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The personal and the political: The UK and key Middle Eastern relationships

Dr James Strong

London School of Economics and Political Science j.strong1@lse.ac.uk

Paper prepared for ‘Britain and the World – the Personal and the Political’

University of Leeds 14-15 July 2015

Introduction

Ever the historian of nineteenth century British politics, William Hague took the

opportunity during his first major speech as foreign secretary to compare his experience of

the job to that of his predecessor Viscount Castlereagh. Whereas Castlereagh became the first

foreign secretary to travel overseas to meet a counterpart when he attended the Congress of

Vienna in 1814, Hague reported that twenty-first century foreign ministers speak to each

other all the time, “through formal notes, highly frequent personal meetings, hours a day on

the telephone to discuss and coordinate responses to crises, and quite a lot of us communicate

by text message or in the case of the Foreign Minister of Bahrain and I, follow each other

avidly on Twitter” (Hague 2010b). That Hague chose to use Bahrain as an example was no

accident. He took a close interest in the small Gulf nation throughout his time as the

Conservative Party’s top man on foreign policy, both in opposition and in office. He visited

regularly, meeting with key decision-makers and speaking at the annual Manama Dialogue

organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. That personal interest mattered.

It shaped the government’s decision-making during the Arab Spring. It helped deliver Britain

a permanent foothold in a strategically important region. And it signalled the government’s

broader commitment to its security allies and commercial partners in the region.

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This paper seeks to understand the interaction between the personal and the political

in Britain’s foreign policy towards the Middle East during the Conservative-Liberal

Democrat coalition government of 2010 to 2015. It puts forward three interpretations of the

roles key individual policymakers played, demonstrating each using an empirical case study.

The paper firstly uses David Cameron and William Hague as proxy figures for the tensions at

the heart of the government’s overall foreign policy approach, known as “liberal

conservatism” (Cameron 2006). This section assesses the two leaders’ respective

personalities, and identifies two distinct approaches Britain took to the ‘Arab Spring’, one

more ‘liberal’, the other more ‘conservative’, with Cameron and Hague respectively. While

this identification does not precisely track the influence each man had over the different

policy responses, it does make effective use of the personal as a heuristic device. The paper

secondly looks at the instrumental role individuals played in policy implementation. This

section focuses on how face-to-face meetings, Hague’s personal interest and the initiative

shown by Lt. General Sir Simon Mayall, the government’s Defence Special Advisor for the

Middle East, combined to bring about the December 2014 agreement between Britain and

Bahrain allowing the Royal Navy to open a permanent naval base at Mina Salman, near

Manama. By shifting the focus of Britain’s global security presence back ‘East of Suez’ this

step both signalled and executed a substantial re-orientation of the country’s broader

international role profile. The paper finally considers the symbolism associated with personal

relations among leaders. This section highlights how much time senior figures spent on

purely ceremonial face-to-face meetings in the pursuit of more prosaic commercial deals,

especially with the UAE and Qatar. It nevertheless notes that ceremony and substance go

together, reinforcing each other.

Over the course of these three case studies, which do of necessity overlap somewhat,

the paper also applies a note of caution. The coalition’s period in office saw several major

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developments in Britain’s foreign policy stance towards the Middle East. Britain supported

revolutionaries in Libya and the autocratic regime in Bahrain. It built good links with the

Egyptians who overthrew Hosni Mubarak, and then with those who kicked out Mohammed

Morsi and returned the country to military rule. It revitalised ossified security relationships in

the Gulf and significantly increased regional commercial activity. All of these policies

involved individuals at some stage. But all also involved responding to broader structural

pressures. It is dangerous to neglect the structural dimension when studying the role of

individuals (Dyson 2009, 18). Britain has considerable material interests in the Gulf. As then-

Middle East Minister Alistair Burt put it, “In 2011 [notably at the start of the coalition’s time

in office] we estimate that the value of British exports to the region topped £20 billion…this

is as much as we export to China and India combined; it is three times more than we export to

Russia; it is five times more than we export to Brazil” (Burt 2012). While the security threats

that concern Gulf states probably need not concern Britain directly, meanwhile, it does have

nearly two hundred thousand citizens working in the region and it is heavily dependent on

natural gas imported from Qatar (Roberts 2014, 670-672). Any British government, in other

words, would be likely to think the Gulf region significant simply for material reasons. They

would also come under social pressure to place a regional role. Britain tends to see itself, and

to be seen by other states, as something of a great power (Morris 2011, 326, McCourt 2014,

168), and great power status means great power expectations, including some sort of role in

promoting international order beyond your immediate surroundings. In the past Britain has

played the role of regional protector for Gulf states, and many would like it to resume that

responsibility (Kelly and Stansfield 2013, 1219, Roberts 2014, 667), especially as the US

‘pivots’ to Asia. Indeed, David Cameron himself framed Britain’s closer engagement in the

Gulf under his premiership as “our own pivoting” (Cameron 2014, 23). To understand the

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significance of the personal drivers shaping Britain’s Middle East policy during this period,

then, we must also be constantly aware of the power of the political.

