Economic cold war?

Khattar Singh begins by asking whether Trump’s tariffs mark the start of an economic cold war. Moran doubts this, pointing out that the policy is riddled with uncertainty. Some tariffs face legal challenges, and Trump himself has a history of walking back duties when they risk fueling inflation. While Trump sometimes frames tariffs as inherently good, Moran insists he is pragmatic enough to avoid market chaos or consumer backlash.

Moran highlights three questions to watch: which countries will get exemptions, which will strike free trade agreements and how courts will ultimately rule. For now, no one, including Trump, can say exactly where tariff policy is headed. This unpredictability makes life difficult for businesses, as seen with the failed 500% tariffs on Chinese imports that raised costs but produced no concessions from Beijing.

Does Trump want a deal?

On tariffs as a negotiating tool, Moran stresses the volatility of Trump’s approach. Duties could fall if parties reach agreements or rise if talks collapse. But Trump’s frequent public reversals mean even his advisors lack clarity. Moran recalls that the extreme tariffs on China hurt the US economy and consumers more than they pressured Beijing, underscoring the limits of this strategy.

Is Trump uniting BRICS?

Khattar Singh presses Moran on whether tariffs could backfire by pushing BRICS nations closer together. Moran concedes there is some risk: Resentment could bring members “slightly closer.” However, he doubts a 10% tariff would overcome deep divisions. India and China remain at odds, while Iran and the United Arab Emirates also clash. He predicts that as BRICS grows in influence, its geopolitical fractures will become more apparent.

The BRICS plan to set up their own payment system outside the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication has become especially controversial. Initially framed as a sovereignty tool, it now allows Russia to dodge sanctions. Moran warns that without guardrails, the system could facilitate dangerous activity. Washington, he argues, will grow increasingly alarmed, and Trump may try to use tariffs to block its expansion.

Trump and India

Moran singles out India as a vital partner. He sees potential for a bilateral trade deal with New Delhi and hopes for a deeper US–India alliance, especially given shared concerns about China. Defense is central here. Moran criticizes India’s reliance on Russian systems, citing Iran’s failure to stop Israeli attacks with its S-300 missile systems. He argues this is a “wake-up call” for India and urges the country to purchase US-designed systems instead.

Khattar Singh counters that US MIM-104 Patriot systems have struggled in Ukraine and that India’s Russian-made S-400s performed effectively against Pakistan. Still, he notes India’s growing trust in the United States, pointing to its purchase of Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopters.

A US–India trade deal

Turning to economics, Moran distinguishes between what a Trump–India deal might look like and what it should. Trump’s fixation on the Harley-Davidson motorcycle company complicates negotiations, while issues such as manufacturing and IT services remain sensitive. Yet Moran insists that bilateral engagement with India is far more practical than attempting to juggle hundreds of simultaneous agreements.

He allows that multilateralism with BRICS could serve US interests in some cases, but stresses that internal divisions make bilateral deals the safer path. For India, alignment with Washington on trade and defense could strengthen both nations’ positions in the global order.

The future of AI

Khattar Singh and Moran agree that AI will define the next economic era. Moran points to the UAE’s aggressive push to become an AI hub and warns against leaving the field to China, whose advances he identifies as potentially disastrous. He argues the US should not try to handle AI challenges alone.

Khattar Singh notes India’s vibrant AI ecosystem, from widespread use of ChatGPT to national investment in research. Together with the US and the UAE, India could anchor an AI partnership. By contrast, the European Union’s regulatory environment discourages innovation. As Moran bluntly notes, “None of these AI companies are European. Zero.”

Are Americans paying for tariffs?

In closing, Khattar Singh asks whether tariffs ultimately hurt Americans. Moran’s answer is a resounding yes. Economists are right, he says, that tariffs raise domestic costs. The effect depends on scale — targeted tariffs like those on Chinese aluminum in 2018 were manageable, but sweeping 500% tariffs would devastate consumers and industry.

Trump himself is inconsistent, sometimes framing tariffs as leverage, other times as revenue. That inconsistency suggests tariffs will not disappear quickly. Moran ends by stressing that the US needs competitive partners. While not excluding Europe, he doubts the old transatlantic alliance can deliver innovation. For him, the future lies in closer ties with India — on defense, trade and especially AI.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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March 18’s United Nations Security Council spotlighted that divide. US Interim Ambassador Dorothy Shea was the only representative to accuse Hamas rather than Israel of breaking the ceasefire, reigniting hostilities and worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Similarly, Israel and the US stand alone at first glance in supporting US President Donald Trump’s vision of Gaza as a high-end beachfront real estate void of much of its indigenous population.

The rest of the international community supports the Arab world’s alternative plan that calls for an end to the war, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the creation of a Palestinian interim administration of the Gaza Strip and the temporary resettlement of Gazans in safe zones in Gaza. Meanwhile, the war-ravaged territory is reconstructed to the tune of $53 billion.

So far, it all seems straightforward. But dig a little deeper, and the fault lines begin to blur.

UAE–Israeli alignment

A series of persistent but unconfirmed reports suggest that the United Arab Emirates may be privately more in sync with Israel than with its Arab brethren regarding Hamas and Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not the only Middle Eastern leader infuriated by a last month between a senior US negotiator and Hamas. It was the first ever face-to-face US engagement with the group, which is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and a terrorist organization by US designation. So was UAE President Mohammed Bin Zayed, a staunch opponent of Islamist groups.

UAE ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, a close associate of Bin Zayed, US President Donald Trump’s administration to reject the Arab plan for Gaza drafted by Egypt and adopted unanimously at a March 4 Arab summit in Cairo. Privately, UAE officials have complained that the plan failed to call for the disarming of Hamas and its removal from Gaza. Bin Zayed did not attend the conference, sending his deputy prime minister instead.

In February, al-Otaiba described Trump’s call for the resettlement of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians as “difficult” and “challenging.” But when asked whether the UAE was working on a plan for Gaza, al-Otaiba responded, despite Egypt’s draft of the Arab plan already having been circulated, “Not yet. I »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t see an alternative to what’s being proposed. I really .”

Meanwhile, Emirates Leaks, a mysterious website critical of the Emirati government, asserted that the UAE had unsuccessfully attempted to persuade South Africa to withdraw or at least weaken the genocide case against Israel it filed in the International Court of Justice. The report could not be independently confirmed.

Lines blur further

In an even greater blurring of the fault lines, the UAE, alongside Saudi Arabia and Qatar, is the largest shareholder in an investment firm headed by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, with stakes in Israeli financial services group Phoenix Holding. The Holding is in businesses listed by the United Nations Human Rights Council as operating in West Bank settlements deemed illegal under international law.

In a seemingly bizarre muddying of the lines, Netanyahu has kicked up a political storm with his firing of Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s domestic Shin Bet security service. He did this in part for Bar’s members of the prime minister’s staff for their dealings with Qatar.

Netanyahu’s former spokesperson, Eli Feldstein, allegedly worked for a Doha-based firm that recruited Israeli journalists to write pro-Qatar stories. Two other Netanyahu staffers, Jonatan Urich and Yisrael Einhorn, allegedly helped Qatar bolster its image ahead of the Gulf state’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup.

In late March, Israeli police two suspects in the case accused of bribery, fraud, breach of trust, money laundering and illegal contact with a foreign agent. The suspects were not identified under a gag order placed on investigation details.

The staffers’ activities countered Netanyahu’s long-standing efforts to tarnish Qatar’s reputation and undermine its mediation role. The staffers Qatar to fund the Hamas government in Gaza to weaken the Palestinian polity by perpetuating the rift between the group and the West Bank-based, internationally recognized Palestine Authority.

The blurred lines contribute to Israel’s ability to do what it wants with the Trump administration’s backing, even if its actions violate agreements. One such agreement is the Gaza ceasefire, negotiated with the help of the US, Qatar and Egypt, and accepted by Israel. The blur also enhances Israel and the US’s ability to blame Hamas for the ceasefire’s collapse.

Extending the ceasefire

In the latest iteration of efforts to get the ceasefire back on track, Hamas agreed to an Egyptian to reinstate the Gaza ceasefire. Per the proposal, Hamas must swap up to six Israeli hostages and the remains of an unspecified number killed during the war. In exchange, Israeli officials will release Palestinians incarcerated in Israel, initiate negotiations on ending the war and lift the Israeli blockade. This blockade has prevented humanitarian aid from entering Gaza and cut off the supply of electricity in recent weeks.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Hamas Political Bureau member Bassem Naim said the group’s acceptance of a 50-day extension of the ceasefire’s first phase was dependent on the mediators, the US, Qatar and Egypt, guaranteeing that all parties would engage in serious second-phase negotiations that would bring an end to the war and Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip.

The problem is that whatever guarantee the mediators may give is unlikely to be worth the paper it would be written on. The US is the only country capable of pressuring Israel to comply.

“There is no force on the planet prepared to give Hamas assurances that if they give up their only card — the dead and living hostages — Israel would agree to all of its obligations. Hamas understands what Trump and Netanyahu are doing with the phases. They’re Hamas of the cards it has left,” said veteran Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller, who worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations.

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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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At the heart of the conflict is the , a hydroelectric project on the . Ethiopia’s dam construction has angered Egypt, which sees it as a threat to its water supply. The Nile is crucial for Egypt, providing nearly all its water resources. While Ethiopia argues that the dam is solely for electricity generation and won’t significantly impact water flow, Egypt still needs to be convinced. This dispute has deep historical roots, reflecting long-standing power dynamics between the two nations.

The region’s history is marked by conflicts and shifting alliances. In the 1970s, Cold War dynamics played out in the Horn of Africa, with the United States and Soviet Union supporting opposing sides. The between Ethiopia and Somalia in 1977–1978 was a significant event, resulting in a Somali defeat that still resonates today. These historical conflicts have shaped current relationships and tensions between countries in the region.

Countries of the Horn of Africa. Via Zeremariam Fre (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister has ambitious plans for his country, including rebuilding the capital and reestablishing Ethiopia’s access to the sea. This vision includes developing a port in a move that has angered Somalia. Ethiopia’s potential recognition of Somaliland has further complicated regional dynamics. Meanwhile, Eritrea’s relationship with Ethiopia has cooled.

Involving outside powers adds complexity to the situation. Egypt has begun providing military support to Somalia, potentially countering Ethiopia. The United Arab Emirates plays a significant financial backer in the region, though its exact strategy remains unclear. Other external powers, such as Turkey, India, China and the United States, also have interests in the area, further complicating the geopolitical landscape.

Precarious stability and the global implications of African tensions

The ongoing civil war in Sudan and the instability in South Sudan contribute to the region’s overall volatility. These conflicts have drawn in various international actors, each with their own agendas. The situation in Sudan, in particular, has the potential to impact the broader regional dynamics, especially given its strategic location and historical ties to both Egypt and Ethiopia.

Despite having a significant military presence in Djibouti, the United States is currently preoccupied with other global issues. This relative disengagement from the Horn of Africa’s tensions could allow other actors to fill the power vacuum. A solid mediating force is necessary to avoid escalating regional conflicts.

The situation in the Horn of Africa resembles the complex alliances and tensions that preceded World War I. The interconnected nature of the conflicts, the involvement of multiple regional and global powers and the potential for rapid escalation are concerning parallels. The region’s strategic importance, particularly in maritime trade and geopolitical influence, makes these tensions globally significant.

