Oman, Culture and Diplomacy by Jones Jeremy

Author:Jones, Jeremy [Jones, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 2013-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

1970–89

By the time of the Iranian Revolution, Oman under Sultan Qaboos had already demonstrated that it was prepared to work diplomatically according to this basic understanding of its relationship with Iran. Indeed, developing a viable working relationship with Iran was clearly one of the most pressing diplomatic priorities for Sultan Qaboos, following his accession in 1970. As Olivier Da Lage points out, Sultan Qaboos was quicker than other leaders in the region to take account of ‘a decisive factor: the British withdrawal from East of Suez from December 1971’, 5 and he recognised, adds Joseph Kechichian, that ‘Iran was indeed the most powerful country in the area’ and that regional security would be dependent upon security cooperation between the regional states. 6 According to Kechichian, Qaboos saw a border agreement with Iran as a prerequisite of such cooperation. Clearly, the British withdrawal from the Gulf made the question of regional security more pressing than ever before. The pursuit of a genuine regional security arrangement at least to some degree independent of relations with non-regional powers (particularly the Soviet Union and the United States) has been a feature of Omani diplomacy throughout the Qaboos era. It is a perspective that appears to have been shaped by the particular regional circumstances in which Qaboos came to power. The relationship between Oman and Iran was based on shared strategic concerns – above all the Strait of Hormuz – and it had survived considerable political turmoil in the past. Oman had always recognised that Iran was too powerful a regional power to be excluded from regional security arrangements, and that no regional security agreement would ever be fully operative without Iranian participation. That this was fact, regardless of the passing political changes in Iran, would inform Oman’s pragmatic policy towards and relationship with its neighbour across the water.

Sultan Qaboos chose to make Iran his second foreign visit as head of state, when he attended the Persepolis Festival in October 1971. The context of this visit brought additional complications: this festival, organised by the Shah to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire, was understandably viewed with some hostility in the Arab world. Not only did this event appear to involve a renewed assertion of old Persian power in the region, suggesting a revival of old ambitions to reduce or eclipse Arab identity and culture in the Gulf, but also, in affirming the importance of a pre-Islamic heritage, the festival seemed to imply repudiation of a predominantly Muslim social and cultural identity in favour of a combination of Persian revivalism and Western modernisation on the part of the Iranian government. In spite of these apparent cultural and political obstacles, Omani diplomacy – prioritising long-term questions of regional security over shorter-term political difficulties – still seems to have placed the development of its relationship with Iran at the heart of its approach to regional relations.

In November 1971, Oman’s diplomatic engagement with Iran faced its first, and perhaps its defining, challenge. Iranian naval forces landed on

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