Personality as a heuristic

Long before taking office, David Cameron and William Hague set out the set of

beliefs to guide their approach to foreign policy in government. Early in his time as

Conservative Party leader, Cameron used a speech to the British-American project to declare

“I am a liberal conservative, not a neo-conservative” (Cameron 2006). He argued, in essence,

that Tony Blair and George W Bush had had the right objective when they argued for the

global application of democracy, but the wrong means when they tried to spread Western

values by force. A Conservative government would do things differently, standing up for

what it believed to be right but acting cautiously and proportionately. Cameron essentially

built on Blair, while adding a post-Iraq dose of humility (Beech and Oliver 2014, 105,

Gilmore 2014, 541). To some extent the inclusion of a liberal dimension in a traditionally

conservative framework marked a greater break between Cameron and Major or Thatcher

than between Cameron and Blair (Beech 2011, 348, Gilmore 2015). Cameron himself has

been personally associated with this shift, with the introduction of liberalism playing a similar

role in foreign policy to his environmental and social positions in domestic policy (Beech and

Oliver 2014, 103). The ‘conservatism’ part of the doctrine was supposed to be about showing

the “modesty” long sought by critics of Blair’s approach (Barder 2001, 371), and indeed

about reclaiming the “pragmatism” and “isolationism” that characterised much of Britain’s

engagement not just with the Middle East, but with the world, in the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries (Hadfield-Amkhan 2010, 6, Oppermann 2012, 6). As Daddow put it, “for

‘conservative’ in ‘liberal conservative’ read ‘realist’” (Daddow 2013, 116).

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When we look at Britain’s response to the Arab Spring, however, the framework

apparently established by the doctrine of liberal conservatism begins to break down. This is

why the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee called the Arab Spring “both the

greatest challenge and the greatest opportunity to date for this Government’s foreign policy”

(Foreign Affairs Committee 2012). It is true that “Cameron has been much more cautious

than Blair in setting down conditions for violations of the Westphalian notion of state

sovereignty that might lead to a form of moral crusade that mired Britain and the United

States in Iraq” (Daddow and Schnapper 2013, 333). It is also true, however, that Cameron

proved just as ready as Blair to ignore his own conditions when the opportunity arose for

military intervention in the Middle East. The Coalition’s entire national security doctrine

assumed Cameron would not repeat Tony Blair’s liberal interventions (Vickers 2011, 212,

Clarke 2012, 7-8, Gannon 2014, 219). Despite this, and apparently more for ethical than

material reasons (Honeyman 2012, 131), the prime minister ordered military intervention in

Libya and tried to order it in Syria before parliament vetoed his proposal. In practice the

‘liberal conservatives’ proved unexpectedly active in terms of military interventions

(Honeyman 2012, 133-134). This might reflect the fact that both liberalism and conservatism

point towards international activism, just in different ways (Reifler, Scotto and Clarke 2011,

263, Bevir, Daddow and Hall 2013, 167-168). It also, however, points towards an

inconsistency between the key individuals leading the coalition, and especially to an apparent

split between the approaches favoured by Cameron and Hague. For while Cameron organised

intervention in Libya and failed to get parliamentary approval for action in Syria, Hague

explicitly acknowledged the likely trade-off between values and self-interest involved in

dealing with the wider Middle East (Ralph 2014, 18). Most observers agreed that “the

impetus to get involved – to ‘do something’ in the face of Qadhafi’s escalating brutality –

came from Downing Street directly” (Clarke 2012, 8). Cameron appeared as “the most

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hawkish person in the room” in contemporary accounts, pushing back hard against contrary

military and legal advice (Byman 2013, 305). Hague, by contrast, kept faith with the

monarchical Sunni regime in Bahrain as it drew on Saudi support to put down protests from

amongst the country’s majority Shia community (Leech and Gaskarth 2015, 142). There

appeared to be a split, in other words, between the ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ dimensions of

liberal conservatism. By looking at Cameron and Hague’s personalities, we can begin to

suggest how this split came about.

Most foreign policy analyses using leaders’ personal characteristics to explain

decision-making begin with work done by Margaret Hermann. Hermann posited that key

individuals’ “beliefs, motives, decision style, and interpersonal style” fundamentally shape

foreign policy, though she acknowledged that they matter more when leaders show a greater

interest in foreign affairs, and less when they have greater training and experience in the field

(Hermann 1980, 8, 13). Hermann essentially built upon Alexander George’s cognitive theory

of “operational codes”, though she paid somewhat greater attention to the instrumental than

to the philosophical side of George’s framework (George 1969). She noted that many foreign

policy decisions do not directly involve senior policymakers, meaning that the personal

characteristics of lower-level officials matter too (Hermann, Hermann and Hagan 1987, 311).

She also pointed out that personal characteristics do not just shape the kinds of decisions

leaders make, they shape the kinds of issues they identify as requiring a decision in the first

place (Hermann 2001, 53). Stephen Dyson has made good use of Hermann’s “leadership trait

analysis” framework in his analysis of the personal role played by Tony Blair in British

foreign policymaking. While there is insufficient space in this section to conduct a full

analysis of where Cameron and Hague fall on Hermann’s framework, a comparison to

Dyson’s work on Blair does help us identify differences between the two which in turn help

explain Britain’s somewhat inconsistent overall approach to the Arab Spring. Dyson found

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Blair possessed “a high belief in his ability to control events, a low conceptual complexity,

and a high need for power”. Based on these characteristics, Dyson predicted Blair would

prefer pro-active policies, simplistic definitions of situations, quick answers based on rapid

information searches, and an informal and personalised decision-making structure (Dyson

2006, 289, 295-296). Anyone who has studied Blair’s foreign policy, especially in the Middle

East, for any length of time will recognise these characteristics at work. Oliver Daddow, for

example concluded in line with Dyson that Blair’s pro-activity distinguished him from his

predecessors and played a significant part in affecting his overall foreign policy approach

(Daddow 2013, 113).

The mere fact we need to study Hague alongside Cameron suggests the latter showed

a far lower ‘need for power’ than Blair. Blair centralised foreign policy decision-making in

Downing Street, cutting out the Foreign Office (Bevir, Daddow and Hall 2013, 163) which,

for example, had no Minister for the Middle East between May 2001 and June 2003, a fairly

important time period for Britain’s relations with the region (Hollis 2010, 61). Cameron

agreed with the substance of much of Blair’s Middle Eastern policy, but he rejected his

centralisation and personalisation of decision-making (Honeyman 2009, 174). He and Hague

had a far more equal relationship than Blair had with any of his foreign secretaries (Dodds

and Elden 2008, 348, Daddow 2013, 115). Lord Butler noted how the Cabinet Committee on

Defence and Overseas Policy “did not meet” during the year leading up to the Iraq War,

while “over the period from April 2002 to the start of military action, some 25 [informal]

meetings attended by the small number of key Ministers, officials and military officers most

closely involved provided the framework of discussion and decision-making within

Government” (Butler 2004, 174). Cameron, by contrast, established a formal National

Security Council as a committee of Cabinet shortly after taking office. He later told service

personnel returning from action over Libya that the Council met 68 times during the course

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of the campaign (Cameron 2011b). This was not just a response to the greater need for cross-

governmental consultation during a period of coalition. The NSC fulfilled a Conservative

manifesto promise (Conservative Party 2010, 105). Hague meanwhile spoke up regularly for

the importance of the Foreign Office and its secretary of state as the central drivers of British

foreign policy. This suggests a higher need for power on his part, though this observation

must be qualified by the fact Hague had previously held the leadership of the Conservative

Party and made clear he did not want to do so again. He was able, therefore, to assert his own

right to set much of the agenda for Britain’s response to the Arab Spring without appearing to

threaten the prime minister, and the prime minister was happy to let him do so, while

reserving matters involving the potential use of force to himself. This partnership opened the

way for apparent variations in terms of Britain’s overall response to the wave of unrest that

swept the Middle East from early 2011 onwards.

The activism Cameron showed in those areas he did take charge of suggests a similar

level of belief in his own ability to control events to Blair’s. In some ways Cameron’s

personality is difficult to pin down. He has, across various policy areas, shown signs of being

both a reserved pragmatist and an ideological crusader (Hayton 2014, 6). One the one hand,

Cameron told interviewers before coming to office that he admired Palmerston, a great

historical proponent of British overseas activism and gunboat diplomacy (Dodds and Elden

2008, 350). On the other, contemporary observers remarked how in his early days in

Downing Street he showed little interest in international affairs beyond efforts to boost

prosperity through trade (Stephens 2011a). Dyson labelled Blair “the ‘waringest’ prime

minister in British history” (Dyson 2009, 3). But Cameron proved almost as willing to use

force overseas, and did so earlier in his first term, authorising a major military campaign in

Libya just ten months after entering Downing Street. His spectacular parliamentary defeat

over the question of intervention in Syria is difficult to square with his wider reputation for

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“innate caution and usually sound political instincts” (Matthijs 2013, 10). Again a

comparison to Blair might be instructive. Blair showed limited interest and an instinctive

caution in foreign affairs during his early time in office. It was only after Kosovo, and the

experience of apparently being proven right against the advice of those around him and in the

face of considerable international pressure, that he adopted a more activist stance (Daddow

2009, 548). We might treat Libya as Cameron’s Kosovo. Certainly he seems to have under-

estimated the difficulty of winning parliamentary support for action in Syria in part because

he found it easy for action in Libya. Similarly we might treat Syria as another key shift, with

Cameron becoming more cautious again thereafter, for example by holding off on action

against ISIS during the early stages of the US campaign (Strong 2015). Contemporary

observers, in clear contrast to both Blair and Cameron, saw Hague as “pragmatism

incarnate”, as more a manager of events than a shaper of them (Bagehot 2010). Just as the

fact Cameron allowed Hague more space to run foreign policy than Blair, for example,

allowed his foreign secretaries established space for distinct interpretations of liberal

conservatism to affect different parts of Britain’s response to the Arab Spring overall, so too

Cameron’s apparently greater belief in his own ability to influence events perhaps explains

the more activist ‘liberal’ approach he took with regard to Libya and Syria compared to

Hague’s more cautious ‘conservative’ stance with regard to Bahrain.

Both Cameron and Hague displayed a greater level of conceptual complexity in terms

of their approach to foreign policy in the Middle East than Blair. Blair maintained that “doing

nothing is not an option” with regard to Iraq’s alleged development of Weapons of Mass

Destruction (Hansard 2002, Col. 23). Cameron, by contrast, acknowledged that “doing

nothing is a choice” in the face of Syria’s alleged use of Weapons of Mass Destruction on

civilians, though he insisted “it is a choice with consequences” (Hansard 2013, Col. 1434).

This was a far more nuanced argument, albeit also a less successful one. As Cameron pushed

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for a limited intervention in Libya to protect civilians and uphold UN Security Council

Resolutions, Hague argued it would be “the height of folly” to burn otherwise well-

functioning historical relationships in the Gulf in response to a comparatively low level of

repression (Hansard 2011, Col. 1139). Both men tried to strike a balance in dealing with

Bahrain in particular, publicly calling for reforms and restraint on the one hand, and praising

the regime’s efforts to lead the process on the other. Hague spoke directly to the Bahraini

foreign minister early in the unrest, urging him to minimise the use of force against protestors

(Hansard 2011, Col. 1135). Cameron spoke directly to the King of Bahrain on 20 February,

offering support for his efforts to promote a “national dialogue” (HM Government 2011a).