Looking forward, the stability of the Horn of Africa remains precarious. The combination of historical grievances, current political ambitions and resource disputes creates a volatile mix. The role of external powers, particularly China and the United Arab Emirates, will be crucial in shaping future developments. As global attention remains focused on other crises, the risk of overlooking the simmering tensions in this critical region could have far-reaching consequences for regional and global stability.

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Three distinct structures that are emblematic of the UAE’s approach: the (India, Israel, the UAE and the US), the (Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, the UAE and the US) and trilateral cooperation between the UAE, India and France. These platforms are not just for discussions; they are carefully designed to enhance the UAE’s diplomatic and economic influence. Through these efforts, the country demonstrates its belief that minilateralism can effectively achieve diplomatic and strategic goals.

What is minilateralism?

Traditional multilateralism strives to achieve unanimous agreement among a wide array of countries, a process that often moves slowly. It aims to promote global unity through comprehensive agreements involving a wide range of stakeholders. It emphasizes broad inclusivity and consensus.

Minilateralism, on the other hand, is characterized by its deftness and efficiency. It takes a more streamlined approach by bringing together a select group of countries with shared interests to address specific challenges. This method allows for quicker, more targeted and adaptable responses to global issues. It also promotes deeper cooperation among countries with aligned strategic goals.

This speed is vital in today’s multipolarity world, where global power is spread across various centers of influence. In such a landscape, the ability to form effective partnerships within a smaller, more manageable group is essential for success. Nations that collaborate through minilateralism can better navigate the complex interplay of international relations and collectively exert more influence on global affairs.

Strategic implications and global leadership

The UAE’s involvement in minilateral initiatives aligns with its broader geopolitical goals. The country enhances its influence and shapes international discussion by holding strategic dialogues, trade agreements and collaborations on issues like climate change and health crises. These efforts highlight the UAE’s capacity for leadership and in global diplomacy. The country’s foreign policy must contend with volatile issues of and ; it must be able to make quick decisions and cannot allow a vast group of actors to slow it down.

Despite its benefits, concerns persist that minilateralism might overlook important perspectives and lead to a fragmented global governance structure. Nonetheless, the UAE’s adept handling of these criticisms reflects its commitment to a balanced, inclusive approach to international relations. By combining minilateral and multilateral strategies, the country its versatility and innovation on the world stage.

Minilateral ventures

The I2U2 Group and the Negev Forum showcase the UAE’s strategic vision and commitment to practical collaboration. These platforms enable the country to work with major global and regional powers, utilizing each country’s strengths and resources. Such play a crucial role in improving regional security, fostering economic growth and addressing common challenges with creative approaches.

Additionally, the trilateral cooperation between the UAE, India and France underscores the UAE’s ambition to be a key player in both regional and international affairs. This initiative, which focuses on areas such as maritime security, climate change and renewable energy, highlights the country’s strategic positioning. It also showcases its capacity to form alliances with major powers from different continents.

These engagements diversify the UAE’s foreign policy tools and show its adaptability and forward-thinking approach. This strategy leads to more efficient and impactful outcomes, elevating the UAE’s reputation as a proactive, innovative and cooperative state.

The UAE’s minilateral initiatives indicate its strategic balancing in international relations, engaging with diverse states to navigate global uncertainties. This approach highlights the country’s ambition to influence the geopolitical landscape through dynamic minilateralism.

The country’s shift towards minilateralism represents a significant evolution in diplomacy, emphasizing strategic flexibility and pragmatic cooperation. The UAE is a trailblazer. It has set a precedent for navigating contemporary international relations and shaped a new diplomatic paradigm for the 21st century.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Concerned that the war could mobilize segments of civil society, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where any form of public protest is banned, have cracked down on expressions of solidarity with Gaza, including the sporting of the keffiyeh, a checkered scarf that symbolizes Palestinian nationalism.

In December, pro-Palestinian activists at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai unprecedented restrictions, including prohibitions on flags and explicitly naming a country in news conferences, and scrutiny of their slogans. In January, the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, the biggest film event in the Middle East and North Africa, welcomed Palestinian cinema but the donning of keffiyehs by attendees.

Egypt is feeling the economic pinch

Like in the second half of the 20th century, protests in the Middle East beyond the Gulf in support of Palestinians and against Israel’s assault on Gaza are as much about anger at governments’ faltering economic performance as they are about the war itself.

Nowhere is the anger more acute than in Egypt, where the country’s currency slipped this week sharply against the US dollar after the central bank raised its main interest rate by 600 basis points to 27.75% and said it would allow the currency’s exchange rate to be set by market forces. It was the Egyptian pound’s fifth devaluation in two years. Hard hit by the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the government the measures to stymie Egypt’s 31% inflation rate, attract desperately needed foreign investment, and tackle its staggering shortage of foreign currency.

Egypt has suffered from a loss of tourism, significantly reduced Suez Canal shipping revenues because of Yemeni Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, rising wheat prices in the wake of the Ukraine war and economic mismanagement, including investment in megaprojects such as a $58 billion new desert capital, as well as granting military-owned enterprises preferential treatment and an oversized stake in the economy.

The floating of the Egyptian pound an expansion from $3 billion to $8 billion of Egypt’s International Monetary Fund bailout loan, making the North African country one of the IMF’s highest borrowers.

The IMF agreement cemented a recent deal with the United Arab Emirates to develop a prime stretch of Egypt’s Mediterranean coast with a investment over the next two months. Egypt will retain a 35% stake in the development with the Talaat Moustafa Group, a construction conglomerate involved in building the new capital as one of the beneficiaries. While not officially announced, well-placed sources said It was understood that the deal was contingent on Egypt reaching an agreement with the IMF.

Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have in recent years backed away from pumping funds into black holes. Instead, they increasingly investments in countries like Egypt and Pakistan to economic reforms and prospects for a return on investment.

The UAE pioneered the approach when it based a government minister in Cairo immediately after general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s 2013 UAE-backed coup that toppled Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president. The UAE official attempted to nudge Al-Sisi towards economic reform.

In a similar vein, Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan an investment conference last year, “We work with the International Monetary Fund and according to its rules. The days of unconditional assistance are over.”

Egypt walks a political tightrope

Last week, 45-year-old policeman Abdel-Gawad Muhammad al-Sahlamy was alone when he a one-man protest waving a Palestinian flag atop an advertisement billboard in the port city of Alexandria, but many Egyptians were likely to have been with him in spirit. Many are angry that Egypt’s Refah border crossing into Gaza remains closed despite the images of thousands of Gazans dying and imminent famine.

In October, the government sought to pre-empt potential protests by pro-Palestinian demonstrations of its own.

Al-Sisi believes that pro-Palestinian activists who were allowed to stage protests under former president Hosni Mubarak shifted their focus in 2011 to his regime and ultimately toppled him during the popular Arab uprisings. The revolts also led to the demise of autocratic rulers in Tunisia, Libya and Yemen and sparked mass anti-government demonstrations elsewhere in the Middle East.

To be sure, Egypt is worried that Israel’s destruction of Gaza is an effort to rid the Strip of its population by inducing Gazans to flee to Egypt. Officials in Cairo also fear that Hamas operatives could infiltrate the Sinai Peninsula where the military has been countering a low-level insurgency. Al-Sisi’s government is wary of Hamas because of its links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Even so, many Egyptians resent the government’s close security ties with Israel and its support for a 17-year-long Israeli blockade of Gaza that has been tightened since the war. Egyptian resentment is compounded by that corrupt Egyptian government officials linked to the country’s intelligence service and a well-connected businessman who hails from the Sinai charge up to per person for travel permits from Gaza to Egypt.

Al-Sahlamy shouted “God is Great” and denounced Al-Sisi as a “traitor and an agent” before being arrested by security forces. The Egyptian Network for Human Rights (ENHR) Al-Sahlamy has not been heard from since.

The network quoted a friend of Al-Sahlamy as saying he was “breaking down” because of the war, which he described as “injustice.” Al-Sahlamy demanded that “the [Egyptian] borders [with Gaza] should be opened” to allow Gazans to escape the carnage, ENHR quoted the policeman’s friend as saying.

The IMF’s austerity program could push struggling Egyptians to a level of destitution not seen since the bread riots of 1977, despite the government’s insistence that it will put in place social protection measures to shield the most vulnerable.

The rising cost of basic goods has deepened the hardships faced by lower-class Egyptians. They have suffered from price hikes since the government embarked on an ambitious reform program in 2016 to overhaul the battered economy. Nearly of Egyptians live in poverty, according to official figures.

For now, Egyptians, like others elsewhere in the Arab world, fear that uprisings would only enhance the chaos already gripping their part of the world. In Egypt’s case, “the question of Sisi’s future will arise when Egyptian citizens decide that they have nothing more to lose,” Israeli journalist and Middle East analyst Zvi Bar’el. The same is true for much of the Middle East beyond the Gulf, with widespread public frustration at Arab states’ inability or unwillingness to alleviate Palestinian suffering as the joker in the pack.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The United States usually gravitates toward focusing on a “process” in the Middle East — often involving Arab–Israeli peace efforts of some stripe. The Bush administration focused on democratization (once it had moved past the initial military strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan) and the Obama administration on Iran ties. The Biden team has settled on Israeli–Saudi ties. Even so, the administration is determined not to let the Middle East become its focus, and it hopes the region will not become a distraction.

Despite the pivot to China, the Middle East continues to demand US attention

Globally, the Biden administration is focused on great power competition. Unlike the Trump administration, however, the Biden team emphasizes the importance of working with allies and partners on shared challenges with the goal of creating a more predictable, rules-based global environment. In the Middle East in particular, the administration has been intent to diminish the emphasis placed on military operations, partly through diplomacy and other aspects of statecraft and partly through efforts to boost partner capacity and partner integration. Notably, counterterrorism plays a much smaller role in Biden administration rhetoric on the region, and a US desire to help improve regional governance has remained muted.

In practice, the biggest problem the administration has had is persuading its partners of its commitment. A narrative that Biden was seeking to abandon the Middle East set in early, and this saw allies and partners scurrying to hedge against an impending power vacuum. China in particular has benefitted from this perception, a development that has fed into Washington’s global emphasis on China’s changing role. Perhaps inadvertently, a US focus on China creates tension between a desire to focus America’s attention on the Western Pacific and a desire to focus on a key area of Chinese attention, the Middle East.

Why Saudi Arabia and Iran Are Making Out Now

For the Biden administration, getting the “China piece” right has been a challenge with two key partners, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Biden of the Saudis during his presidential campaign, and many Democratic Party activists think his criticism of the Saudis was right. The Saudis’ commitment to sustained oil production cuts, the ongoing war in Yemen and political repression at home all discomfort many Democrats. Yet Biden and his team have found the Saudis to be essential partners on everything from energy pricing to regional security to counterterrorism, and the rapid liberalization of some aspects of Saudi life is a sign that the kingdom is changing, at least in part in ways the Biden team finds constructive.

President Biden’s awkward to Saudi Arabia in July 2022 and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s much smoother in December 2022 created a visible contrast. Since then, the Biden administration seems to have found its footing with Saudi Arabia, with a series of high-level visits to help advance ties with Israel and open discussion about the possibility of normalization.

