The global attention is currently riveted on the current double impasse over the Persian Gulf at its Strait of Hormuz choke point. Although the ongoing US-Iran conflict has its unique drivers and context, the Persian Gulf has a five-millennia-long history of geopolitical jostling among the concerned stakeholders, including the first Western capture of the Strait of Hormuz more than four centuries ago[i]. It would not only be interesting but also relevant to learn about the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf throughout history, long before the advent of hydrocarbons and nuclear technology.
Map of Persian Gulf and Littoral States
Geographical Introduction to the Persian Gulf:
It is a gulf (surface area: 251,000 sq kms) in West Asia with the following eight countries bordering its 5117 km long shoreline: Iran (coastline: 1536 kms), Iraq (58 kms), Kuwait (499 kms), Saudi Arabia (1300 kms), Bahrain (161 kms), Qatar (563 kms), the United Arab Emirates (900 kms) and Oman (100 kms). It is a relatively shallow waterbody with an average depth of 50 meters and a maximum depth of 90 meters only. It gets its primary inflows from the Gulf of Oman in the south (with which it is connected in the south via the Strait of Hormuz) and from the Shatt al-Arab river (the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates) in the north. Its length is 989 kilometers The Persian Gulf is about 56 km wide at its narrowest, in the Strait of Hormuz. The Persian Gulf has many islands, such as Bahrain, an Arab state. Geographically, the biggest island in the Persian Gulf is Qeshm Island, belonging to Iran located in the Strait of Hormuz. Other significant islands in the Persian Gulf include Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Kish (claimed by the UAE but administered by Iran), Bubiyan (administered by Kuwait), Tarout (administered by Saudi Arabia), and Dalma (administered by the UAE). Persian Gulf islands are often historically significant, having been used in the past by colonial powers such as the Portuguese and the British in their trade or as acquisitions for their empires. The water-starved littoral states often use Persian Gulf water for desalination.
This waterbody got its name from Persia (or Faras). Following Alexander’s invasion, Greek and Roman geographers started calling it ‘Sinus Persicus’ or Persian Sea. Since then, the name has been widely used, even though during the past six decades, the Arab countries have insisted on calling it the “Arabian Gulf”. To avoid this political minefield, many neutral observers refer to it simply as “the Gulf.”
History of the Persian Gulf:
Ancient Period:
Sumer, one of the world’s oldest known civilisations, developed along the Persian Gulf and southern Mesopotamia. The oldest seagoing vessel, dating to the mid-sixth millennium BC, has been found at H3 in Kuwait, showing that the Gulf was part of an extensive trade network that involved the Ubaid settlements in Mesopotamia and the Gulf coast communities.
Between 625 BC and 226 AD, the northern side of the Gulf was dominated by a succession of Persian empires, including the Median, Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian empires. The southern shores were ruled by a series of nomadic tribes. By the end of the fourth millennium BC, the southern part of the Persian Gulf was dominated by the Dilmun civilisation centred around today’s Bahrain. During the Achaemenid empire (550–330 BCE), in general, and under King Darius the Great (522-486 BC), in particular, Persian ships found their way to the Gulf. These were not only stationed on islands of the Persian Gulf, but also had ships, often of 100 to 200 capacity, patrolling the empire’s various rivers, including Shatt-al-Arab, Tigris, the Nile and the Indus waterway.
For a long time after Alexander’s invasion and defeat of the Achaemenids, the most important settlement on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf was Gerrha, near Bahrain. In the second century BC, the Lakhum tribe migrated north from Yemen and founded the Lakhmid Kingdom along the southern coast. This led to occasional ancient battles along the Persian Gulf coastlines, between the Sassanid Persian empire and the Lakhmid Kingdom, the most prominent of which was in 325 AD when Sassanid king Shapur II defeated the Lakhmids, forcing them away from the southern coastline into deeper inland into the Arabian Peninsula. By the early 7th century, the Sasanian Persian empire had conquered the whole of the Persian Gulf, including southern and northern shores.
Medieval Period:
The Arab-Muslim conquest of Iran (632-654 AD) by the Damascus-based Umayyad Islamic empire had a profound impact on Iran and the Persian Gulf region. The decisive defeat at the Battle of Nahawand in 642 CE opened the Persian heartland. By 651 CE, the Sasanian state collapsed, beginning a centuries-long, gradual conversion of the Iranian population to Islam. Iran transitioned from a predominantly Zoroastrian nation to a Muslim one through a multi-century process that accelerated during the Baghdad-based Abbasid rule. By the 10thcentury, Iranian society was almost completely Islamic; It however, retained its pre-Islamic Persian language, culture, and administrative systems. In fact, Persian scholars and bureaucrats profoundly shaped Islamic civilisation during this era. The dominant sect continued to be Sunni Islam, uniting the Iranian Muslims with their Arab counterpart across the Gulf. This changed in the 16th century when Shah Ismail I founded the Safavid dynasty. He declared Twelver Shia Islam the official state religion and used aggressive conversion campaigns to transform a predominantly Sunni population into a Shia majority. Over the subsequent centuries, Shia Islam became deeply intertwined with Persian culture and national identity.
At the geopolitical level, the Safavid empire was a rival to the Istanbul-based Ottoman empire, which nominally controlled the southern side of the Persian Gulf. Thus, a tenuous and dynamic balance of power between the Shia Safavids and the Sunni Arab tribes administered by Ottoman along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf existed until the European colonialists disrupted it in the early 16th century.
Arrival of European Colonialists:
As the medieval era eclipsed, the crusades between European Christian powers and the Ottoman Empire disrupted the flourishing trade between the Occident and the Orient. Both sides of the Persian Gulf were prominent beneficiaries of it: The Silk Route passed through the Safavid Empire, and the southern Persian Gulf ports had active maritime trading with China and India for such exotica as spices, silk, etc, which then left by land caravans to the Levant onwards to Europe. With the crusades being fought for centuries in the Levant and Asia Minor, this trade was disrupted. Meanwhile, the Omani sailors dominated the Western Indian Ocean. While Vasco da Gama succeeded in the discovery of a sea route to India, the Omani dominance over the Western Indian Ocean posed a serious challenge to the Portuguese attempts to monopolise the trade route. Moreover, they also intended to demolish the supply chains across the Arabian Sea dominated by the Persian Gulf merchants. So, the ground was set for an epic contest for supremacy between the Portuguese, on one hand, and the Omanis and Iranians, on the other.
In 1507, Afonso de Albuquerque, a Portuguese naval commander, conquered the Kingdom of Hormuz as well as Muscat. This was within a decade of Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the sea route to India and three years before the capture of Goa in India. In 1521, a Portuguese force led by Commander Antonio Correia fought the Ottomans by invading Bahrain to take control of the wealth created by its pearl industry. After nearly a century of Portuguese sway over the Persian Gulf, they were expelled by the local forces. On 29 April 1602, Shāh Abbās, the Persian emperor of the Safavid Persian Empire, expelled the Portuguese from Bahrain[ii].
With the support of the British fleet, in 1622, Shah Abbās took the island of Hormuz from the Portuguese; much of the trade was diverted to the town of Bandar ‘Abbās, which he had taken from the Portuguese in 1615 and had named after himself. The Persian Gulf was therefore opened to a flourishing commerce with the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British merchants, who were granted particular privileges. Eventually, the Omanis defeated the Portuguese in 1650. It was a watershed historical event that broke Portugal’s 150-year maritime dominance in the Arabian Sea. The pivotal conflict occurred on January 28, 1650, when Omani forces under Imam Sultan bin Saif successfully laid siege to Muscat, capturing the heavily fortified city and completely expelling the Portuguese colonisers from the region. Following the surrender of the Portuguese Commandant Pareira, the remaining ships were destroyed, wiping out Portuguese power in the Gulf for good. Following their victory, the Omanis leveraged their newly established, highly capable navy to chase the Portuguese into the Indian Ocean. This offensive eventually led to the legendary 1696-1698 Siege of Mombasa at Fort Jesus, resulting in the collapse of Portuguese strongholds in East Africa and the rise of the Omani Empire.
The British followed the Portuguese exit, pursuing the same strategy of dominating the sea route to India, which was, by then, their “crown jewel.” Britain’s role in the Persian Gulf evolved from protecting commercial routes for the East India Company in the 18th century to establishing total regional hegemony. London maintained political control over the region from 1763 until its withdrawal in 1971. First, they collaborated with local powers (e.g. Iranian rulers, Al-Saud, etc.) against the other foreign powers, such as the Portuguese and Ottomans. The British created a complex political architecture in the name of the suppression of piracy[iii] and the slave trade to establish their preponderance over the Persian Gulf. comprising treaties[iv], subventions, and selective military interventions managed from the Bombay Presidency with a British Resident in Bandar Abbas. While the British interests were largely commercial and logistical (for protecting the route to India), they also supported Iran in playing the role of a buffer state against Russian and Afghan designs on India and the access to the Arabian Sea.
The British interests in the Persian Gulf region rose dramatically in the early twentieth century with the discovery of large deposits of hydrocarbons there. Britain sought and obtained oil exploration concessions in Iran, Kuwait, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. Even as the UK withdrew militarily from east of Suez in 1971, it took care to protect its oil interests. In 1953, when a nationalist Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh decided to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the UK went as far as to conspire with the US to unseat him and bring back the reviled Pahalvi dynasty, which was eventually overthrown in 1979 by the Islamic revolution that established the current regime in that country.
Decolonisation and “Pax Americana”:
The Pax Americana over the Persian Gulf can be traced back to the historic meeting between the US President Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdul Aziz on February 14 1945, leading to a “security-for-oil” compact. Accordingly, while Riyadh offered upstream concessions to the American oil companies, Washington ensured the security of Saudi Arabia against foreign threats. Subsequently, the US extended similar arrangements to many other Persian Gulf littoral states, including Iran during the Shah’s time. Today, as the United States is engaged in terse off-ramp negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, it is believed to have no less than 18 military bases in the Persian Gulf region. In addition, several other Western countries, such as the UK, France, Italy and Turkey, have various degrees of military presence in the region. Even Pakistan last year signed a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia. Islamabad has reportedly deployed a squadron of fighter jets and around 8,000 troops in Western Saudi Arabia.
Conclusion:
It is quite apparent from this short history of the Persian Gulf that the geopolitical situation in the Persian Gulf region has faced frequent turmoil over the centuries, with non-littoral powers often wading into its shallow but turbulent waters. Over the past five millennia, the causes and the players have changed, but the instability has been a constant. The current spat between the US and Israel, on one side, and Iran on the other is unlikely to be the last bloody drama to be played on this theatre.
***
[i] In 1507, Afonso de Albuquerque, a Portuguese naval commander, conquered the Kingdom of Hormuz as well as Muscat.
[ii] The Iranians still commemorate that date annually as Persian Gulf National Day.
[iii] The Trucial System, created in 1820, established the “Pirate Coast” as a British protectorate, later known as the Trucial States (now the UAE).
[iv] Following piracy suppression campaigns, Britain imposed the General Maritime Treaty of 1820 on local Arab rulers. During the 1890s, Britain solidified its control by signing “Exclusive Agreements” with Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the Trucial States (current UAE). These treaties prevented local rulers from ceding territory or conducting foreign relations with any other foreign power without British consent.
