A Saudi-UAE rift is turning two close allies into regional rivals : NPR

SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have long been close allies in the Middle East. Cracks in these relations began to appear during Sudan’s civil war, when the two countries supported opposing factions. Last December, the confrontation turned into a direct military offensive by the Saudi army and its allies against the Emiratis and their allies in Yemen. In response to the large-scale military action by the Saudis, the United Arab Emirates announced the complete withdrawal of its forces from Yemen. To better understand these developments, we have Marc Lynch, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. To welcome.

MARC LYNCH: Hi. Thanks for inviting me.

MCCAMMON: The Saudis have called Yemen a red line for Saudi national security. They launched a major offensive in 2015 to restore control of their allies in Yemen, an offensive in which the United Arab Emirates was part. To begin, could you help us understand what is at stake for the Saudis in Yemen?

LYNCH: Well, if you just look geographically, you can see that, you know, Yemen is deeply and intimately linked to Saudi Arabia on the Arabian Peninsula. There is a long land border. There are tribal ties on the other side of this border. And Saudi Arabia has been seeking to have a dominant position in Yemen for a very long time, and the UAE was part of that coalition. But they had different approaches. The Saudis had a long and intimate history with Yemen, and this included much of the interior regions and much of the country’s vast geographic territory, while the Emiratis were more interested in the ports of Aden and along the sea route to the Red Sea, and so they ended up dividing power within the alliance and more or less going their own way within a generally aligned anti-Houthi coalition.

MCCAMMON: I want to talk more about the Red Sea. The UAE, as you noted, attempted to increase its influence there and ended up supporting a separatist faction in Yemen and controlling some Yemeni islands, including the UNESCO-listed Socotra Island. What was the main objective? What was the UAE’s objective in Yemen and the Red Sea?

LYNCH: So the UAE has very patiently built what I would call a maritime empire based on control of ports in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and Aden is a critical part of that, as is the island of Socotra. But it also goes down to Somaliland and Djibouti and all the way down to the Horn of Africa. In reality, it is about giving them a dominant position in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea area.

MCCAMMON: Now they had to know that they would be going against Saudi interests in the region. What was the math there?

LYNCH: So the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been closely aligned for many years, but they started to drift apart, most dramatically with the UAE’s decision to rejoin the Abraham Accords and align itself very closely with Israel. This has not necessarily posed a problem for Saudi Arabia. They also discussed a normalization deal with Israel with the Biden administration and the Trump administration. But they were not as supportive of the UAE’s very close alignment with Israel and its attempt to use that as a way to assert its own attempt at leadership in the Arab world.

What made the Abraham Accords different from all previous approaches to peacemaking in the Middle East was that it completely sidelined the Palestinian issue. And in the past, the core Arab position was associated with the 2002 Saudi peace initiative, according to which normalization with Israel would depend on the creation of a Palestinian state. Basically, the Emiratis said: no, we’re not going to hold the Palestinians hostage anymore, and we’re just going to pursue our own interests by making this deal with Israel. This therefore constituted a real challenge to what had been a consensual position supported by the Saudis for many years.

MCCAMMON: Lots of complex dynamics at play, as always. What are you monitoring? Where do you see this evolving in the months and years to come?

LYNCH: Well, in the short term, I think what everyone is looking for, you know, is to see if the rhetoric dies down and the Gulf Cooperation Council kind of puts all of these issues aside and goes back to the way things were. This is a long trend in Gulf relations, where there are intense conflicts and then, when the time is right, everyone kisses and makes up and they sort of go back to business as usual. You saw it with the four-year blockade imposed on Qatar. It ended in 2021, and now, you know, it’s like it didn’t happen.

The other thing that I think people really need to pay attention to is the extent to which this new Saudi-led coalition represents something that aims to challenge Israel. Is Israel really seeking to establish regional hegemony by force, and what would that mean for us? So it is possible that this Saudi coalition that I have described is intended, in a sense, to be a counterweight to this growing Israeli power of which the United Arab Emirates is seen as the vanguard.

MCCAMMON: That’s Professor Marc Lynch from George Washington University. Thank you for your time.

LYNCH: Thank you.

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