While the US-Saudi relationship has been improving in the last nine months, the US–UAE relationship has been growing more tense. Not only have the two parties failed to agree on terms to sell the F-35 to the UAE — after the to do so was the foundation for Israel’s official recognition by the UAE and three other Arab governments — but tensions over the UAE’s ties to Russia, amidst the war in Ukraine, and to China have raised the temperature in both capitals. Billions of dollars in Russian assets and thousands of Russian citizens have into the UAE, and there are widespread reports that the UAE is Russian economic activity. Complaints that the Emiratis were allowing China to construct a in Abu Dhabi, and disbelief at their denials, raised tensions further.

The UAE had grown accustomed to being Washington’s favorite and most trusted Arab government, but much of that shine has worn off. The perception among Democrats that the UAE was too closely aligned with Trump and with Republican politics has lingered. Meanwhile, the Qatari decision to make every effort to help with the withdrawal from Afghanistan created a debt of US in stark contrast to lingering UAE–Qatar dating from the 2017  blockade that other UAE allies have since abandoned.

Qatar: America’s Best Friend in the Gulf?

Iran remains a Biden administration focus, but movement is slow. The administration was never able to resume direct nuclear talks with the Iranians (it came into office in January 2021; President Raisi came into office in August 2022, and the timing was never right). Resuming compliance with the nuclear accord was an initial objective of some in the administration, but this has been abandoned. The Biden administration appears to be pursuing a “less for less” strategy of something short of an agreement in return for something short of sanctions relief, built on private understandings rather than public agreements. With the Iranian economy under pressure, and with the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in diminishing health, the Biden team seems to have decided that Iran remains important but is not urgent and the time to negotiate heavily is not now.

Is There a US–Iran “Non-Agreement”?

Saudi–Israeli relations may be Biden’s chief focus

Some of the administration’s stickiest problems are in Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu is the favorite of few in the Biden White House, but he is far more palatable than many members of his ruling right-wing coalition. Biden has trodden lightly in Israel’s ongoing political crisis, although his sympathies are clear. It is unclear whether Netanyahu has any wiggle room — to push off a reckoning with the Israeli public, to sustain his coalition, to tack toward the center and build a different coalition, or any other course. Meanwhile, violence is growing in Israel (both between Arabs and Jews and within the Arab community), the economy is weakening, politics are polarizing and Palestinian politics are dissolving. Israel could have a crisis on many fronts.

For Biden, putting an Israeli–Saudi peace deal front and center meets a number of needs. On the Israeli side, the prospect of a deal with Saudi Arabia, which is widely popular in Israel, allows the United States to press Israel while saying it is merely advancing Saudi normalization. For the US–Saudi relationship, serious strategic discussions have put to rest all of the discourse about the United States abandoning the Middle East. Like many processes, this one is likely to unfold over years, and the Saudi aspirations are far above what any US administration is likely to deliver or be able to deliver. For the Saudi side that’s fine.

In fact, the Saudis feel less urgency than the other parties by far. First, they are not committed to the principle of making an agreement, whereas both Israel and the United States have long talked about the importance of normalization between Israel and its neighbors. Netanyahu and Biden also face difficult political straits, and each could use a win right now. On the Saudi side, the economy is strong and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman believes he will be in power for decades. He can make this deal today, in five years or in ten. For such a major move, he will want major rewards. And from a purely political perspective, it is hard to imagine that he is eager to deliver a political victory to either Biden or Netanyahu; in any case, he may doubt their ability to deliver.

Last Saturday, the Saudi online newspaper Elaph that Saudi Arabia had frozen talks over normalization because Israel had been refusing any gesture to the Palestinians. Then, on Tuesday, The New York Times that the White House was exploring a formal defense treaty with Saudi Arabia. It remains unclear whether the contradictory reports of stagnation and progress are related, or what either might have to do with the shape of any future agreement. Regardless, we are likely many steps away from a comprehensive deal.

The US–Saudi–Israeli triangle is likely to be an important, and perhaps even the dominant line of effort for the United States in the Middle East in the years to come. Crises will emerge, and some are likely to displace the talks for a time. The logic of greater cooperation seems clear to all sides, however, and in the absence of other US-led processes, this one is likely to be a central dynamic over many years.

[ first published this piece.]

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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Despite the addition of South Africa in 2010 and the establishment of the in 2014 and the in 2015, BRICS lay becalmed for years. It has only really been energized by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The way in which the war has bolstered relations between the US and its allies in Europe and Asia has spurred Beijing to see BRICS as the best available vehicle to pull some more firmly into its orbit. As Steve Tsang of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, has :

What the Chinese are offering is an alternative world order for which autocrats can feel safe and secure in their own countries. They can find an alternative direction of development without having to accept the conditionalities imposed by the democratic Americans and European powers.

In its summit this August, BRICS invited six states to join the grouping on January 1, 2024. Among these are three Arab states: Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.

What’s motivating the Arab states?

By any reasonable definition, all three countries qualify as autocracies. However, beyond this and the shared objective of closer economic ties with China as a counterweight to the US, they exhibit important differences in their motives.

For Egypt, it is a case of “cleft stick.” On the one hand, it has long been a top recipient of US aid. On the other, its on the dollar has exacerbated the dire of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, thanks to its dependency on imported energy and food. Foreign investors have withdrawn billions of dollars as the currency has , the Gulf countries that provided support in the early days of the Sisi coup have lately imposed tougher conditions and a $3 billion from the IMF comes with stringent reform requirements. BRICS membership would facilitate trading with other members in local currencies and should help to attract more investment from them.

In contrast, although the UAE has benefitted enormously from and has burgeoning trade relations with , and (with which it has just finalized a deal to trade in ), the main driver behind its BRICS application is political. It remains close with the US as far as security guarantees are concerned; but its confidence in US bankability has declined to the point where, as Vivian Nereim in The New York Times last month, “Emirati leaders … fear a decline in American interest in the region — and the military defense that comes with it — and argue that Washington has not done enough to deter threats from Iran.” This dates back at least a decade, so joining BRICS would arguably be no more than the latest example of how, as Nereim notes, “a Middle Eastern leader viewed by the US government as an important partner,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, “is increasingly striking out on his own path.”

Saudi Arabia is, perhaps, the most interesting of the three. As has been well documented, relations between Washington and Riyadh have been rocky during the Biden presidency. Although they would improve significantly were Donald Trump to win the 2024 election, even this would be unlikely to reassure the Saudis over US security guarantees, particularly given Trump’s failure to act on the on Aramco facilities in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Hence, Riyadh’s openness to Beijing-brokered earlier this year which has helped open the BRICS door for both the kingdom and Iran.

Nevertheless, in the margins of the BRICS summit the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, claimed that his country was not committed to joining BRICS before it had had time to consider the terms. As there are no laid-down criteria for membership beyond unanimous agreement among existing members, this is, in itself, sensible. However, it may also mean that Riyadh is using the prospect of BRICS membership as leverage to try to extract more concessions from Washington in their talks over a grand bargain sweeping in the kingdom’s civil nuclear aspirations, arms sales and relations with Israel.

Middle East expert Bruce Riedel ( in The Guardian on July 27) is correct that Riyadh is unlikely to want to give Biden an election boost if he could get both the Netanyahu government and the US Senate on board too. However, from a Saudi perspective, there is no downside to testing the waters. Especially since, as Gideon Rachman in Financial Times on September 4 (and Jon Hoffman made the same point even more forcefully in Arab Digest’s September 6 ), even if a grand bargain were to be struck, it would likely “turn out to be a grand illusion” for Washington.

China is not as available as it seems

All this being said, the biggest illusion of all may be the belief among BRICS candidates that membership would be a major boon to economic ties with China. As I wrote in the Arab Digest’s April 20 , Beijing is struggling with its own economic headwinds. Furthermore, its dominant role at the BRICS summit notwithstanding, China has been turning increasingly inwards since Xi Jinping first started his drive for in the overarching quest to sustain in perpetuity the CCP’s grip on power. Beijing’s principal aim in its promotion of BRICS is therefore to work with other autocracies in promoting its governance model internationally, the better to defend it domestically.

None of this is to say that BRICS is doomed to fail. As opined in a in The Economist, “the BRICS grouping is here to stay.” Nevertheless:

BRICS expansion … would not be a sign of the group’s growing diplomatic clout — quite the opposite, in fact, since finding a common denominator would become more difficult. Expansion would, rather, be a reflection of China’s growing influence when defining the future of the bloc.

From the perspective of the three Arab aspirants, it is therefore worth reflecting carefully if membership could all too easily turn out to be a Faustian pact.

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In response, Arab autocrats are scrambling to squash what they fear could evolve into a third wave of protests in little more than a decade. The autocrats have deployed tools ranging from cracking down on street protests to increased repression to engaging in perfunctory dialogue. They’ve made concessions and economic aid to defuse exploding and potential future powder kegs.

The third wave of protests since the Arab Spring

The latest protests erupted after street agitation across the Middle East bookended the last decade.

In the early 2010s, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Egypt relied on security force violence, military interventions and support for conservatives and rebel militias to roll back the achievements of the 2011 popular revolts that toppled the long-standing autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

Uprisings erupted again in 2019 and 2020 in Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan. A combination of autocratic political maneuvering and the Covid pandemic defanged them, often with devastating consequences.

Analysts, journalists and academics argued that counterrevolutionary measures had replaced the 2011 Arab Spring with a prolonged Arab Winter. The latest protests, however, suggest the winter’s snow may be melting.

This month, Iran braces for the September 16 first anniversary of Masha Amini’s death. Amini died under suspicious circumstances in the custody of Iran’s religious police, who detained her for allegedly wearing her headscarf loosely. Amini’s death sparked months of street protests in which killed 530 people and arrested more than 22,000. Since then, popular defiance has turned , cultural , courthouses and into protest and civil disobedience venues. “Wrong decisions may have painful consequences for the establishment. People cannot take more pressure. If it continues, we will witness street protests again,” a former government official .

Syria has seen almost two weeks of sustained mass anti-government protests in the Druze-populated southwest province of Suwayda, long a pro-government stronghold. The demands for the fall of President Bashar al-Assad are resonating in the neighboring Sunni region of Daraa and even Assad’s Alawite stronghold of Latakia. “Initially, Assad probably thought, �I have won and we can let this happen; we can let the Druze let off some steam.’ It turned out to be a mistake from the Assad point of view, and Assad’s military will have to keep him in power,” Syria expert Joshua Landis.

Authorities in Bahrain have so far failed to end a widening, more than three-week-long by 800 prisoners, or at least 20% of the Gulf state’s prison population, by acceding to some demands for improved incarceration conditions.

Libyan security forces were this week on the streets of the capital, Tripoli, to prevent renewed protests against a meeting between since dismissed Foreign Minister Najla al-Mangoush and her Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen. The protests heaped pressure on Libya’s internationally recognized interim national unity government to step down and make way for a new administration.

Similarly to Iran, has been rocked by nine months of protests — even if Israeli pro-democracy demonstrations have focused on opposition to Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, with no reference to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

In Iraq, Arab and Turkmen protesters opposed to a Kurdish political presence in the disputed multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk clashed with Kurds this weekend, suggesting could rejoin the list of Middle Eastern countries experiencing social unrest. Authorities initially imposed a curfew in Kirkuk after four people were killed in the protests.

