WI: Unified Emirates of Eastern Arabia?

Hi! I was reading about Dubai today, and I came across a little paragraph that got me interested: apparently, Qatar, Bahrain, and Dubai were already in a monetary union before the UAE was created. When the UAE was created, Qatar and Bahrain decided to remain independent, and so we have a KleinUAE, if you will.

So my WI today is, what if Bahrain and Qatar had decided to become part of the UAE? How would this affect Gulf politics?
 
Hi! I was reading about Dubai today, and I came across a little paragraph that got me interested: apparently, Qatar, Bahrain, and Dubai were already in a monetary union before the UAE was created. When the UAE was created, Qatar and Bahrain decided to remain independent, and so we have a KleinUAE, if you will.

So my WI today is, what if Bahrain and Qatar had decided to become part of the UAE? How would this affect Gulf politics?

They did'nt necessarily decide to stay independent, it was really Saudi Arabia basically putting alot of pressure on them not to be allowed to.

Anyways, if they had, well we'd have a single repressive federation instead of a repressive Federation and two sorta-kinda reform minded states.

All in all I don't think it would change things that much really.
 
Anyways, if they had, well we'd have a single repressive federation instead of a repressive Federation and two sorta-kinda reform minded states.
Im not quite sure what makes Qatar or Bahrain any better then the UAE. The only Gulf Arab country which has tried any kind of meaningful reform is Kuwait.
Bahrain would have the largest Shi'a minority of the lot.
And it is likely that the other Emirates that make up the UAE would put just as much pressure as OTL to supress the Shia population as much as possible.
 
Im not quite sure what makes Qatar or Bahrain any better then the UAE. The only Gulf Arab country which has tried any kind of meaningful reform is Kuwait.
You're forgetting Oman.

IIRC, before the Revolutions, it went something like Oman -> Bahrain -> Qatar -> Kuwait -> UAE -> Saudi Arabia, with a BIG difference between the last two and the rest. Of course, Bahrain is now near the bottom, being a Saudi puppet in all but name now.

The biggest differences would be al-Jazeera might not exist, and Bahrain's restlessness would probably be dealt like the Saudis do in al-Hasa.
 
You're forgetting Oman.

IIRC, before the Revolutions, it went something like Oman -> Bahrain -> Qatar -> Kuwait -> UAE -> Saudi Arabia, with a BIG difference between the last two and the rest. Of course, Bahrain is now near the bottom, being a Saudi puppet in all but name now.

The biggest differences would be al-Jazeera might not exist, and Bahrain's restlessness would probably be dealt like the Saudis do in al-Hasa.
You might be confusing reform and oppresive regimes. Oman has had very little political reform, and the Sultan is still an absolute monarch. However, Oman may be the worlds only example of a benevolent dictatorship.

Bahrain has a partially elected assembly, but half of that is filled with government appointed members. I think Kuwaits version is fully elected, but im not that sure.

Qatar, again, doesn't have much in the way of the kings power, but with a GDP per capita of about $80,000, the citizens of Qatar arn't dissatisfied. Poorer expatriat workers may be, but they are more concerned with feeding their families back home then revolution. This goes for most of the poor expatriats in the Gulf actually.

And of course, Saudi Arabia is Saudi Arabia. A place so bad, many of my female family members refuse to go see family there, even though its only a 1 hour drive. Plus all the other problems you find all over the Gulf. With less of the benefits too.
 
You might be confusing reform and oppresive regimes.
Mmm, seems that I am. Sultan Qaboos hasn't started reforming yet? I was under the impression that Bahrain (until recently), Qatar and Oman are de jure as bad as the UAE, but de facto they are not ruled by such, ah, repressive douchebags. How autonomous is each emirate in the UAE, anyways?
 
Mmm, seems that I am. Sultan Qaboos hasn't started reforming yet? I was under the impression that Bahrain (until recently), Qatar and Oman are de jure as bad as the UAE, but de facto they are not ruled by such, ah, repressive douchebags. How autonomous is each emirate in the UAE, anyways?
Well, the UAE isn't paticularly bad for the region. Exept i've heard that the abuses against foreign workers tend to be worse there and and Saudi Arabia. As far as I know, the Emirates have quite a bit of Autonomy, but the size of Abu Dhabi means that for all intents and purposes, it dominates the others and can influence their decisions and policies.
 
I think Kuwaits version is fully elected, but im not that sure.

Kuwait's parliament is almost all fully elected, though the 15 members of the Cabinet are'nt, of course even that does'nt mean anything since only citizens can vote and only a minority of the population actually qualify.
 
Kuwait's parliament is almost all fully elected, though the 15 members of the Cabinet are'nt, of course even that does'nt mean anything since only citizens can vote and only a minority of the population actually qualify.
Well, keep in mind that alot of the non-citizens of these countries don't really intend to stay there long. They mainly do it to earn some extra money for various purposes, not because they paticularly want to be Kuwaiti or Qatari or whatever. So I doubt alot of them would care who governs Kuwait.
 
Well, keep in mind that alot of the non-citizens of these countries don't really intend to stay there long. They mainly do it to earn some extra money for various purposes, not because they paticularly want to be Kuwaiti or Qatari or whatever. So I doubt alot of them would care who governs Kuwait.

You misunderstand, I don't mean the expats, I mean alot of the actual native population.
 
You misunderstand, I don't mean the expats, I mean alot of the actual native population.
Are you sure your not confusing Kuwaitis with other Arabs? There are alot of non-Kuwaiti Arabs who live there. Some are stateless Arabs (and thus may be natively Kuwaiti without citizenship) and others are citizens of other Arab countries. (I also think there are quite a number of people who were born in Kuwait but don't have citizenship as their parents do not have it either).
 
Are you sure your not confusing Kuwaitis with other Arabs? There are alot of non-Kuwaiti Arabs who live there. Some are stateless Arabs (and thus may be natively Kuwaiti without citizenship) and others are citizens of other Arab countries. (I also think there are quite a number of people who were born in Kuwait but don't have citizenship as their parents do not have it either).

People who born their but don't have citizenship do to it not being automatically granted, including alot of the semi-nomadic groups in the North.

It really was a stupid idea to decide that only those who were descended from the male citizens in the 1920 census would become citizens.
 
People who born their but don't have citizenship do to it not being automatically granted, including alot of the semi-nomadic groups in the North.

It really was a stupid idea to decide that only those who were descended from the male citizens in the 1920 census would become citizens.
I guess so. Here in Bahrain, its the opposite. They will give citizenship to just about any Sunni they can (though its mostly stateless Arabs they give citizenship to). Not out of the kindness of their hearts though. After all, this is the Gulf we are talking about.
 
The federation is still likely called the UAE, but will its political structure be any different from the smaller UAE of our timeline? Although, a case could be made for naming the federation Bahrain.

Also, maritime border issues with Iran could be much worse.
 
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