First round of US-UAE Strategic Dialogue held, amid further progress in Arab-Israeli relations

The US held the first round of a Strategic Dialogue with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Tuesday.

Laurie Mylroie 2020/10/21 06:59

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – The US held the first round of a Strategic Dialogue with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Tuesday. The diplomatic initiative marked the fourth Arab state with which the US has begun a “Strategic Dialogue”—the other three being Iraq, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, with which a Strategic Dialogue was launched last week.

The start of the US-UAE strategic dialogue took place as the development of relations between the UAE and Israel, first formally established last month in Washington, proceeded apace. An official UAE delegation, led by its Finance Minister, flew on Tuesday to Tel Aviv, where a number of agreements between the UAE and Israel were signed.

The US-UAE Strategic Dialogue: Common Enmity to Iran

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo headed the US delegation for the Strategic Dialogue, while the UAE’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, headed his country’s delegation.

The driving force behind the increased closeness between the US and UAE (as well as between the UAE and Israel) is the threat posed by Iran—in combination with the strong US stance against it: the US is protecting its partners, and part of their response is to coordinate more closely with Washington.

“We stand together on the international stage to counter the greatest destructive force in the Middle East,” Pompeo said, and “I want to personally thank the UAE for its support of our maximum pressure campaign, which has denied Tehran access to weapons valued at more than $70 billion.”

In his remarks, Abdullah did not mention Iran, but noted, “Nineteen years ago,” after the 9/11 attacks, the UAE “decided to join the efforts of the United States” in fighting terrorism.

Yet “the voices of extremism” are “still gaining momentum,” he continued. “We saw that recently in Paris, and we have to double down on our efforts in overcoming these extreme radical voices.”

Tuesday’s launch of the Strategic Dialogue focused on the conclusion of Memoranda of Understanding in eight areas, as Pompeo explained: defense; intelligence and counterterrorism; law enforcement and border security; politics; human rights; economics; culture and academics—and even space!

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the launch of the dialogue was held virtually.

UAE-Israel

The UAE has been prominently involved in the latest Arab agreements with Israel—which also feels seriously threatened by Iranian aggression. Last month, the UAE, as well as Bahrain, agreed to normalize relations with Israel. Those two agreements are called “The Abraham Accords,” in recognition of the shared heritage between Jews and Muslims.

On Tuesday, as the UAE-US Strategic Dialogue was launched, an official UAE delegation, accompanied by US Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, and Avi Berkowitz, the US Special Representative for International Negotiations, flew from the UAE to Israel.

The UAE delegation was headed by its Financial Affairs Minister, Obaid Humaid al-Tayer. The visit, however, was limited to ceremonies at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, because of the COIVD-19 pandemic.

In those ceremonies, the UAE officially requested to open an embassy in Tel Aviv. In addition, it was announced that an “Abraham Fund,” supported by the US, UAE, and Israel, was to be established.

To be capitalized with $3 billion, the Abraham Fund, with an office in Jerusalem, will be dedicated to advancing economic cooperation and prosperity in the Middle East and North Africa.

In addition, the two countries signed an agreement on visa-free travel, the first such agreement between Israel and an Arab state.

Agreements were also reached on regular flights between the two countries; cooperation on science and technology; and protocols for economic investment.

UAE’s Relations with the Kurdistan Region

The UAE has long had a friendly attitude to the Kurds. In February 2011, Abdullah visited Erbil, and in 2012, the UAE established a Consulate General in the Kurdistan Region.

Most recently, a senior delegation of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), led by President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, visited the UAE in December 2019. They met with Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE’s Armed Forces, as well as Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE.

The Kurdish leadership also met with the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud.

Earlier this year, the UAE sent six tons of medical equipment to the Kurdistan Region to aid in the fight against the coronavirus.

The History of the UAE

The UAE consists of seven emirates, all of which owe their existence to British policy in the nineteenth century focused on India, the “Jewel in the Crown” of the British empire.

Some sheikhs of the Gulf coast engaged in piracy, particularly after the establishment of the first Saudi state in the eighteenth century. The doctrine of the Saudi state—Wahhabism—legitimized attacks on almost everyone else, including foreigners, who were deemed infidels.

To protect their shipping to India, the British, in 1819, carried out punitive raids against those rulers attacking their ships. Such was the disparity in power, the sheikhs found they had two choices: surrender or imprisonment, to be replaced by more pliant figures.

The British then signed treaties with the sheikhs, in which they pledged to abandon piracy (as well as the slave trade), and Britain, in turn, promised to protect them in perpetuity.

The British strategy was to confine Wahhabism to Arabia’s desert interior, and the system worked for a remarkably long time. It preserved relative stability in an area that took on new significance in the twentieth century, after petroleum began to be exploited as a fuel to power vehicles and other machines.

The British treaties preserved the independence of the seven emirates, as well as Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait.

In 1947, India became independent. Some 20 years later, in 1968, a left-leaning British government decided there was no longer a need to maintain a presence in the Gulf sheikhdoms and it would withdraw from them within three years.

To the Gulf rulers, this decision was not necessarily welcome, as it would expose them to the ambitions of the region’s much larger powers: namely, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia—as Kuwait would experience, when it was invaded by Iraq.

In 1968, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, father of the UAE Foreign Minister, was the ruler of Abu Dhabi, the largest of the emirates. Zayed had an unusually pragmatic response to the British decision: “Who asked them to leave?” he reportedly said.

]Nonetheless, Zayed would prove a key figure in the establishment of the UAE, and he would come to be known as his country’s founding father. He ruled the UAE until his death in 2004, when he was succeeded by his oldest son, Sheikh Khalifa.

Khalifa suffered a stroke in 2014, and Mohammed, with whom the Kurdish leadership met in late 2019, is now the effective ruler.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany