Page 62 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

The Retreat from the Gulf 57

both of whom were on friendly terms with the Saudis and did not want the
relationship to turn sour. For the Al Khalifah, the virtual certainty of Saudi
assistance in opposing the Persian claim to sovereignty over their shaikhdom
was a much more reassuring consideration than the remote possibility of
support from the other Gulf rulers. In the case of the Al Thani of Qatar, their
connexion with the Al Saud had increased in intimacy over the previous
half-century, and it was reinforced by their profession of the same sectarian
beliefs.
As if these mutual antagonisms, rivalries and disputes - of which there were
still more, which we can safely pass over here, among the various Trucial
Shaikhs - were not enough to bedevil the prospects of federation, they were
further confused by the course of domestic politics in Britain between 1968 and
1970. At the time of the announcement in the House of Commons in January
1968 of the intended British withdrawal from east of Suez, the former Conser­
vative prime minister, Sir Alec Douglas Home, who was now his party’s
principal spokesman on foreign affairs, had condemned the decision to with­
draw ‘as a dereliction of stewardship, the like of which this country has not seen
in the conduct of foreign policy before’. He went on to upbraid the Labour
government for having damaged Britain’s honour in the eyes of the world,
and his condemnation was echoed by Iain Macleod, the shadow chancellor
of the exchequer. ‘To break our word, solemnly pledged and reaffirmed
only a few months ago, is shameful and criminal,’ Macleod declared
robustly. The Conservatives, he affirmed, would keep Britain east of Suez
if they were returned to power. Reginald Maudling, the deputy leader of
the Conservatives, gave much the same pledge when he spoke in the debate in
the House which followed the announcement, describing the decision to
withdraw from the Gulf, in particular, as ‘a breach of solemn undertakings’.
Macleod, Maudling and, after them, Home and Edward Heath, the Con­
servative leader, assured the House of Commons that a future Conservative
government would ignore the timetable laid down by the Labour government
for withdrawal from east of Suez. Instead it would work out, in consul­
tation with the local governments concerned, the most helpful and prac­
ticable way in which a British presence east of Suez might continue to be
maintained.
The pledge was repeated at intervals over the next two years. In a speech in
December 1968 Maudling described a continued British military presence in
the Gulf as ‘infinitely important’, and he went on to remark, ‘If we can
maintain our position as a token of our determination to maintain our influence
we will have an effect for good in the future of the world.’ After a tour of the
ulf in March and April 1969 Heath expressed himself as ‘even more con­
vinced than before that it would be in our interests’ to retain a British presence
m the area. Nine months later, in January 1970, while on a visit to Australia
and the Far East, he spoke of a ‘reversal’ of the Labour government’s decision