He followed this up on 16 March when he “personally called on the King of Bahrain to end

the violent suppression of street protests” (HM Government 2011b). By December 2011

Cameron felt confident enough to combine his calls for reform with efforts to “boost trade

co-operation between the two countries and the opportunities for British business to invest in

Bahrain, particularly in the infrastructure sector” (HM Government 2011e). Critics called

Britain’s willingness to tolerate Bahraini efforts to resolve protests while criticizing other

states “hypocrisy for the history books” (Amirahmadi and Afrasiabi 2011). Hague and

Cameron appear to have viewed it more as a matter of pragmatism.

We can, then, interpret Britain’s somewhat varied response to the Arab Spring using

three individual-level factors. First, the fact the government apparently adopted a different

balance between the ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ dimensions of liberal conservatism reflects

the scope for difference established by Cameron’s more collegiate approach to foreign policy

and Hague’s greater freedom to assert himself compared to the position during the

premiership of Tony Blair. Second, we can then understand the apparent split between the

government’s military activism in Libya and (though ultimately thwarted by MPs) in Syria,

and relative passivity elsewhere, as a product of the contrast between Cameron’s belief in his

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own ability to control events and Hague’s scepticism. Finally, we can interpret the levels of

nuance shown across the board as a consequence of both Cameron and Hague’s higher

conceptual complexity compared to Blair. These observations do advance our understanding

of how Britain responded to the Arab Spring, and demonstrate the heuristic utility of

interpretations based on individual personalities for studying foreign policy. This is especially

important given the difficulties associated with understanding Britain’s approach from a more

structural perspective. Leech and Gaskarth looked at security, economic and societal ties

between Britain and the states affected by Arab Spring protests. Only the security dimension

offered a consistent account, and even that depended on distinguishing between younger and

older security links (Leech and Gaskarth 2015, 142). The personal dimension thus appears to

add something useful to our understanding overall.

Personality as a tool for policy implementation

An appreciation of policymakers’ personalities can aid our understanding of foreign

policy decision-making. But foreign policy is about more than just decisions. A proper

account of Britain’s policy stance towards the Middle East during the coalition government

should also consider policy outputs and outcomes (Clarke and Smith 1989, 172), and the role

individuals play in linking them together. Individuals may have limited scope at the decision

stage, but they can potentially exert a greater influence over how decisions are implemented

(McCourt 2014, 176). The inconsistency apparent in Britain’s response to the Arab Spring

underlines this point (Gaskarth 2014, 559). Dyson argued that individuals matter because

“first, individuals set the goals and objectives for the state…Second, individuals can choose

the means by which these goals are to be pursued. Third, individuals can shape the process of

decision-making” (Dyson 2009, 14). Adding their role in implementation means taking a

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logical next step. The remainder of this paper uses the distinction between “instrumental” and

“expressive” policy activities (Baldwin 1985, 16), with this section highlighting the former

and the final section the latter. An instrumental approach treats personal links among

policymakers as potential tools for policy implementation, while an expressive approach

treats such links as more symbolic than substantive, though no less important for it.

Both Cameron and Hague commented before coming to office on the Labour

government’s apparent neglect of the Gulf region, and promised to reverse it in office

(Cameron 2010, Hague 2010a). The government as a whole saw direct face-to-face meetings

between senior policymakers as a critical tool for reversing this apparent neglect (HM

Government 2014a). Between 2011 and 2013 the FCO successfully established ‘strategic

partnerships’ with five of the six key Gulf states identified by its 2011 business plan, with

Saudi Arabia the lone holdout (Foreign Affairs Committee 2013, 20). By the time Alistair

Burt stepped down as Middle East Minister, he was able to report that “Ministers and others

have made 260 individual visits to the region since 2010, including some extremely high-

level visits” (Hansard 2014, Col. 318WH). This volume of traffic was, to Burt, both a cause

and an indication of the government’s success in the region. Its most stark consequence

arrived in December 2014, when Philip Hammond, Hague’s successor as foreign secretary,

signed a formal agreement with the Bahraini government establishing a permanent Royal

Navy base at Mina Salman in Manama. This brought Britain back ‘East of Suez’ for the first

time since 1971. It was an important step. The original withdrawal was both a “massive

policy failure” and an “impetus for profound policy change” (Hood 2008, 184). It reflected in

part, as McCourt put it, a “realisation that Britain’s desire to play a meaningful world role no

longer required, nor could include, the construction of the specific role ‘East of Suez’”

(McCourt 2009, 454). If the ‘East of Suez’ role is now being reconstituted, that suggests a

further overhaul of what it means for Britain to act as a great power internationally. General

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Sir David Richards, Chief of the Defence Staff, gave an early indication that the government

and the military were planning to rebalance Britain’s defence commitments ‘East of Suez’ in

his 2012 RUSI lecture (Richards 2012). Both contemporary observers (Norton-Taylor 2012)

and later scholarly accounts (Kelly and Stansfield 2013, 1215) thought Richards’ speech

particularly significant. Indeed, one called it “the visible tip of an iceberg of wider

discussions and planning involving the Ministry of Defence, Downing Street and the Foreign

and Commonwealth Office” (Roberts 2014, 663). Press coverage of the December 2014

announcement noted “military chiefs are understood to have been working towards the move

for around two years” (Press Association 2014), presumably a reference to Richards’ speech.

