Book review: GCC—a fatal schism

Through a combination of adroit use of its vast gas reserves and careful diplomacy, Qatar has learned how to survive life under blockade, a new book says

A book chronicling successful attempts to achieve intra-Arab cooperation would sit comfortably on a shelf of the world’s slimmest publications. But there is one relatively successful story—or rather there was: the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). In Qatar and the Gulf Crisis, Kristian Coates Ulrichsen argues that the surprise decision of Saudi Arabia and the UAE (with support from Bahrain and Egypt) to impose an economic and diplomatic blockade on Qatar in June 2017 may have dealt a fatal blow to the GCC. Three years later, the sorry state of affairs continues: three GCC states are still blackballing a fourth, while two (Kuwait and Oman) stand aside. So what is new? a cynic might ask. The GCC