Behind multiple conflicts across the Middle East and Africa sits a powerful but often overlooked actor – the UAE’s network of finance, logistics and proxy forces shaping outcomes on the ground.

Without understanding the astonishing network of power exercised by the United Arab Emirates you would have no idea why the UAE was hit particularly hard by Iran in recent weeks. Nor would you know what fuels chaos from Libya to Sudan to Somalia to Yemen. If you understand the UAE’s business-geostrategic model and how it mobilises warlords, gold, oil, regional logistics and finance – you get much closer to seeing the pattern in the seeming madness.

Tiny UAE, 1.4 million citizens, wields so much power that Saudi Arabia sees it as a serious threat. In December, Saudi Arabia bombed UAE surrogates in Yemen and told the emirates to exit the country. They didn’t. If the US and Israel hadn’t attacked Iran, more fireworks were in the offing.

Israel is the UAE’s close ally. They collaborate not just on the War on Iran but in many of these various ‘civil wars’ that are both money-making ventures and a series of heartless state-destruction campaigns that give them greater geopolitical weight in the region.

We first need to understand what UAE really is. Comprising seven emirates – Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Quwain, Ras Al-Khaimah, and Fujairah – it is now the hub of an empire that both Iran and Saudi Arabia would like to knee-cap.

The powerhouse is actually Abu Dhabi, the oil giant which is the effective boss of the rest, including Dubai. Abu Dhabi is a family business, run by The Bani Fatima, the sons of Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Al Ketbi who is the most influential of the wives of the late Sheikh. Today, ultimate power resides with MBZ (Mohamed bin........

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