Could Egypt be next?

Supporters of President Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, including the UAE, worry Egypt could be the next to witness a renewed wave of protests.

“There’s a feeling people aren’t comfortable with anything right now. There’s a debt crisis, prices of everything and inflation have gone up dramatically. People’s lives and situations go from bad to worse. Their willingness to stay quiet has disappeared. You’re more likely to hear about the discontent openly in the streets,” Egyptian-Canadian journalist Karim Zidan said to me days after he arrived in Cairo for a visit last month.

In an entitled “Egypt’s Sisi Rules by Fear—and Is Ruled by It,” Egypt expert Steven A. Cook added, “There is a large, growing, and noticeable divergence between what the government promises Egyptians and how they experience everyday life.”

Fear of renewed protests in Egypt, set to become the world’s largest importer of wheat for the fiscal year 2023–2024, was likely one reason why the Abu Dhabi Export Office and UAE-based agribusiness Al Dahra last month to provide Egypt for the next five years with $100 million a year worth of imported milled wheat “at competitive prices.”

Fear of unrest drives harsh repression

The fear of protests, even in countries like Saudi Arabia with a low risk of discontent spilling into the streets, may also explain out-of-proportion repressive measures like the kingdom’s recent of Muhammad al-Ghamdi, a 54-year-old teacher and brother of a dissident Islamist scholar, for his activity on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Human Rights Watch said the two X accounts associated with al-Ghamdi and cited in court documents had only ten followers between them. Al-Ghamdi generally retweeted tweets by known critics of the Saudi government.

In a just-published , author Robert D. Kaplan noted that Vladimir Lenin, a founder of the Soviet Union, understood “that it was necessary to murder and incarcerate the innocent. For how else could a dictator inculcate total fear in the population? To punish only the guilty would provide the innocent, who constitute most of the population, with peace of mind. And that, of course, would undermine the sort of control that Lenin believed was necessary.“

Kaplan’s analysis bears out in Iran’s response to protests and Israel’s West Bank and Gaza-related policies. Moreover, it doesn’t bode well for Syrian protesters. Even so, the analysis provides an explanation for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s unnecessarily harsh repression of any sign of dissent.

However, what protests in countries like Iran and Syria and powder kegs such as Egypt suggest, as did the 1989 anti-government demonstrations that sparked the demise of the Leninist empire, is that repression at best buys autocrats and authoritarians time. In the end, it doesn’t remove the risk of mounting discontent with social and economic policies spilling onto the streets.

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This first wave of BRICS enlargement was riven with tensions. While China favored the diffusion of its influence through the enlargement of the group, Brazil and India had against enlargement. They were more interested in deepening coordination between the existing members.

Although diplomatic coordination was never easy within BRICS, the group’s founding members used to share the objective of counterbalancing Western dominance. However, this shared objective has been shattered with the recent group’s enlargement.

China in charge

The manner and selection of countries for the enlargement of BRICS made clear China’s unchallenged ability to transform the group as an agent of an increasingly Chinese-led emerging global order. The selection of several autocracies as new members is telling of China’s view of how the global order should be shaped: an ad-hoc multilateralism that aids its own global ambitions.

With this autocratic turn of BRICS, the group’s previous rhetoric of reformism of global institutions is now replaced by a new narrative. China sees BRICS as a way to promote a global governance model that downplays liberal-democratic values and weakens the global rules-based order. As BRICS turns autocratic, the bloc is likely to start opposing US influence more emphatically, and Brazil and India will be isolated within the group.

Brazil and India’s acquiescence to the enlargement of BRICS has been possible with China’s support to the permanent membership of both countries in the . Brazil and India were never shy about their dream to permanently sit in the UN Security Council. However, neither country had imagined that China’s support for their entry into the UN’s selective club would result in their diminished influence in BRICS.

Two democracies in an authoritarian club

Unlike their autocratic fellow members of BRICS (both old and new), Brazil and India have a natural inclination to embrace the principles of equality and liberty both domestically and internationally. These principles, or the lack thereof, determine how democratic or autocratic regimes govern their countries, and, as a result, how they shape their foreign policies.

BRICS until now lacked an ideological or political orientation. What seemed to hold these countries together, apart from being large and prosperous emerging economies, was the shared experience (except for Russia) of colonialism and economic dependence. This experience is no longer enough to keep BRICS united. Brazil and India have made democratic governance part of their development as nation-states. The road towards democratic development has been tortuous, but Brazil and India have both succeeded in embracing democratic methods to guide their domestic governance and their international behavior.

Under democracy, Brazil and India have prospered greatly, achieving of economic development. These countries increased their human capital with more educated populations and reduced poverty and inequality, although slowly, over the past decades. Indeed, democracy has given these countries the opportunity to shine globally.

The World Should Learn From Poverty Alleviation in India

As democratic reformers of the fragile liberal order, Brazil and India will continue their efforts to become more influential in international multilateral institutions. And if these institutions welcome both countries by giving them more relevance, Brazil and India’s level of commitment to the now-autocratic BRICS will wane. In the meantime, BRICS will become the dream group of autocrats who want to find political and economic support in an increasingly chaotic international arena.

[ edited this piece.]

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India announced its goal during its G20 presidency as “,” glossed in English as “One Earth, One Family, One Future.” On the surface, this seems like an agenda based on global inclusivity, but behind this are India’s far-reaching ambitions of solidifying its influence as a leader of the Global South and one of the rising powers in the world.

The invitation of Bangladesh holds special importance as this is the first time the country will attend the summit and it is also the only South Asian country to be invited this year. India has also stated that it expects Bangladesh’s “” in the G20 meetings to promote the issues of mutual interest in the global arena.

Why Bangladesh?

The Modi government has dreamt big and its invitation to Bangladesh is a part of the strategy. But where does Bangladesh fit in? Why now, 18 summits after the formation of the G20? The answer lies in Bangladesh’s exponential economic growth, as well as its physical location. 

Bangladesh was the largest economy in 2022, with a GDP size of $460 billion. Its economy has grown 5–7% each year over the last decade (with the exception of 2020, the year of the Covid pandemic). PwC Bangladesh be the 23rd-largest economy by 2050. Bangladesh has its larger neighbor India in many social and economic indicators. It is no tiny nation, either; with a population of 160 million people and a rapidly developing economy, Bangladesh is a potential golden goose.

Bangladesh has emerged as a regional hub for trade. Goods from China, Myanmar and elsewhere make their way from Bangladeshi ports to Nepal and Bhutan by land through India. So, investing in Bangladesh is in India’s interest to prevent China from instead consolidating influence in the region. If India is to project power globally, it must secure its own backyard by keeping its neighbors close.

In March, India and Bangladesh the project to build the India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline, which will carry diesel fuel from a hub in Siliguri, India, to Parbatipur, Bangladesh. Along with Japan, the two countries held a this April to discuss developing physical links between Bangladesh and Northeast India, which is landlocked and largely separated from the rest of India by Bangladesh.

Given both the lucrative opportunities for development and the paid to the Indo-Pacific region by powers like China and the US, it is in India’s best interest to adopt a “good neighbor policy” towards Bangladesh.

Not only India has its eye on Bangladesh

Where India sees Bangladesh as both an economic and a strategic investment, other major powers have their own goals with Dhaka. 

China wants Bangladesh to be a part of its expansionist string of pearls. Beijing has successfully enrolled Bangladesh into its . China’s non-interference policy and Bangladesh’s non-alignment policy have kept their relationship smooth. Beijing’s massive investment in Bangladesh, its extension of to most goods from Bangladesh, the countries’ growing trade and their political collaboration on the Rohingya issue have helped bring Bangladesh closer to China.

The cooperation of countries like Bangladesh can help China both to extend its influence in South and Southeast Asia and create alternate routes to the Strait of Malacca, a choke point that is currently a for China.

The US has also shown a keen interest in Bangladesh, but its policies are complicated by Washington’s ever-consistent need to interfere in the internal matters of others. On one hand, the US wants Bangladesh to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to restrain China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific. On the other hand, has targeted Dhaka with about the security of its democracy. The growing frustration caused by incidents like this is pushing Bangladesh more towards China and India. Still, Bangladesh has not formally chosen sides yet.

That is plenty enough reason for the G20 to want Bangladesh at the table. As former colonies are rising as alternatives to the old powers, Bangladesh, like the rest of the Global South, finally has an opportunity to be a player instead of a pawn in the game. Dhaka must continue what it has started, build strong infrastructure, alleviate poverty and cautiously steer through the multilateral platforms like G20 to keep a good number of friends close. If Bangladesh plays its position well, it can be a real factor in the power politics of the world.

[ edited this piece.]

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Then, the Ministry of Minerals in Zambia that the gold was fake. The ingots were merely gold-plated and contained other metals, mostly copper and zinc. Officials initiated the investigation as one of international fraud. The race to uncover more information about the passengers, plane and cargo then began.

Using open source information, Egyptian independent media outlet Saheeh Masr (“True Egypt”) quickly an investigation which found that plane is managed — according to Eurocontrol, which specializes in databases of civil and military aircraft — by a company called , which has its headquarters in Dubai.

Arab Digest has often in the past on the UAE’s role in African gold, a that funds armed conflict, costs producing countries tax revenue and has significant consequences on public health and the environment.

Saleeh Masr also the seized which was in San Marino to an unknown owner, had recently visited Libya and Saudi Arabia at the same time as high level Egyptian security delegations, while other independent media outlets claimed to have also traced the plane’s path to Tel Aviv. A photo emerged of the Egyptian Minister of Interior using the plane on an to Tunisia on 28 February. 

Who was detained?

On 17 August, another independent Egyptian fact-checking website, (“Don’t Believe It”), acquired a copy of a Zambian the identities of five of the six Egyptians who had been detained. They were:

Whatever one thinks about its stability or fragility, the summit clearly marked a bold step in a new direction. It should go without saying that any media claiming to report international news should be focused on elaborating the historical significance of this event. Not in the West, it seems.

Given the regional impact of the summit, Al Jazeera predictably devoted multiple articles and interviews to the event. The Guardian it, but in a way that seemed to insist that the expansion was “more symbolic than anything.” The New York Times decided simply to ignore it.

The Washington Post dared to acknowledge the summit, but avoided engaging its own reporting. Instead it reprinted a Bloomberg by Pankaj Mishra bearing the title: “BRICS Shows It’s Little More Than a Meaningless Acronym.” The title alone invites the potential reader to ignore the article’s contents.

Mishra is an Indian working for Western media who is married to former British prime minister David Cameron’s cousin. His take reflects the Westernized Indian media’s anguished reaction to the entire BRICS phenomenon, equally reflected in Palki Sharma’s dismissive on the event for billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s news website, Firstpost. Even though India is a major player in BRICS and has expressed its commitment to the defined path, Westernized Indians are embarrassed by what they see as an implicit alignment with China. They also do not want to provoke the ire of the US and prefer to avoid even thinking about BRICS’s growing influence.

The Financial Times tried a slightly different , assuming the tone of a bored consultant in the City of London. “The Brics may grow,” it acknowledged, “but it is unlikely to achieve much. Plenty of talk, little action. Not too different, then, from some business meetings.” 

