaining freedom of action and pragmatism, and demonstrating flexibility in reaching accommodation swith regional and global powers, especially the US, the Soviet Union and later Russia, and China.

To be sure, 1980-81 was a pivotal time for Oman when it affirmed the foundations of its regional independence by declining to support Saddam Hussein’s troops in the war against Iran. At the time, Oman refused, knowing that such action would be seen as a declaration of war on Iran. Since then, Muscat has continuously defended the idea that to preserve the GCC, all necessary steps must be taken to drive the sultanate’s economic development and protect the regional entity by avoiding war in the region at all costs.

In April 1980, Oman signed a 10-year renewable arms-for-access military agreement with the US. In return for military access and permission to expand Omani military facilities, the most important of which are on Masirah Island off the southern coast of Oman in the Indian Ocean, Washington agreed to provide, at the time, $100 million a year to Oman in various forms of security assistance. Following the 9/11 attacks, Oman quickly and publicly signed on to the US war on terrorism. The American military presence in Oman dramatically increased from a pre-9/11 level of 200 to more than 4,300 personnel in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan. Oman allowed the US to launch B-1 bomber strikes against Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. In contrast to the war in Afghanistan, Omani leaders warned Washington against invading Iraq.

The sultan’s success in bringing countries and individuals together is a testimony to his prowess as a force for balance among competing parties.

Dr. Theodore Karasik

Omani foreign policy seeks to avoid unnecessarily making enemies in the Arabian Gulf, and Muscat publicly opposed the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in March 2003 although, as it did during the 1987-88 re-flagging operation, Oman quietly provided some logistical military support. Following the US invasion of Iraq, pragmatism once again came into play in Muscat. Omani officials have withheld public criticism of the US operation at the time. Muscat realized that enhancing regional stability in this drastically altered environment requires a stable Iraq. Once that mission is accomplished, then the Americans should leave Iraq, or so the thinking was at the time.

To be sure, Sultan Qaboos’s first foray in the issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations launched another drive for regional peace. Following the signing of the Camp David Accord (September 1978) and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty (March 1979), Oman called for negotiations. Throughout the 1980s, Sultan Qaboos remained unwavering in his support for Egypt and its peace treaty with Israel. The convening of the Madrid peace conference in October 1991 and the signing of the Oslo Accord between the PLO and Israel in September 1993 provided diplomatic cover for Oman to begin exploring economic and limited political relations with Israel.

The sultan saw a much wider world for Muscat to learn from in order to grow. Omani relations with Pakistan and Africa are particularly important especially the historical legacy of Gwadar in Pakistan which today is becoming one of Oman’s most important strategic ports outside the country proper. Moreover, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 provided an opportunity for businesslike Omani-Russian relations but also the development of Oman's extensive business relations with Japan and China as not only commercially motivated, but part of a more general policy of spreading contacts with the major world powers.

Muscat’s centrality in becoming a platform for negotiations with Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen is also part of Oman’s wider capacity of being a regional negotiator. What is significant about these discussions is that they are much more public and pronounced then Oman’s previous low-key diplomatic channeling. What is important to recognize in the past 10 years is how much Oman, under Sultan Qaboos, became much more vocal in the international arena. Gone are the days of bring timid.

Overall, Qaboos was able to develop a bridging mechanism brought on by the sultan’s own experiences within what would become modern-day Oman. Oman’s centrality to regional and global politics is not often expressed loudly enough.