A personal element is visible in this development, as it presumably built upon “a UK-Bahrain

Defence Cooperation Accord (DCA), which was signed in London during the visit of

Bahraini Foreign Minister HE Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa” (Foreign Affairs

Committee 2013, 86).

Some coverage of the new base’s announcement focused on its positive strategic

dimensions, highlighting for example the pressure from Gulf states’ expectations (Spencer

2014, Coughlin 2014) and the need to compensate for the US pivot to Asia as key driving

forces (Dickinson 2014). These are both notably structural rather than agent-driven

explanations for the British decision. Some coverage proved more critical. The Independent’s

front page news story highlighted suggestions from Bahraini activists that “this base is a

reward to the British government for the silence they provided on human rights abuses in

Bahrain, and for their continued support of this tyrannical and corrupt regime” (Merrill

2014). A follow-up piece by Patrick Cockburn in the Independent on Sunday complained that

“The agreement will identify Britain as an old colonial power strongly supporting the Sunni

monarchy in Bahrain that mercilessly crushed demands for democracy and civil rights from

the island's Shia majority during the Arab Spring in 2011” (Cockburn 2014). Seumas Milne

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in the Guardian, meanwhile, concluded that “we can have no doubt where the British

government stands: behind autocracy and ‘enduring interests’” (Milne 2014). These

criticisms may well have had some merit. There is evidence that the Bahraini government

threatened to withdraw military co-operation in response to Britain’s perceived criticism

during the unrest of early 2011, and the British ambassador was replaced, apparently because

he lost the trust of the regime by talking to opposition leaders (Foreign Affairs Committee

2013, 86, 75-76).

Both scholarly and press reports agree that the government’s Special Advisor for the

Middle East, Lt. General Simon Mayall, played a leading role in pushing for the shift back

‘East of Suez’ and in negotiating the agreement that saw the Mina Salman base established

(Kelly and Stansfield 2013, 1209, D. Blair 2014, Coughlin 2014). Defence Secretary Michael

Fallon later confirmed in the House of Commons that Mayall “was responsible for

negotiating this agreement” (Hansard 2015, Col. 592). Mayall had wide and regular access to

officials in both the UK and the region. UK court circulars regularly reported his meetings

with senior members of the royal family, while the local press (especially in the Gulf) noted

his sessions with senior ministers and military officials. We can infer that Mayall had David

Cameron’s personal approval from his later appointment as “direct representative of the

prime minister in Kurdistan” (Wintour 2014), “authorized…to hold talks with Kurdish

leaders over what support they need, as well as providing military advice” (N. Morris 2014).

In early 2014 Mayall accompanied then-Defence Secretary Hammond to the Bahrain air

show and to a meeting with the Bahrain Defence Forces Commander-in-Chief (who Mayall

regularly met on his own). At the latter meeting Field Marshall Sheikh Khalifa bin Ahmed al-

Khalifa “highlighted the importance of such meetings in consolidating the existing

distinguished bilateral ties” (Bahrain News Agency 2014a). Mayall also led a senior security

delegation who were “the first Western visitors received by Egypt's newly sworn-in president

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Abdel Fatah El Sisi” (Intellinews 2014). In November 2014 Mayall made a visit to Bahrain

that appears to have cemented the details for the accord signed at the Manama Dialogue the

following month. On this trip, and unusually for him, he met the King as well as the Minister

for Defence, the Commander-in-Chief, the Commander of the Royal Guard and the Interior

Minister (Bahrain News Agency 2014b).

Hague’s good personal relations with Manama seem also to have helped smooth the

process towards the December 2014 accord. His refusal to meet with opposition figures

during the Bahraini protests appears to have endeared him to the regime somewhat

(Economist.com 2012). But he had shown an interest in the region and dedicated time to

meeting key Bahraini figures much earlier. He was an established participant in IISS’s

Manama Dialogues, first appearing in the printed report of the second Dialogue in 2006,

taking part in a televised debate on Al-Arabiya in 2008, participating in a panel discussion in

2012 (the first dialogue after the 2011 crackdown) and giving the keynote address in 2013.

Apparently as a result of Hague’s personal involvement, British participation in the

Dialogues underwent a significant step-change after 2010. Hague himself spoke in 2012 and

2013, and both Hammond and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon spoke in 2014. Hammond

signed the formal agreement creating the Mina Salman base in the fringes of the 2014

Dialogue (International Institute for Strategic Studies 2014, 6). In his 2013 keynote, Hague

told his hosts “We will be a staunch friend to you, supporting the sustained comprehensive

reform you’re seeking and calling on all sides to play a constructive role in political

dialogue”. He also noted “One of our first decisions as a government, a new government in

Britain in May 2010 was to reinvigorate British diplomacy in the Gulf and to reverse what we

saw as the neglect by previous ministers of crucial relationships” (Hague 2013). Philip

Hammond echoed these sentiments precisely in his own speech the following year, while also

announcing “I was delighted last night to sign a memorandum of understanding with His

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Excellency Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, in the presence of His Royal Highness the

Crown Prince. That arrangement will put the long-standing presence of the Royal Navy in

Bahrain on a permanent footing” (Hammond 2014). It is unclear whether this agreement

shows that Hague and Hammond approached Bahrain from a similar perspective, whether

Hague had successfully established a policy focus on Bahrain that Hammond simply adopted,

or whether both individuals were responding more to structural factors. There is however

evidence to suggest that Britain need not have chosen Bahrain as a site for its renewed

presence in the Gulf region (Foreign Affairs Committee 2013, 86).