With its expansion, BRICS has announced the equivalent of opening of a boulevard through which the economic actors of the future will be invited to move. But because the roadworks are currently being carried out and no vehicles are traveling over it, FT dismisses it as nothing but talk. In contrast Al Jazeera Professor Karin Costa Vasquez, a specialist of Diplomatic Practice, who understands that it’s about getting to places that previously were not accessible. Vasquez pointed to the most obvious and significant outcome: the expansion of BRICS quite simply “opens up new avenues for trade.”  

°Ő´Ç»ĺ˛ą˛â’s 51łÔąĎ Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Avenues for trade:

Channels of international exchange that can be opened for the profit of all or controlled and even shut down by some powerful nations who design and run them as selectively managed toll roads.

Contextual note

This reference to avenues is no trivial point. The US and its post-World War II allies defined what can be described as a metaphorical roadmap of the global economy at Bretton Woods in 1944. The tree-lined “avenues of trade” in a new world order featured the World Bank on one side of the street and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the other. Traffic was governed by a police force monitoring the rules of the road. It was called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that later morphed into the WPO.

The new roadmap was designed to accommodate the types of vehicles the US economy would literally be “driven” to produce in the following years. These included brightly chromed, elongated Cadillacs with razor-sharp tail fins, heavy-duty pickup trucks and gas-guzzlers in general. Metaphorically, the new avenues of trade were designed to feed a hegemonic monetary monopoly by injecting dollars into the global economy. The dollars, in the form of Treasury bonds, held by exporting countries served to augment the wealth of the US, allowing the Fed to print more money for domestic consumption and lavish military expenditure. A world composed of impoverished former colonies and developed nations heavily indebted by their recent history of war found itself in a state of permanent dependency on both the dollar and the global US military framework.

This BRICS summit stands, first of all, as a declaration, by an expanding community of nations, of their desire to reconfigure the geopolitical balance of power and establish their autonomy. To achieve that, the tools and practices of trade within the global economy must evolve. Investment manager and prominent author Willem Middelkoop has the idea expressed by esteemed financial strategist, Zoltan Pozsar, that the world is headed towards a regime he calls Bretton Woods 3.0.

Most commentators agree that BRICS was not about the illusory goal of dedollarization, but the more modest one of finding ways to maximize trade among its members in local currencies. Thinkers like Pozsar believe that the end of the hegemonic reign of the dollar is a that has already begun. Middelkoop sees the expansion of BRICS as a major step in that direction.

The Bretton Woods conference in 1944 established the dollar as the global basis for trade. The IMF became the world’s exclusive broker of dollars for the developing world. The real significance of BRICS lies not just in finding new ways of brokering trade. More profoundly, it intends to eliminate the neo-liberal ideology behind the IMF’s decision-making.

BRICS has created an alternative funding institution, the New Development Bank (NDB), headed by former Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff. She has stated NDB’s in these terms: “We repudiate any kind of conditionality. Often a loan is given [by the World Bank or IMF] that certain policies are carried out. We »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t do that. We respect the policies of each country.” She nevertheless admits that the current international financial system exists and humbly admits, “you have to live with it.”

The new, improved BRICS is not a revolution. It is an acceleration of an already existing evolution.

Historical note

Despite the indifference of Western media, this BRICS summit marks a true historical moment. It hasn’t directly affected the global balance of power. But our perception of how the balance of power is likely evolving has clearly changed.

Western media long ago decoded that its role was not to inform the public about geopolitical reality but to shape the perception of it. It is rather attached to the shape of the past. It doesn’t seem to have noticed that the BRICS+ will control upwards of 42% of the world’s oil production. That statistic alone signifies that the iron grip of the petrodollar on the global economy has been loosened and may soon be broken. Nations that can buy oil with their respective currencies  will no longer have to hoard US treasury bonds just to be sure of meeting their energy needs.

In the background of the Johannesburg conference lurks another question. Has Africa finally found the formula that will permit it to emerge from the colonial yoke? South Africa has begun promoting a pan-African settlement system that could threaten both the dollar and the dominant role the IMF and World Bank have played in the management of the African economy. They managed a system devoted to ensuring extraction of resources for global industrial needs. It was little more than a subtle variation on the cynically predatory colonial policies of the past.

So, what does the expanded BRICS tell us about geopolitical trends? Though its coherence as a long-term project has become even murkier with the addition of new members, BRICS is on a path that should permit it to exercise considerably greater geopolitical influence than in the past.

Reconciling many obviously conflicting interests will not be an easy task, but the challenge will likely motivate both the old and new members. With more than one hundred nations expressing an interest in joining the coalition, BRICS+ has become the institution best capable of establishing and amplifying the voice of the Global South on the world stage. This implies challenging the existing world order dominated by the West. That alone may explain the embarrassed silence of Western media, increasingly self-obsessed and more than ever intent on ignoring humanity’s history, past, present and future.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of 51łÔąĎ Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Years later, as I read journalists Simon Clark and Will Louch’s vivid telling of Naqvi’s story in their book, , it dawned on me how disillusioned young people with global aspirations must be feeling. As BBC’s on the subject describes, Naqvi had convinced billionaire investors and even governments that his firm was making money while improving the lives of people in the developing economies where he invested. It was a façade. His investments were not nearly as successful as he claimed them to be, and he took hefty management fees while keeping the business afloat using borrowed cash. Now, he is facing charges that add up to a potential 291-year prison sentence.

Naqvi was no isolated phenomenon. This sort of thing seems to be becoming a pattern. The Guardian published an entitled, “30 under 30-year sentences: Why so many of Forbes’ young heroes face jail.” The article talks about the messes created by Forbes 30 Under 30 awardees who inflated revenues, duped investors and fooled the world just to satisfy the greed created by a  “get-rich-quick” mentality.

One such case is that of , who was the boy-wonder face of crypto at 30 years old. He founded FTX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, and amassed a $16 billion fortune. His meteoric rise was soon overshadowed by a devastating downfall, once again due to fraud charges that left both his business empire and his once-pristine image as an altruistic billionaire in ruins. Similarly, Stanford University dropout , renowned as the visionary behind the Silicon Valley unicorn Theranos, was convicted of conspiring to defraud investors in June 2022. She is now serving an 11-year in Texas.

In a world of ambition and success, fallen icons like Naqvi, Bankman-Fried and Holmes reflect a crisis of ethical leadership. Young entrepreneurs are being raised in a toxic mentality that prioritizes success—quick success—over ethics, integrity and honesty. At the root of the problem is the conception of what “success” means at all.

We must reconceptualize success. Real success is not short-term dollar gains. Private capital is the key to changing today’s world and tackling issues such as climate change, hunger, poverty and disease. But without moral leadership, none of this is possible. Greed, lies and embezzlement can build nothing.

Real success is authentic, integrity-driven impact. Not the superficial, flimsy term “impact” used to impress in today’s world, but honest questions like: How many people have I helped with this business? How many have become independent and empowered? Have I been able to generate employability? Young entrepreneurs must prioritize ethical, purpose-driven practices to build resilient, transformative businesses. Embracing transparency and integrity can redefine success and inspire hope for a better world. 

Another important role lies with the media and journalists—not to glorify stories of overnight success, but to speak about the genuine struggles and challenges on the uphill journey of entrepreneurship.

Rare Story of a Global Indian Manufacturing Success

Lastly, as a business student myself, I feel it is crucial for every business school in the US and across the world, to have as a core subject not only leadership, but also ethical leadership—delving into the cautionary tales of businesses and entrepreneurs led astray by greed, derailing them on their way to triumph.

[ edited this piece.]

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The UN’s Resident Coordinator in Yemen coordinated the fundraising and the acquisition of the necessary agreements from the Huthis as well as the internationally recognized government (IRG), an undertaking that took years of effort and attention. Western nations contributed significant amounts, and the Netherlands in particular took a leading role in funding and mobilizing efforts.

Immediate neighbors who would have been most deeply affected by the disaster of a spill, such as Saudi Arabia, contributed only $10 million, less than might be expected considering both the risk to the Saudi coast and the financial capacity of that state—much of which comes from the production and export of hydrocarbons. The UAE doesn’t even figure in the list of funders. The major international oil companies were also less than generous, though the few still involved in Yemen did contribute. The Yemeni private sector also contributed significantly, as it needs the Red Sea ports for imports of basic commodities.

The shortage of funding from states and major institutions led the UN to launch a crowdfunding operation that had limited support. The United Nations Development Programme on August 11 when the first phase of the operation was completed.

A technically and politically delicate recovery operation

Earlier this year, the UN finally successfully purchased a very large crude carrier-class tanker to replace the Safer and had it modified to ensure it could be used as an FSO. The Dutch company carrying out the operation specializes in this type of complex technical challenge. In late May, its technical support vessel and staff arrived on site with the equipment needed and prepared the Safer. The Dutch team first ensured that there were no toxic gases on and around the vessel that would worsen the risks, conducted technical inspections of the Safer’s hull and machinery and then organized easy access between the two vessels. They also brought the generators necessary to load inert gases to protect the tanks during the transfer of the oil. Two other smaller ships containing emergency response equipment, such as dispersant sprays, were anchored nearby.

In mid-July, the replacement tanker arrived and anchored alongside the Safer. In a major organized by the Huthis, the UN Representative who had been the focal point for the operation, David Gressly, publicly signed the document handing over this new ship to the Sana’a-based chief executive of the Safer Oil company Edris al Shami. Given the controversy over ownership of the ship, the oil and most other aspects of the Yemeni crisis, the Huthis used this opportunity to invite international film crews and journalists to witness their takeover of the tanker, which was formally renamed Yemen. This rare cooperation with international media was clearly designed to strengthen their claim over ownership of these assets following years of successful lobbying that ensured that they contributed nothing to the cost of the operation while strengthening their claim to ownership of any income from the sale of the oil and of the decaying Safer.

The operation to transfer the oil started promptly, and on August 11 the Secretary-General of the UN that the transfer of the 1.1 million barrels of crude oil had been completed.

This first phase has successfully and thankfully avoided a major environmental disaster; it is really good news for Yemenis and other residents along the Red Sea coasts, as well as for the fish, corals, water and all coastal and sea life in the region—let alone shipping, who would have suffered immensely for years, even decades, had the disaster happened. This preventive operation is costing $140 million, whereas cleaning up an oil spill on that scale would have cost up to $20 billion! Given the rarity of good news in UN interventions, the publicity surrounding this success is not surprising.

However, much remains to be done. The new FSO needs to be secured in position and the wreck removed to finalize the clearing of the remaining 22,000 barrels of sludge remaining on the Safer. On the legal front, the IRG has unsurprisingly asserted its own sole authority over the company’s assets, warning international companies against dealing with any parties “impersonating” it. Meetings are taking place between the Yemeni parties involved and the UN to address the next phase of the process. Competition between the Huthis and the IRG for control over the income from the disposal of the Safer and its oil is likely to intensify in the coming months. On top of this, the next phase will require an additional $20 million or so of fundraising.

Although the UN-negotiated truce expired last October, full-scale fighting has not resumed, although clashes are frequent. Hostilities have largely shifted to the economic front in the past year. The oil from the Safer is currently estimated to be worth something in the region of $80 million, while that of the ship’s scrap is $33 million. By comparison, since August last year, the IRG lost about $1.5 billion due to its inability to export oil following the Huthi attacks on two export sites on the Arabian Sea last November. The IRG thus lost its main source of national income, leaving it more dependent than ever on its international supporters, whether the Saudis and Emiratis or beyond via humanitarian and other international assistance.

Despite this rare triumph of UN diplomacy and negotiations, underfunding of the UN’s Humanitarian Response Plan and the continued weakness of the economy mean that living conditions continue to deteriorate for Yemenis. But surely everyone aware of the risks of a catastrophe from the Safer must be relieved that this disaster, at least, has been avoided

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Meanwhile, the cartel collectively stuck to its guns on its above-consensus forecast that would increase this year with what is an abnormally high—by historical standards—2.35 million barrels per day (bpd), and it hinted that its forecast for demand growth in 2024 would be around double the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) forecast of 860,000 bpd. Indeed, the only negative note among OPEC member country delegates was concern over what some see as underinvestment in new output.

Yet all is not well, as the following two, in my view related, points should make clear.

Oil demand will not support prices

First, between October and June, the thirteen-member cartel, in conjunction with the 11 non-members that are also in the , agreed to cut output in three instances, for a total of over 4 million bpd. At the start of last week, Saudi Arabia announced that it would extend through August the of one million bpd it announced in early June; this was quickly followed by Russia’s announcement that it would trim its output too, by 500,000 bpd next month. In principle, at least, this means that total OPEC+ output next month will stand over five million bpd below its output this time last year, i.e. around five percent of total world consumption.

However, the headline consequence of these cuts is that sat at $78.47 per barrel when markets closed for the weekend on 7 July, as against $91.80 per barrel immediately before OPEC+ announced its first cut on 5 October (and $107 per barrel a year ago!). As things stand, both Russia and Saudi Arabia could decide not to persist with these latest cuts beyond August. But further extensions currently look, to me, to be much more likely. Besides, the remaining four million bpd reduction is due to remain in place until 2024 in any case.

To an extent at least, one can continue to dismiss this as a consequence of what I have been describing since last October as “OPEC vs central banks,” as the latter continue to struggle to bring inflation under control. Inflation is coupled with a decidedly below-expectations economic recovery in China, to date at least, following the relaxation of Covid-related restrictions at the end of last year. However, writing in the Financial Times’s “Energy Source” newsletter on 4 July, David Sheppard flags a second, and important, point as follows:

The group’s recent struggle may reveal a difficult underlying truth. Few investors buy the cartel’s message that we’re simply no longer investing enough in oil production, and therefore the price needs to rise to avoid shortages. The market believes, to put it simply, that there will be enough oil around for the foreseeable future.

Sheppard acknowledges that OPEC has been sharply critical of the (clearly related) of the International Energy Agency (IEA) that “growth in world oil demand is set to slow markedly during the 2022-28 forecast period as the energy transition advances” and its view that we shall likely reach “peak oil” before the end of this decade. He goes on to say that, in stark contrast to the market anxieties of “the $100 a barrel era of … 2005-2014,” investors simply do not see a serious risk of there being a structural (as opposed to shock-driven, short-term) shortfall in supply. This, he argues, “inevitably filters through to prices today.”

Noting, but largely marginalizing, short-term factors currently in play such as inflation-related concerns, Sheppard concludes that “underpinning oil’s rather flat 2023 [there is an] almost complete lack of fear about the long term. That’s a big shift that should worry OPEC+ even more.”

Can the cartel keep its unity if prices drop?

Second, if the IEA and, it seems, a clear majority of investors are correct, it is well worth asking whether OPEC can survive as we approach, seemingly rapidly now, an era where demand for oil is set to fall dramatically and irrevocably. We may indeed already be very close to the point where at least one major producer, deeply concerned about stranded assets, could be cut and run and, in so doing, fire the starting pistol for a free-for-all.

The producer in question is, of course, the United Arab Emirates. In a with Arab Digest, William Law debated with the Baker Institute’s Jim Krane on whether the Emiratis should “go or stay” and, if the latter, whether they would quit imminently or bide their time for now.

There is nothing new about this. In mid-2021 when a major dispute blew up between the Saudis and the UAE over the latter’s (from which its OPEC quota is calculated) CNBC’s Sam Meredith was one of many commentators (among whom I was not numbered!) who wondered whether the dispute could trigger the immediate demise of OPEC.

As I wrote for Arab Digest at the time, that the crisis was defused owed more to the cracks than it did to reaching a sustainable accord. Even last month’s in the UAE’s baseline is no more than a temporary reprieve, in my view, as was underlined by the last week to join in with �voluntary’ cuts.

Of course, OPEC has been written off on more than one occasion in the past; and it has survived more than one departure. However, for a minor producer such as Ecuador (500,000 bpd) to quit is one thing—especially at a time when global demand for oil was rising sharply. For the UAE to do so at the start of an era when demand is set to fall in perpetuity would be quite another.

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Widely seen as giving China a grip on Qatari gas, the deal is as much a commercial agreement as it is a security arrangement. It acknowledges China as the Gulf state’s foremost export market and gives China a stake in protecting Qatar.

Qatar is not alone in giving China preferential access to its energy reserves. So do other major Gulf exporters, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for whom China has become their foremost market.

Qatar has close ties with the US

The difference is that Qatar’s energy dealings with China are embedded in a policy that broadly aligns the Gulf state with the United States, emphasizes the Gulf state’s utility as a go-between, and avoids ruffling feathers.

In contrast, Saudi Arabia and the UAE stress their independence, on occasion counter or distance themselves from the policies of the United States, the region’s security guarantor, and sometimes poke the US in the eye.

Last month, the contrast was on full display. While UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed raised eyebrows as the only to attend the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani flew under the radar a week later when he Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Bin Zayed “has made a sport out of the Biden administration’s efforts to repair the relationship” between the United States and the UAE. “Of course, from his own perspective, Bin Zayed has proved himself a loyal partner to the United States time and again, but of late has had little to show for it,” said scholars Jonathan Lord and Airona Baigal.

In a further illustration of the contrast, Qatar arranged a between a senior Venezuelan and US official last month to improve strained relations resulting from the United States’ recognition of opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president and US sanctions against the South American state.

Officials said the talks could lead to a prisoner swap.

“Getting involved in Venezuela is a high-reward/low-risk . By offering its services, Doha is consolidating its emerging reputation as a global diplomatic go-between, helping Washington in several particularly politically sensitive areas,” said Eldar Mamedov, a Brussels-based foreign policy expert.

A seemingly unlikely candidate to mediate in a region with which it has no ethnic or religious affinity, Qatar was well-positioned because it had neither joined a large number of governments recognizing Guaido nor adhered to the sanctions. Qatar’s refusal failed to upset Washington.

Similarly, Qatar hosts a Taliban office at the United States’ request. Hosting facilitated the 2021 negotiated US withdrawal from Afghanistan and since then. With the withdrawal underway, Qatar, like the UAE, provided significant logistical assistance.

Furthermore, Qatar, at times, between the United States and Iran and serves as a postman relaying messages between the two countries.

At the same time, Qatar, unlike the UAE, has not emerged as a for Russians seeking to circumvent US and European sanctions, including Russia’s Wagner Group, or suspected criminals and corrupt officials.

As a result, the US has sanctioned Emirati rather than Qatari companies for violating US sanctions on and Iran. Moreover, Emirati freewheeling has landed the UAE on the of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering watchdog.

Furthermore, Qatar has ensured that it is less dependent on Chinese telecommunications technology that the United States fears could give China access to US technology embedded in American weapons systems and other security projects.

Last year, the US rewarded Qatar, home to the largest US military base in the Middle East, by awarding major non-NATO ally .

UAE and Saudi Arabia do not love the US the same way

To be sure, the and have been helpful, most recently negotiating prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine. In the past, the UAE contributed troops to support the United States in Afghanistan.

The different Gulf state approaches are rooted in Qatar’s response to the failed 3.5-year-long UAE-Saudi-led economic and diplomatic boycott of the Gulf state. The embargo was lifted in early 2021 without the Gulf state caving in to demands that would have put Qatar under Emirati and Saudi tutelage.

During the boycott, Qatar significantly tightened its security relationship and cooperation with the United States in fighting terrorism finance.

As a result, Qatari perceptions of relations with the United States differ from the Saudi and Emirati experience.

Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator with close ties to the Saudi ruling elite, noted that the kingdom “has over the years, from its infancy before the Second World War to a more self-confident G-20 country secure in its place in the world today.”

Saudi attitudes have been compounded by perceptions that “the US security umbrella has been weakened as far as Saudi Arabia is concerned… (That) convinced Saudi leaders that they had to look elsewhere to guarantee their security,” Shihabi said. He was referring to a US refusal to come to the kingdom’s aid when Iran in 2019 attacked Saudi oil facilities. He was also referring to a US cutoff of arms and ammunition sales because of the Saudi intervention in Yemen.

Emirati officials similar complaints about US reluctance to respond to Iranian-inspired attacks.

In the same vein, Karen Elliot House, an expert on the kingdom, quoted a Saudi minister as saying in March in a closed-door conference: “You tell us not to talk to Russia, your opponent, but you are talking to Iran, our opponent. You say don’t buy Chinese weapons. ‘Do you have an alternative,’ we ask? ‘Yes,’ you say, ‘but we can’t sell it to you.'”

Another minister told the gathering, “You said you were behind us in our war in Yemen, but you proved a no-show.”

House, referring to Bin Salman by his initials, added, “The Crown Prince is making a virtue of relying less on a reluctant US to protect his nation… MBS is skillfully playing a t of great power poker to benefit Saudi Arabia.”

Even so, North America remains a primary investment target of Emirati and Saudi sovereign wealth funds. Last year, the US$829 billion Abu Dhabi Investment Authority between 45 and 60% of its investments to North America.

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In the Middle East, however, the metaverse continues to be embraced by governments with enthusiasm. Israel has opened its first metaverse in South Korea. Saudi Arabia has been engaged with companies such as The Sandbox, for long-term collaboration. Saudi Arabia has even opened the region’s first metaverse to provide training in the new technology. Scholars that NEOM, the planned smart city in Tabuk Province,  is building “the first metaverse that actually is a metaverse.” 

In February 2023, global professional services firm KPMG announced that it would establish a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Saudia Arabia with the aim of speeding up the application of the metaverse in the country as well as the wider Middle East and North Africa region. 

KPMG will be collaborating with a broad collection of including Microsoft, Ericsson and Metakey. Microsoft will be responsible for providing the gaming platform and infrastructure; Ericsson will utilize its 5G technology and network; Metakey will be in charge of creating 3D objects.

Virtual tourism, services and more

The metaverse technology is set to transform the global competitiveness of companies, and Saudi Arabia is embracing this vision. Spearheading the initiative is the Royal Commission for AlUla, which has a captivating metaverse experience. Users can now virtually explore and interact with the Tomb of Lihyan, Hegra’s largest tomb, providing a unique glimpse into the country’s rich history.

