The Saudis’ hosting of the Arab League summit, attended by Syrian President Bashar Assad, seemingly made a statement about who’s in charge. In official summit photographs, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is front and center.
The representative of the United Arab Emirates, Vice President Mansour bin Zayed, was stuck in the back as if he were just a marginal player in this event welcoming Syria back into the fold. This was quite deliberate.
In 2018, the UAE was the first to form official and public ties with the Assad regime after seven years of ostracism from the Arab world. In December of that year, the UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus, and publicly nurtured this relationship, which was seen as an outlier in the Arab world.
In the first half of 2021, trade between the UAE and Syria was estimated at $272 million, and less than a year after, Assad arrived in Abu Dhabi for a highly publicized visit that marked the start of his series of photo ops with a string of Arab leaders.
Although it took the UAE five years to convince other countries in the region to follow suit, by renewing ties with Syria, it clearly spurred the gradual normalization of Assad in the region. This pioneering move was the first in a series of moves it made, including normalization of ties with Iran, Israel, Turkey and Qatar.
Some believe these developments were actually led by Saudi Arabia, but I believe the UAE to be the brains behind and the executor of these initiatives. Often, the Emiratis prefer to let Saudi Arabia be the one to cut the ribbon in order to balance out the regional leadership competition. An example of this was the pictures from the recent Arab League summit.
The opening point of the UAE’s efforts to reshape the regional power balances, alliances and fault lines may be dated to 2017, when Abu Dhabi decided to take things up a notch in its conflict with Qatar and mobilize the neighboring countries for an embargo of Qatar.
As with Syria, here, too, the UAE preferred to have Riyadh be the public face of the effort. Saudi Arabia’s and others’ participation in this initiative came naturally in light of the UAE’s participation in the Saudi coalition in Yemen; however, from this stage on, a chasm began to open up between the two countries’ interests as well as in the international response. While the UAE was embraced by the international community, Saudi Arabia was unofficially ostracized due to its leading of the war in Yemen and its involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
From that point on, starting in 2018, the UAE became much more dominant in managing regional affairs, and about a year before the Abraham Accords, it surprised the region with a dramatic shift in direction: It went from deep involvement in the war in Yemen and violent clashes with Iran and its proxies to suddenly declaring that it was withdrawing from Yemen and reestablishing ties with Iran.
Last year, it announced it was restoring its ambassador to Tehran after a six-year absence. During this period, the UAE attempted to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia and succeeded for a limited time. Ultimately, China got the credit for the agreement on the renewal of ties that was officially announced on March 10, 2023, and the UAE, which had worked on this issue for three years, was not even mentioned.
Obviously, Saudi Arabia was in on the secret of the Abraham Accords, if only because these agreements included the complete opening of Saudi airspace to flights between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain. As on the Syrian issue, Saudi Arabia did not see fit to be the pioneer in this area. The Emiratis identified the right moment to dictate a new game in the neighborhood. They planned it well, chose the most suitable players, and even built a narrative of tolerance and peace and a shared Abrahamic heritage. To date, Saudi foreign policy has not demonstrated such capabilities.
At the Herzliya Conference last month, Dr. Ebtesam al-Ketbi, president of a prominent Emirati policy institute, said that given the composition of the current Israeli government, more countries are not expected to join the Abraham Accords. “It won’t kill the Abraham Accords, the partner countries won’t withdraw from the agreement,” she said, “but there won’t be additional partners… Your latest government is pushing everyone away.”
Al-Ketbi’s candid remarks gave expression to the difficulties experienced by a country that took the initiative in trying to achieve legitimacy for its moves. Her remarks also gave an indication of the UAE’s ability to prompt other players in the system to make moves – for better or worse. In the past, it mediated between Bahrain and Sudan.
We ought to recognize the new balances of power in the Persian Gulf. The UAE’s extensive and deep influence in the wider Middle East, from Sudan to Yemen and beyond, obligates both scholars and decision-makers to adopt a more up-to-date approach regarding the centers of power in the Middle East. Since the Arab Spring and the fall of the traditional power centers, the approach has been that the heart of Arab politics beats in Riyadh. Which is why Saudi Arabia is perceived as the crown jewel for Israel. However, if we would grasp that for a number of years now, this center has been situated in Abu Dhabi, we could keep our focus there.
In a rational world, the right path would be to operate simultaneously on both channels, vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia and vis-à-vis the UAE, but the current Israeli government’s attention span for foreign affairs in general and the Middle East in particular is extremely limited, and what little energy it is ready to expend is mainly directed at Riyadh.
Foreign Ministry Director-General Ronen Levy also made note of this, saying, “In the context of this effort, we must not neglect channels in other countries where the potential may be realized ahead of Saudi Arabia, and there are no less important.” Permit me to assume that he was referring to the UAE. Israel’s efforts to imitate the Abraham Accords with Saudi Arabia at a time when Israel’s relations with the UAE are being significantly challenged could ultimately cause it to lose out on both ends.
Moran Zaga is a researcher of the Gulf States, a policy fellow at the Mitvim Institute and a lecturer at the University of Haifa and the Hebrew University
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