We can also see signs of personal links being used in an instrumental fashion in

Britain’s wider commercial engagement with the Gulf. One of David Cameron’s first

overseas trips as prime minister took him to the UAE for a defence conference in June 2011.

He received Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan the following month in

London, and the two established a joint UK-UAE Taskforce oriented towards promoting

commercial links which continued to meet regularly throughout the coalition’s time in office

(Hague 2010b). By March 2012 Alistair Burt was reporting “commercial initiatives,

development cooperation, consular coordination, energy collaboration and increased transport

links” emerging from the UAE taskforce (Burt 2012). He would later recommend that his

successor, Tobias Ellwood, pursue a solid personal relationship with UAE foreign minister

Dr Gargash as a route to further mutual commercial benefit (Hansard 2014, Col. 320WH).

Bilateral trade between the UK and the Gulf did increase markedly under the coalition. The

Foreign Affairs Committee, for example, reported that “the FCO told us that the UK's

bilateral trade with the Gulf had increased by 39% over the last two years, from £21.5 billion

to £29.8 billion” (Foreign Affairs Committee 2013, 21). One area that did not really succeed,

somewhat ironically, was defence sales. A government statement on Cameron’s visit to the

region in November 2012 reported that he was pursuing deals “worth £5.4 billion in annual

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exports and sustaining 54,000 jobs - and the Prime Minister will use to the trip to specifically

promote the Typhoon fast jet to Gulf leaders” (HM Government 2012c). Cameron invested

considerable personal time and effort in trying to sell the Typhoon to UAE leaders (Robinson

and Smith 2013). He failed, managing to secure only a ‘dialogue of values’ that presumably

did not have £5.4 billion or 54,000 jobs attached (HM Government 2013). Cameron

nevertheless did not give up, though his specific discussions on defence shifted after 2014 to

focus more on the regional threat posed by ISIS (HM Government 2014c). In June 2014, for

example, Downing Street reported:

“The Prime Minister called the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayad Al Nahyan to welcome today’s Emirati investment into housing in Manchester. The PM said that he hoped that the UAE would make more substantial investments in Britain in the near future, given all the opportunities on offer. Both leaders agreed that their respective Ministers should take this work forward” (HM Government 2014b).

At a face-to-face meeting in London during October of the same year, furthermore, Cameron

“welcomed recent Qatari investment of over £20 billion in Britain and encouraged the Emir

to consider more opportunities across the country” (HM Government 2014d). He was still

bringing in money, even if he wasn’t exporting fighter jets.

Personal contact mattered in instrumental terms for Britain’s relations with the Middle

East under the coalition. It drove, shaped and ultimately secured closer security co-operation

with Bahrain, delivering a significant strategic shift in the process as British forces returned

‘East of Suez’ for the first time since 1971. Personal contact also delivered some commercial

benefits, especially in terms of trade and investment partnerships with the UAE and Qatar.

Thanks in part to Hague’s established relations with the Bahraini government, and in part to

the fact Britain did not go as far as the US in criticising the regime over its handling of

protests (Byman 2013, 291), Britain weathered a potentially awkward storm in 2011 without

either giving up too much credibility or forsaking productive personal ties (though it did lose

18

an ambassador). Cameron’s efforts to sell Typhoons to the UAE proved less effective, though

the work of the UK-UAE taskforce did help boost bilateral trade overall.

Personal relations as symbols

One of the main ways the coalition government signalled its renewed focus on the

Gulf was quite simply by going there, frequently. In the four years from May 2010 to June

2014, David Cameron undertook one hundred and twenty-one overseas visits, and William

Hague one hundred and eighty-five. Both visited the Middle East (including Afghanistan)

more frequently than any other region other than Europe. Hague, for example, visited roughly

once every two months, making twenty-nine trips in total, which was the same number of

visits he made to North America and Asia combined. In total 15.7% of Hague’s overseas trips

and 19% of Cameron’s were to the broader Middle East. Indeed, former Middle East Minister

Alistair Burt proudly told a Westminster Hall debate in early 2014 that “Ministers and others

have made 260 individual visits to the region since 2010, including some extremely high-

level visits” (Hansard 2014, Col. 318WH). Table 1 shows the total number of trips each

individual made, and the relative balance between world regions.

Table 1: Overseas ministerial visits, May 2010-June 2014 (HM Government 2015).

Cameron Hague

Region Trips % Trips % Europe 65 53.7% 112 60.5% MENA 23 19.0% 29 15.7%

Asia 18 14.9% 13 7.0% North America 9 7.4% 16 8.6%

Africa 4 3.3% 9 4.9% Australasia 1 0.8% 4 2.2%

South America 1 0.8% 2 1.1% Total 121

185

19

Table 2 meanwhile shows the balance between different sub-regions within the Middle East.

Here what stands out is the importance of the Gulf specifically. Hague visited Gulf states

more frequently than any other part of the region, while Cameron visited both the Gulf and

Afghanistan eight times over the course of the four years, with the two representing just

under 70% of all of his travel to the wider region.

Table 2: Overseas ministerial visits, May 2010-June 2014, MENA region only (HM Government 2015).

