Navigation

I didn't know about Professor J B Kelly until I read his obituary published in today's Daily Telegraph.

He had a long association with the Gulf and particularly with Oman. I can only quote:

Kelly made his first trip to the Gulf in 1957.

He visited Iraq in the dying days of the Hashemite regime and then flew on to the Trucial Coast - known in the 19th century as the Pirate Coast, and now forming the United Arab Emirates. The only Europeans in Abu Dhabi at that time were either oil men, diplomats or soldiers.

The British political officer introduced him to Sheikh Shakhbut before taking him to see his brother, Sheikh Zayid. Kelly was to form a firm friendship with both men, which was to survive the political turmoil in Abu Dhabi in the following two decades.

He paid a particularly instructive visit to Buraimi, Oman, from where British-officered Trucial Scouts had ejected an American-backed Saudi force (engaged on an oil-grabbing mission) in 1955. He and the political officer, Martin Buckmaster, soon picked up signs that the Saudis were retaliating by stirring up the tribes of inner Oman with arms and money. Kelly passed this information on to the British political resident in Bahrain, Sir Bernard Burrows, who discounted it, coming as it did from a Gulf novice.

Burrows returned on leave to London, only to be called back to the Gulf in a hurry in July 1957 when the Imamate rebellion broke out in Oman. Kelly's first publication, written for Chatham House, was a paper on the revolt.

Subsequently, the British had to assist Sultan Said bin Taimur to put down the insurrection centred on Al Jabal Al Akhdar.

in the early 1980s, Kelly's advice on the region was sought by administration officials, senators, congressmen, journalists and think-tanks. He was directly involved in lobbying against the sale of AWACs early-warning aircraft to Saudi Arabia, arguing that it would further destabilise the region. But as Saudi influence grew in Washington with Reagan's forging of an informal alliance with the kingdom, Kelly's influence inevitably declined. His prescient warnings that Saudi money was being used to establish an international network of Muslim fundamentalists were thus largely ignored.

Subsequently, he advised the government of Oman on its disputed frontiers with Saudi Arabia and South Yemen, paying trips to inner Oman, Dhofar and the Musandam Peninsula.

I would recommend reading this article as a small insight into the history of the Sultanate.

Note that Sir Ivor Lucas, ambassador to Oman between 1979-81 commented that, as a junior member of staff to Sir Bernard Burrows, he did not recall that Professor Kelly's warning to the political resident about Saudi machinations was ever 'discounted.' For further reading, see Oman's Insurgencies: the Sultanate's Struggle for Supremacy, by J E Petersen, published 2007 by SAQI. Dr Petersen acted as official historian of the Sultan's Armed Forces while working in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Security and Defence.