Explaining the United Arab Emirates’ Recent Meetings with the Leaders of Syria, Israel, and Egypt

March 28 2022

On March 18, the Tehran- and Moscow-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad came to Abu Dhabi, where he had an audience with the Emirati crown prince Mohammad bin Zayed, leading some to wonder if the UAE remains a stalwart of the regional anti-Iran coalition. But a few days later, bin Zayed flew to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to meet with the country’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. The three reportedly discussed containing Iran, the situation in Ukraine, and trade ties. And yesterday and today Israel is hosting another summit in the Negev, attended by the foreign ministers of Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, and the UAE, along with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Eyal Zisser sees behind this flurry of diplomacy an effort led by the Emirates, and backed by Saudi Arabia and Jordan, to shore up its alliances in anticipation of a nuclear deal that will give Iran “a tailwind for further belligerence across the Middle East.” He explains:

Israel has adopted an aggressive approach to the Iranians, predicated mostly on trying to dislodge them wherever they have a foothold, especially in Syria. . . . If Israel is the bad cop, then the Emiratis have cast themselves as the good cop. Many saw [Assad’s visit to Abu Dhabi] as legitimizing the tyrant from Damascus, but the truth is that it was Assad, a key member of the axis of evil (along with Hizballah and Iran), who granted legitimacy to the Abraham Accords—and to the normalization between Israel and the UAE, which just recently hosted President Isaac Herzog.

Thus the Emiratis are trying to foil Iran’s machinations, not through military strikes but by removing the keystone of the structure Tehran is building in the region—Bashar al-Assad. It will be difficult and probably impossible to sever Assad from the Iranians, but it is possible to convince him to try harder, as he has been doing regardless in recent months, to limit Iran’s activities on his soil.

This is also linked to the Jordanian king Abdullah’s planned visit to the Palestinian Authority (PA) later this month, which is meant to ensure the PA does not disrupt the aforementioned efforts and keeps the peace. When the Abraham Accords were signed, Abdullah was acrimonious, but now appears fully on board with the regional stratagem.

Read more at Israel Hayom

More about: Abraham Accords, Bashar al-Assad, Egypt, Iran, Middle East, United Arab Emirates

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy