Weekly Event (Friday – 5 December 2025): The Tyrant Hamad’s Complex… Submission to Al Saud at the “Sakhir Summit

Weekly Event (Friday – 5 December 2025): The Tyrant Hamad’s Complex… Submission to Al Saud at the “Sakhir Summit”

The 46th Gulf Cooperation Council Summit convened on 3 December 2025 in the capital, Manama, in an atmosphere reminiscent of the summit held in December 1994, which witnessed the outbreak of the Dignity Uprising of the 1990s and the fall of its first two martyrs. Despite the propaganda and media noise surrounding the summit, the tyrant Hamad walked away “empty-handed.”

The final communiqué of the summit spoke of “the collective security of Gulf states” and the rejection of “interference in internal affairs,” but observers believe the formulaic language of the communiqué masks deep contradictions eating away at this Gulf entity, which is governed by external powers.

Analysts point to the central role of Al Saud in dominating the Council and to their hand in fueling internal disputes among Gulf regimes, especially between the rival blocs represented by the UAE and Qatar—explaining the absence of their respective leaders from the Manama summit.

Despite the marginality of Al Khalifa within the GCC system and their total subservience to Al Saud, the tyrant Hamad was eager to “ensure the success” of the summit as a propaganda exercise, because the Council provides a shield for despotism and corruption, and reinforces the tribal backbone on which his entity is built—this being the only unifying element among the Gulf sheikhdoms.

The final communiqué affirmed the commitment to continue cooperation among Gulf states “to achieve the desired unity,” yet the path toward Gulf Union has repeatedly failed due to conflicts among the Gulf regimes and the significant economic and geopolitical disparities between them. And since Al Khalifa are the weakest link in the Gulf, they are the most eager to realize unity among the ruling tribes of the region.

After the 14 February 2011 revolution, the tyrant implored the Saudis to hasten the announcement of the Union, but these efforts shattered against the rock of disputes among the ruling dynasties of the Gulf. Analysts say the collapse of Al Khalifa’s dreams of Gulf Union produced a complex that evolved into a form of madness that overtook the tyrant Hamad personally—an attitude reflected in the arrogant act of demolishing the Pearl Roundabout in March 2011, the symbolic center of the 14 February Revolution. The roundabout had originally been named “GCC Roundabout Monument” and was built to commemorate the first GCC Summit hosted by Bahrain in 1982.