Cameron Hague

Sub-region Trips % Trips % Gulf 8 34.8% 12 35.3%

North Africa 4 17.4% 10 29.4% Levant 3 13.0% 6 17.6%

Afghanistan 8 34.8% 4 11.8% Iraq 0 0.0% 2 5.9% Total 23

34

Hague described all this activity as symbolic of “a serious elevation of relationships”

between the UK and the Gulf. He also made clear it was entirely deliberate (Hansard 2010,

Col. 797). Following on from their establishment of the UK-UAE Taskforce in June 2010,

Cameron again hosted Sheikh Mohamed in October (HM Government 2010), while in

November the Queen paid a state visit to the Gulf (Kelly and Stansfield 2013, 1209).

Journalists covering the royal tour reported that “business are hoping that trade will receive a

significant boost” (Kerr and Drummond 2010). Given the Queen has a purely ceremonial

role, it is difficult to frame this tour as anything other than a symbolic act, albeit one of

particular significance given the fact the Gulf states are monarchies, too. Indeed, the

(abortive) bilateral forum established between the UK and Saudi Arabia was named the ‘Two

Kingdoms Dialogue’. During a visit to Abu Dhabi in November 2010, for example, Hague

signed “a Declaration reaffirming the 1971 Treaty of Friendship between the United

Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates…to recommit ourselves to the relationship between

our two countries” (Hague 2010c). The declaration meant nothing substantive, but it sent a

20

valuable signal. A joint statement on the first year of the UK/UAE taskforce explicitly

highlighted the symbolic value of personal visits: “the year has been marked by numerous

high level visits between the two countries, symbolising the closeness and importance of the

partnership” (HM Government 2011c). In November 2011, Cameron hosted the Qatari PM

for lunch in his constituency, another symbolic gesture (HM Government 2011d). In 2012 the

government explicitly acknowledged the symbolic role personal visits played in Britain’s

Gulf relations, noting that Cameron’s decision to visit both the UAE and Saudi Arabia for a

second time in his second year in office “signals the his commitment to cementing long term

partnerships with two of Britain’s most important strategic allies in the Gulf” (HM

Government 2012c). This activity continued throughout the coalition’s time in office.

Cameron signed the ‘sharaka’ bilateral agreement with Qatar when the Emir visited Downing

Street in October 2014 (HM Government 2014d). Tobias Ellwood co-chaired the first

meeting of the ‘sharaka’ dialogue in Doha in February 2015 (HM Government 2015).

Personal contacts also played a significant symbolic role in Britain’s response to the

Arab Spring. Cameron held an early meeting with Prime Minister Abdurrahim al-Keib of

Libya not long after the latter came to office (HM Government 2012a). Having built up

connections with the governing transitional council in Tripoli, the British government told

MPs that it would “continue to leverage its political influence to make the most of the very

warm disposition shown by so many Libyans towards Britain. We will achieve this through

Ministerial and high level visits and a CEO forum of senior British business people” (HM

Government 2012b, 23). On a visit to Kuwait he took part in “Kuwait’s first ever prime

ministerial press conference” (Bagehot 2011b). Thanks to what Bagehot called “a happy

accident of diary planning Mr Cameron became the first big country leader to arrive in Egypt

after the fall of its former president, Hosni Mubarak” (Bagehot 2011a). On this visit he “met

Field Marshal Tantawi, Prime Minister Shafiq and Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit, as well as

21

democratic activists who had taken part in the revolution, and visited Tahrir Square” (Foreign

Affairs Committee 2012, 59-60). His meetings with key military officials and figures in the

transitional government helped confer international legitimacy on the revolution. It was

significant, however, that Cameron deliberately did not meet with members of the Muslim

Brotherhood on this visit. As the Foreign Affairs Committee later noted, “the Muslim

Brotherhood’s English language website referred to the ‘snub’, and stated that it believed that

the UK was ‘mirroring US suspicions because the Brotherhood seeks a democracy based on

Islamic principles’” (Foreign Affairs Committee 2012, 61). The government maintained “It

would have been inappropriate to meet the Muslim Brotherhood at such an early and delicate

stage in Egypt’s transition, a matter of days after the revolution. We could have been open to

accusations of taking sides or attempting to influence the course of the political transition”

(HM Government 2012b, 18-19). Nevertheless the fact the Muslim Brotherhood candidate

eventually became President of Egypt suggested the limits of the government’s concern with

symbolism.

Security imagery and ideas run through Britain’s symbolic prosperity agenda in the

Gulf. Kelly and Stansfield, for example, noted the way policymakers appeared to use defence

ties as a wedge to open up broader trade and investment relations, especially with the UAE

(Kelly and Stansfield 2013, 1205). Simon Mayall himself framed the logic of the UK’s

overall approach to the Gulf in exactly these terms, suggesting that defence co-operation

would lead to defence sales, defence sales to broader economic relations, and broader

economic relations to improvements in human rights (Mayall 2013, 9). Gilmore called this

argument “disingenuous”, noting that the sales go ahead whether the human rights situation

improves or not (Gilmore 2014, 555). But it does seem to explain in some part the way senior

British officials view their task in the Gulf, and it is clear that defence and security do form a

sort of backbone along which bilateral relations are built up. When Cameron visited Kuwait

22

in February 2011 (the trip he re-purposed to include a stop in Egypt) he travelled with at least

seven representatives of major defence contractors (Leech and Gaskarth 2015, 151). The

Foreign Affairs Committee called this a “misjudgement”. “It was a mistake”, the MPs

concluded, “for the Prime Minister to be seen to be promoting the UK’s arms trade on a visit

to a region undergoing uprisings in which some authoritarian regimes had used force against

their own people” (Foreign Affairs Committee 2012, 41-42). Generally speaking Cameron

worked hard to signal a middle-of-the-road position. Giving a speech in Kuwait on the same

trip, he insisted “is not for me, or for governments outside the region, to pontificate about

how each country meets the aspirations of its people” (Cameron 2011a). Bagehot described

this section as being “as weasel-like as anything penned by the most shimmeringly-smooth

Foreign Office realist” (Bagehot 2011b).

The symbolic dimension of personal contacts cut two ways. They signal positive

engagement on Britain’s part, but they can also have more negative implications. This was

especially the case with regard to unrest in states with which coalition ministers had already

developed strong personal ties. As one commentator put it, “Cameron has deflected some

fallout on Libya because it was Tony Blair who sealed the deal in the desert. Oman, on the

other hand, is a coalition priority. William Hague has visited (twice I think). The Queen spent

three days in Muscat celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Qaboos reign. Cameron was

dining in the sultan’s palace only last week” (Barker 2011). In Bahrain, similarly, “the

Foreign Secretary had visited Bahrain and held talks with the King just days before the

protests began in February 2011” (Foreign Affairs Committee 2013, 74). Personal meetings

send signals. They imply a degree of friendship between governments. The coalition used this

symbolism to bolster friendly (or potentially friendly) leaders during the course of the Arab

Spring. But it also found itself implicated in the domestic repression visible in some states

thanks to its existing personal ties. This is one reason why symbolic meetings feed back into

23

substantive policymaking. Leaders know they will be held accountable if policies turn out

badly, even if their own personal involvement does not extend beyond the symbolic. For that

reason, they tend to pay more attention to the substance of policies when they are expected to

be involved in the ceremonies attached to them (Hermann 2001, 59).

One particularly interesting titbit that comes out of coverage of Simon Mayall’s

activities in the Gulf press is the fact that construction work actually began on the UK’s new

naval base eight months before the formal signing of the treaty. Mayall was present at a

ground-breaking ceremony alongside British Ambassador Lindsay in April 2014 (see Figure

1).

Figure 1: Ground-breaking ceremony for UK naval base at Mina Salman, April 2014 (Gulf Daily News 2014a).

The major announcement staged at Manama in December, then, was purely ceremonial.

Observing Cameron in Kuwait in February 2011, Bagehot reflected on “the oddities of

diplomatic ceremony”. Formal greetings, photo opportunities, troop reviews and the like

played a meaningful if symbolic role, Bagehot thought. They provided imagery to reinforce

the rhetoric of friendship and engagement (Bagehot 2011c). That was clearly the purpose of

24

the Manama Dialogue occasion. That did not make it unimportant. But it was a symbolic and

not an instrumental occasion.

Senior policymakers do get real business done when they meet in person, at least on

some occasions. But their meetings are always symbolic. That does not make them

unimportant. Busy leaders do not travel half way around the world for no good reason. They

do it to show they value good relations with certain states. The proportion of Cameron and

Hague’s respective overseas travel devoted to the wider Middle East underscores their

rhetorical claims to be prioritising the region. It also highlights how far they moved beyond

structural imperatives. No British leader could afford to ignore the Gulf. But they need not

have prioritised it so substantially. That they did so sent a quite deliberate signal. Britain was

pivoting towards the Gulf. It was looking to develop security relationships in Bahrain and

build up trade and investment links with the UAE and Qatar.

Conclusion

A complete understanding of Britain’s relations with the Middle East during the

coalition era requires an appreciation of the personal alongside the political. This paper has

set out three interpretations, each with a different view of the personal at its heart. The first

interpretation used policymakers’ personalities as heuristics to explain the apparent divide

between the ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ halves of the Conservative Party’s ‘liberal

conservatism’ in terms of its response to the Arab Spring. It found the differences in style

between Cameron and Hague, combined with Cameron’s willingness to share power in the

foreign policy field, useful guides to the different approaches taken with regard to Libya and

Bahrain. The second interpretation looked at the instrumental role personal relations play in

foreign policy implementation. It found a mixed picture, with Hague’s efforts to build links to

25

Bahrain and the lower-level work of Simon Mayall helping to deliver a major security

partnership and to execute a shift in Britain’s global strategic outlook back ‘East of Suez’. At

the same time it found some commercial benefits accruing from both Cameron and Hague’s

efforts to promote ties with the UAE and Qatar, including through the work of more junior

figures through the UK-UAE taskforce and the more recent ‘sharaka’ dialogue. But Cameron

failed to land a contract for the UAE to purchase the Typhoon jet despite lobbying hard in

person. The third interpretation treated personal contacts as symbolic devices, designed to

signal close relations among states without necessarily achieving much of substance. It found

plenty of evidence of symbolic interactions occurring, not least in the amount of time both

Cameron and Hague devoted to travelling to the wider Middle East region. It also noted signs

that regional states took such signals seriously, and that both sides regarded them as both

facilitators of and advertisements for the more prosaic business of inter-state co-operation.

A focus on the personal alongside the political thus adds a great deal to our

understanding of Britain’s relations with the Middle East during the coalition period. This

suggests that looking at individual characteristics, the role of face-to-face contacts in policy

implementation and the symbolism involved in inter-state meetings can advance our

understanding of British foreign policy overall. We need always to keep in mind the political,

and especially the influence of material and social structural pressures. But we can add to the

understandings a political approach generates by revealing, as this paper reveals, the way

individuals intervene between structural imperatives and actual policy outcomes.

26

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