Gulf Arab leaders meeting here Monday will discuss closer union between their six states because of what they see as growing threats from Iran and Al-Qaeda after regional uprisings, but significant political obstacles loom. Riyadh wants more defense integration and foreign policy coordination to help fight outside interference in the region's affairs. When GCC leaders last convened in December, King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, urged member nations to move “beyond the stage of cooperation and into the stage of unity in a single entity”. On Monday that might prompt the establishment of two much-discussed Gulf commissions to coordinate foreign and defense policy — although a Gulf government official said these would likely be purely consultative and might not be announced until the next full summit in December. King Abdullah's call for integration was seen at the time as a response to Gulf Arab worries that the Arab Spring would destabilize the Middle East, giving Al-Qaeda the opportunity to get a foothold in some states and Iran to gain sway over others. The summit will come at a time when Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the two most politically active Gulf Arab states, are working productively on regional issues such as Syria and Yemen. The two have led Arab efforts to isolate Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, an ally of Iran, over his bloody crackdown on a popular uprising and were instrumental in easing Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in Yemen in January to defuse an uprising that was tearing the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country apart. Moreover, the GCC has finally made some progress in building a customs union — a first step toward economic integration. But GCC members have still not agreed to set up a shared missile shield — seen by Western military analysts as the minimum step toward a joint arms pact, and one that would require basing radar systems in one country and missiles in another.
