DUBAI/LONDON: Britain’s decision not to join a military strike on Syria may have more than a purely political impact: it could over time make it more difficult for British businessmen to win billions of dollars of contracts in the Gulf.
British companies are bidding for several big-ticket deals in the region, including oil concessions and contracts to supply dozens of fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Most of the wealthy Gulf oil exporters, particularly Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are supporting the Syrian rebels in their civil war with the government of President Bashar Al Assad.
So Britain’s refusal to get involved in military action could weaken its position in the Gulf as it tries to secure contracts which depend heavily on close political ties and shared strategic interests.
Companies from the United States and France, which are considering a strike against the Syrian government over its alleged use of chemical weapons, may benefit from any setbacks for British firms.
Jonathan Eyal, International Director at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said parliament did not seem to have taken this into account in its surprise vote on August 29 against action in Syria.
While legislators were clearly aware of the risk to Britain’s “special relationship” with the United States of their vote, the country’s footprint in the Middle East appeared either to have been taken for granted or undervalued, he said.
“There was no understanding that what was at stake was Britain’s reputation as a major security actor in the Middle East as a whole. What is the point of buying equipment which, after all, is only marginally better than that which is available from the United States, from a country that is unlikely to realise its security commitments?”
Gulf governments have not commented publicly on the British parliament’s vote, and British officials said they do not expect it to affect commercial ties.
“We have no reason to believe that the UK Parliament’s decision on Syria will impact our trade and investment relationship with Saudi Arabia,” the British embassy in Riyadh said in a statement.
“The UK will continue to play a full role in seeking to bring an end to the conflict and hold the Syrian regime to account for its actions...UK exports to Saudi Arabia grew 26 percent in the first five months of this year and we expect that growth to continue.”
Privately, however, some British officials were jittery about a cooling of Britain’s traditionally warm relationship with the Gulf even before the decision on Syria.
Anger among unelected Gulf rulers over the West’s support for the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, and British media reports seen as supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood, were blamed by some analysts for British oil major BP’s temporary exclusion last year from the bidding to run Abu Dhabi’s biggest oil fields over the next few decades.
BP was allowed to bid again after British Prime Minister David Cameron flew to Abu Dhabi to promote his country’s energy and weapons companies in November 2012.
Britain’s BAE Systems is competing against France’s Dassault Aviation to sell around 60 planes to the UAE. Qatar is weighing whether to replace its ageing fleet with BAE Eurofighter Typhoons or Dassault Rafales.
Reuters
