A thread on the prospect of Gulf reconciliation ahead of the GCC Summit in Saudi Arabia on Jan 5.

[I should start by saying that I do not have any insight into the likelihood, content, or scope of a deal to end the post-2017 rift.] 1/

There seems to be a political will among GCC leaders to move on from the bitterness and rancor that marked the impact of the Trump era on intra-Gulf relationships, at least on the surface. 2/

Whether or not any agreement to end the Gulf crisis can resolve the deeper damage to social relationships following three-and-a-half years of frequently insulting and accusatory finger-pointing is another matter. 3/

What has made the post-2017 crisis in the Gulf different from most of those that preceded it has been that it was not confined to a difference between ruling elites but that it hit directly on peoples and communities. 4/

Ties of trust cannot simply be restored by a written agreement at a political level and will take time to repair. 5/

If an agreement – preliminary or final – is reached, it will need to contain stronger mechanisms to monitor compliance at GCC level. 6/

The fact that the GCC Secretary General is no longer a representative of one of the states involved in the rift gives some ground for optimism, but it is important that the GCC itself can strengthen its own dispute resolution mechanism to prevent... 7/

...or at least minimize the risk that the deal might itself become an object of future contention, as happened with the 2014 Riyadh agreement. 8/

If the GCC can reassert its authority and provide a supporting framework to any agreement, it may facilitate the rebuilding of political (and eventually social) trust, a process that will take longer than just one summit meeting to achieve. 9/end.