Egypt has also embraced the metaverse revolution, its first city called , inspired by its ancient civilization that continues to attract numerous tourists each year. The virtual city combines elements of ancient Egyptian culture with a futuristic touch, commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Notably, the Metaverse Tunisian Summit took place in 2022, emphasizing the region’s growing interest in this technology.

Countries like the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar have shown serious interest, with Dubai and Abu Dhabi being selected as the first global cities to launch within by Metaverse Holdings.

Various sectors are jumping into the metaverse bandwagon. Qatar Airways introduced the platform, offering customers a virtual reality experience. Users can now explore the airline’s premium check-in area and even tour the interior of their aircraft cabins, enhancing the travel experience.

Virgin Mobile Kuwait emerged as the first telecommunications company to its position in The Sandbox, a virtual game environment. 

The UAE’s Thumbay Group aims to bring innovative healthcare solutions to the virtual realm, while the Ministry of Health and Prevention has established a customer happiness service center within the metaverse. Furthermore, the UAE’s Ministry of Economy has opened its third office in the metaverse, offering services such as consumer protection, trademark and patent services, and industrial designs.

In with Multiverse Labs and the Sharjah Commerce & Tourism Development Authority, the UAE has launched Sharjaverse, the world’s first government-backed metaverse city. This ambitious project features a “” for official document processing and aims to boost the country’s digital economy and local tourism. The minister even announced that the UAE’s economic progress will now be measured using the Gross Metaverse Product (GMP) metric, replacing the traditional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) metric.

Digital authoritarianism on the horizon

The rest of the Middle East has seen a surge in the adoption of digital technology despite disparities in access. While countries like Yemen struggle with slow internet and limited smartphone usage, wealthier Gulf Cooperation Council nations pioneer the adoption of advanced tech like 5G. Gulf states have rapidly acquired the status of premier digital superpowers in the region.  

However, during the World Economic Forum, the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence warned about the concept of “” in the metaverse. He called for international standards to prohibit such acts. However, human rights activists have criticized the proposal as a veiled attempt at censorship.

The emergence of digital totalitarianism appears increasingly likely as well. We may see countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and the UAE themselves strategically with other formidable digital authoritarian superpowers, including China and Russia.

The stage is set for a high-stakes power play in the digital realm, where the rules for global dynamics are being written in the Middle East. The debate surrounding international standards for the metaverse will likely intensify as more countries and organizations grapple with the ethical and social implications of this emerging digital frontier.

[Naveed Ahsan edited this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The article added that back “inJanuary, an Indian Ministry of Commerce official told reporters that Russia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Mauritius were all keen to trade with India in the rupee.”

Although the Indian economy has become dynamic recently, the rupee has always been considered a weak currency. Al Jazeera’s reporting intrigued me. I decided to take up the issue with Chad. “Everyone knows by now,” I began, “that the sanctions imposed by the US on Russia and elsewhere have stimulated the increasing use of the Chinese yuan as a reserve currency. And of course there’s been plenty of talk about dedollarization. Does this development mean that the rupee, the currency of the world’s most populous nation, is likely in the not too distant future to become a common reserve currency alongside the yuan and the dollar?”

Chad offered this prudent response. “It is difficult to predict with certainty whether the Indian rupee will become a common reserve currency alongside the Chinese yuan and the US dollar. However, there are some factors that could potentially increase the use of the rupee as a reserve currency.

One such factor is India’s growing economic influence, with the country being one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world. As a result, more countries may be interested in trading with India and using the rupee for transactions.

Additionally, the increasing trend of countries seeking to diversify their reserve holdings away from the US dollar could create opportunities for other currencies, including the rupee, to become more widely used as reserves.

However, there are also challenges to overcome for the rupee to become a significant reserve currency, including the need for greater stability and liquidity in the Indian financial markets, as well as ongoing concerns about India’s current account deficit and inflation.

Overall, while the use of the Indian rupee as a reserve currency is not imminent, it is possible that the currency could play a greater role in global financial markets in the future.

“That seems reasonable,” I countered, “but there is also talk of the BRICS, which includes both China and India, creating their own reserve currency. Could this increased use of the rupee, especially with a country like the UAE that has been loyal to the the petrodollar, be the prelude to a BRICS currency that reflects the economic power of an expanding BRICS alliance?”

Chad’s answer was unusually halting and uncertain. The words came out slowly. Could this evince Chad’s fear of a challenge to the status quo? I think not since Chad cannot experience emotions.

“It is true that there have been discussions among the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) about creating a common reserve currency to reduce their dependence on the US dollar. However, it is unclear whether this will actually happen and if so, when.

The increased use of the Indian rupee in trade and financial transactions, particularly with countries like the UAE, could be seen as a step towards greater cooperation between the BRICS countries and a potential move towards a common reserve currency. However, it is important to note that creating a new reserve currency is a complex process that requires a significant level of agreement and cooperation between countries with different economic and political interests.

Chad also pointed out that the BRICS countries “still face challenges such as political instability, currency volatility, and structural imbalances that may hinder the creation of a common reserve currency.”

I was struck by Chad’s evocation of “political instability, currency volatility, and structural imbalances” in the BRICS countries. I couldn’t resist asking whether we were not seeing similar phenomena in the US, a country that appears to have increasing difficulty defending the reign of the dollar as a reserve currency.

Chad agreed that the US had its own problems, including “the growing US national debt, political polarization, and the potential for economic disruption from factors such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic,” while noting that, “the US has used its dominance in global financial systems to enforce sanctions on other countries, which has led some countries to explore alternative payment systems and reserve currencies. This has opened up opportunities for other currencies, such as the Chinese yuan, to gain wider acceptance and use in international trade and financial transactions.”

Then came the expected “however” that permitted Chad to affirm that, despite all that, “the US dollar remains the dominant reserve currency in the world, with over 60% of global foreign exchange reserves held in US dollars. The US dollar’s status as a reserve currency is supported by a number of factors, including the size and stability of the US economy, the depth and liquidity of US financial markets, and the role of the US in international trade and finance.”

My conclusion is that this kind of discourse bears witness to the flaw of overcautiousness. Chad prefers to shy away from projecting the impact of visible trends that have the potential to be disruptive. I understand and agree that changing the status quo is a difficult task and the safe bet is always to go with what has worked over a good stretch of time. But we also know that history prepares tipping points that, too often, we only notice with hindsight.

I nevertheless ended acknowledging the pertinence of Chad’s final thought, that “while the US does face challenges to its status as a reserve currency, it remains to be seen whether these challenges will lead to a significant shift away from the US dollar in the near future.” Yes, of course, like so many other things, it remains to be seen.

*[In the dawning age of Artificial Intelligence, we at 51łÔąĎ recommend treating any AI algorithm’s voice as a contributing member of our group. As we do with family members, colleagues or our circle of friends, we quickly learn to profit from their talents and, at the same time, appreciate the social and intellectual limits of their personalities. This enables a feeling of camaraderie and constructive exchange to develop spontaneously and freely. For more about how we initially welcomed Chad to our breakfast table, click here.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Fans were even more enraged in 2005 when the American Glazer family bought the club. Some even started a rival club and transferred their support. They’ve never been satisfied the Glazers are suitable custodians of a club fans believe is rightfully theirs. Now, they’re concerned the Glazers will sup with the devil and sell to the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who already owns the club Paris Saint-Germain via a company called Qatar Sports Investments.

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

Mighty Presence

The objections are now familiar to anyone vaguely familiar with sports. Gulf States, enriched by their reserves of oil and gas, have, over the past decade established a Middle Eastern control over many sports. The sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia underwrites the LIV golf tour. Bahrain hosts a Formula1 grand prix. The International Cricket Council has moved its headquarters to Dubai, the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). And, as if anyone hadn’t noticed, Qatar has recently staged football’s most prestigious event, the FIFA World Cup—and done so successfully. will host football’s Club World Cup later this year.

In England’s Premier League, both of Manchester United’s local rivals— and—have been bought. The former is owned by City Football Group whose majority shares are owned by Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi.  Newcastle United was recently purchased by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. The Newcastle buy-out was challenged by many fans, though the opposition appears to have softened now that the club’s on-field fortunes are improving.

The objection to the encroachment of Middle East interests on sports that have traditionally been dominated by the West is not based on xenophobia. Well, not totally. Territories in that part of the world are not so vigilant in observing what many other parts of the world regard as fundamental human rights, particularly when it comes to groups. Homosexuality is outlawed and, in some parts, an imprisonable offense. There are places where it is punishable by death. Women’s status differs from country-to-country, but nowhere is there equality of access or opportunity comparable with the West’s.

Sports Fans Say Qatar Has Now Politicized the World Cup

Where’s The Harm?  

Now, a cynic might ask: since when did football fans become so self-righteous? Or did they always secretly harbor a strong sense of right-and-wrong, and were just not enraged enough to express their sense of morality? Until those Gulf States, with their “medieval” cultures started muscling in on that pure, unsullied and wholesome pursuit once the preserve of English gentlemen and, more recently, the proud property of the masses. Sports is too virtuous, too honorable, too undefiled by the sins of the world to be corrupted by those primitive Arab states where being able to quote the Quran counts as enlightenment.

But wait: let me offer a counterweight. Think about the meaning of sports: a pernicious biosphere where human effort is squandered in the futile pursuit of artificial objectives that have no benefit, material or otherwise, in the real world. Sports competitions are as trivial as they are purposeless. Sports’ only point is to satisfy individuals’ self-serving desire to surpass others. The more successful sportsmen and sportswomen are egotistical plutocrats whose money derives from the financial reserves of media behemoths. OK, sports events might once have been innocent tests of physical proficiency in a number of set challenges, but now they have morphed into an industry analogous to, if not contiguous with, showbusiness.

Fine, you might reply: So, where’s the harm? Again, I have an answer. Obviously, the physical injuries are commonplace and an expected byproduct of intense training and competition. And the long-term damage to the health of athletes and fans alike is an unfortunate, if inevitable, consequence of rivalries that might once have been friendly but are now warlike. Concussion and other forms of brain injury, sometimes permanent, are now seen as collateral damage in many sports. 

The End of the Extraordinary Abramovich Era

Activities that were designed to test the limits of human capability have become the means by which to extend those limits. Cyclists, swimmers, and track and field athletes habitually ingest substances in their efforts to enhance their competitive performance and break boundaries. Athletes from practically every other known sport, to some degree, use licit or illicit pharmaceuticals in their efforts to maximize their physical potential.  Sport’s injunction to give one’s best appears quaint and unworldly: win-at-any-costs is more congruent with today’s ethos.

Hypocrisy

Sport’s harmful effects extend beyond the physical: at a cultural level, its fierce and destructive onslaught on traditional citadels has been unsparing. Here the less visible, yet arguably more profound consequences of sport have turned every one of us into sports fans of some hue. Racism surfaced in sports in the late 1970s and, while it has diminished in the West, it flourishes in the sports of countries like Hungary, and other Eastern European democracies. Women have been pushed out of sports for most of its history and have only in recent years managed to compete in most major sports.

Unbelievable as it sounds, child abuse is an ungovernable wrongdoing in a variety of sports. Making the practice more pernicious is the fact that perpetrators are always the people charged with the responsibility for the welfare of young athletes.

What of the beautiful game itself? For decades, mired in corruption, bribery and miscellaneous other forms of venality, the world’s governing organization has operated like a private feudal fiefdom dispensing preferential treatment to anyone with sufficient funds and insufficient scruples to grease the right palms.

Qatar Will Change the World Cup Forever

And remind yourself: this is the same sport, indeed the same institution, that voices objections on grounds of morality whenever Middle Eastern interest in a club or a tournament surfaces. There’s a word that describes the practice of upholding high moral standards but having standards of one’s own that fall some way below: hypocrisy. It is endemic in western sports.

Sports were once thought to serve as a source of moral inspiration and maybe they were. But only a fool would ignore the deeply malevolent effects of their presence today. Over the next week or so, we’ll witness dutiful devotees of football protesting the growing influence of the Gulf States in their sport. They will almost certainly be genuine in their disapproval. But even a moment’s self-reflection will remind them that the sport they hold in such reverence is not only futile, arbitrary and wasteful, but a vile, unprincipled, rapacious, fraudulent and hopelessly corrupted environment in which decency is in short supply. How can Middle-Eastern owners possibly make it worse? Ellis Cashmore’s latest book is “.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Biden called Saudi Arabia a during his presidential election campaign. He has since effectively boycotted MBS because of the crown prince’s alleged involvement in the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. MBS has denied any involvement in the killing but accepted responsibility for it as Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler.

A Symbolic Visit to the UAE

MBS waited for his 86-year-old father to from the hospital before traveling to Abu Dhabi to offer his condolences for the death of United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Khaled bin Zayed and congratulations to his successor, Mohamed bin Zayed, the crown prince’s one-time mentor. MBS used the composition of his to underline his grip on Saudi Arabia’s ruling family In doing so, MBS was messaging the international community at large, and particularly Biden, that he is in full control of the kingdom no matter what happens.

The delegation was made up of representatives of different branches of the ruling Al Saud family, including Prince Abdulaziz bin Ahmed, the eldest son of Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, the detained brother of King Salman. Even though he holds no official post, Abdulaziz’s name topped the Saudi state media’s list of delegates accompanying MBS. His father Ahmed was one of three members of the Allegiance Council not to support MBS’s as crown prince in 2017. The 34-member council, populated by the many parts of the Al-Saud family, was established by King Abdullah in 2009 to determine succession to the throne.

MBS has detained Ahmed as well as Prince Mohamed bin Nayef, the two men he considers his foremost rivals, partly because they are popular among US officials. Ahmed was detained in 2020 but never charged, while bin Nayef stands accused of corruption. Ahmed returned to the kingdom in 2018 from London where he told protesters against the war in Yemen to address those : the king and the crown prince.

Abdulaziz’s inclusion in the Abu Dhabi delegation fits a pattern: MBS appoints to high office the younger relatives of people detained since his rise in 2015. Many older powerful royals were arrested in a mass anti-corruption campaign that often seemed to camouflage a power grab. A consultative government among members of the ruling family has now been replaced with one-man rule. MBS probably takes pleasure in driving the point home as Biden mulls a pilgrimage to Riyadh to persuade the crown prince to end his opposition to increasing the kingdom’s oil production and convince him that the United States remains committed to regional security.

The MBS and Joe Biden Dance

So far, the crown prince not only rejected US requests to help lower oil prices and assist Europe in reducing its dependency on Russian oil as part of the campaign to force Moscow to end its invasion of Ukraine but also refused to take a from Biden. Asked a month later whether Biden may have misunderstood him, MBS an interviewer. “Simply, I do not care.”

Striking a less belligerent tone, Mohammed Khalid Alyahya, a Hudson Institute visiting fellow and former editor-in-chief of Saudi-owned Al Arabiya English, noted this month that “Saudi Arabia laments what it sees as America’s wilful of an international order that it established and led for the better part of a century.” Alyahya quoted a senior Saudi official as saying: “A strong, dependable America is the greatest friend Saudi Arabia can have. It stands to reason, then, that US weakness and confusion is a grave threat not just to America, but to us as well.”

The United States has signaled that it is shifting its focus away from the Middle East to Asia even though it has not rolled back its significant military presence. Nonetheless, Middle Eastern states read a reduced US commitment to their security because Washington has failed to robustly to attacks by Iran and Iranian-backed Arab militias against targets in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This is not to mention the Biden administration’s efforts to revive a moribund 2015 international with Iran.

Several senior US officials, including National Security Advisor and CIA Director Bill Burns, met with the crown prince during trips to the kingdom last year. Separately, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin the crown prince. In one instance, MBS reportedly at Sullivan after the US official raised Khashoggi’s killing. The crown prince reportedly told Sullivan that he never wanted to discuss the matter again and that the US could forget about its request to boost Saudi oil production.

Even so, leverage in the US-Saudi relationship goes both ways. Biden may need Saudi Arabia’s oil to break Russia’s economic back. By the same token, Riyadh, despite massive weapon acquisitions from the US and Europe as well as arms from China that the US is reluctant to sell, needs Washington as its security guarantor. MBS knows that he has nowhere else to go. Russia has written itself out of the equation, and China is neither capable nor willing to step into the shoes of the US any time soon.

Critics of Biden’s apparent willingness to bury the hatchet with MBS argue that in the battle with Russia and China over a new 21^st-century world order, the US not only needs to talk the principled talk but also walk the principled walk. In an editorial, The Washington Post, for whom Khashoggi was a columnist, that “the contrast between professed US principles and US policy would be stark and undeniable” if Biden re-engages with Saudi Arabia. Yet, with oil prices soaring and inflation rising, interests might trump values and a Biden-led US might kiss and make up with an MBS-led Saudi Arabia to attain its realpolitik ends.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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In recent years, the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, especially the UAE, have recognized that trusting foreign governments, such as the United States, cannot offer them the best possible protection. The US has had a presence in the Persian Gulf since the 1990s and the Gulf Arab countries have relied on it to provide security. However, events in recent years have shown that the Gulf Arab states cannot rely solely on Washington.

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Such developments include the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan amid the US withdrawal; the US pivot to Asia; the US retraction of most advanced missile defense systems and Patriot batteries from Saudi Arabia; and the lack of a US military response to threats, missile and drone attacks on Saudi oil bases by the Houthis in Yemen.

This has encouraged the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf to pursue security autonomy. The UAE, in particular, has sought to transform its strategy from dependence on the US and Saudi Arabia to a combination of self-reliance and multilateral cooperation.

Self-Reliance Security Strategy

Although the UAE is an important ally of America in the Persian Gulf, over recent years, the US has sought to push the Emiratis toward security. Sociopolitical events in the Middle East over the last decade following the Arab Spring of 2010-11 have made it clear to the UAE that the primary goal of ensuring national security, in addition to benefiting from international cooperation, should be the use of national facilities and resources.

Hosni Mubarak’s ouster from Egypt during the Arab Spring protests and the reluctance of the US to defend him as an ally — which led to the rise of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood — further demonstrated to Abu Dhabi that it should not exclusively depend on the US for security assistance. Thus, the UAE began to develop a professional army.

The UAE‘s self-reliance strategy is divided into different branches, but most of all, its military security efforts have been given the highest priority. The UAE‘s determination to create an independent and professional military is evident from its years of investment in the defense industry.

Indeed, security is a top priority for the United Arab Emirates, and defense spending continues to make up a large portion of the national budget. The UAE’s defense typically accounts for 11.1% to 14% of the total budget. In 2019, the UAE’s defense spending was $16.4 billion. This was 18% more than the 2018 budget of $13.9 billion.

The UAE has invested heavily in the military sector and defense industry in recent years. In November 2019, the UAE formed the EDGE Group from a merger of 25 companies. The company has 12,000 employees and $5 billion in total revenue. It is also among the top 25 advocacy groups in the world, ahead of firms such as Booz Allen Hamilton in the US and Rolls-Royce in the UK.

EDGE is around five clusters: platforms and systems, missiles and weapons, cyber defense, electronic warfare and intelligence, and mission support. It comprises several major UAE companies in the defense industry, such as ADSB (shipbuilding), Al Jasoor, NIMR (vehicles), SIGN4L (electronic warfare services) and ADASI (autonomous systems). The main of EDGE is to develop weapons to fight “hybrid warfare” and to bolster the UAE’s defense against unconventional threats, focusing on electronic attacks and drones.

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The UAE has also come up with detailed plans to improve the quality of its military personnel, large sums of money each year on training its military recruits in American colleges and war academies. It also founded the National Defense College; most of its students are citizens of the UAE, because of its independence in military training. In addition, in 2014, the UAE introduced general conscription for men between the ages of 18 and 30 to increase numbers and strengthen national identity in its military. As a result, it gathered about 50,000 people in the first three years.

Contrary to traditional practice, the UAE’s growing military power has made it eager to use force and hard power to protect its interests. The UAE stands ready to use military force anywhere in the region to contain Iran’s growing influence and weaken Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Participating in the Yemeni War was a test of this strategy.

The UAE‘s military presence in Yemen began in March 2015. It a brigade of 3,000 troops to Yemen in August 2015, along with Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab countries. Over the past five years, the UAE has an ambitious strategic agenda in the Red Sea, building military installations and securing control of the southern coasts of Yemen along the Arabian Sea in the Bab al-Mandab Strait and Socotra Island. Despite reducing its military footprints in Yemen in 2019, the UAE has consolidated itself in the southern regions. It has continued to finance and impart training to thousands of Yemeni fighters drafted from various groups like the Security Belt Forces, the Shabwani and Hadrami Elite Forces, Abu al-Abbas Brigade and the West Coast Forces.

The UAE‘s goal in adopting a self-reliance strategy is to increase strategic depth in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Thus, along with direct military presence or arms support for groups engaged in proxy wars, it affects the internal affairs of various countries in the region, such as Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt and Libya. With its influence, the UAE can turn the tide in its favor in certain areas.

Multilateralism Security Strategy

The United Arab Emirates faces a variety of security in the Middle East, and addressing them requires cooperation with other countries. Currently, the most significant security threats in the UAE are: countering Iranian threats and power in the Middle East, especially in Arab countries under Iranian influence, such as Yemen, Syria and Lebanon; eliminating threats from terrorist groups and political Islam in the region, the most important of which — according to the UAE — is the Muslim Brotherhood; and economic threats and efforts to prepare for the post-oil world.

In its multilateral strategy, the UAE seeks to counter these threats with the help of other countries in the region or beyond. It has used soft power through investments or providing humanitarian aid, suggesting that economic cooperation is more important than political competition and intervention. In this regard, the UAE has cooperated with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Britain and France, as well as normalized relations with Israel.

On August 13, 2020, the UAE became the first Gulf state to normalize relations with Israel. The UAE‘s goal in normalizing relations with Israel is to counter threats from Iran and the region. The Abraham Accords have not only a security aspect, but also an economic one. Following the signing of the accords, on October 20, 2020, the US, Israel and the UAE the establishment of the Abraham Fund, a joint fund of $3 billion “in private sector-led investment and development initiatives,” aimed at “promoting economic cooperation and prosperity.” In addition, it outlined a banking and finance memorandum between the largest banks in Israel and Dubai, and a joint bid between Dubai’s DP World port operator and an Israeli shipping firm for the management of Israel’s Haifa port.

Through the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates seeks to invest and transfer Israeli technologies to the UAE through mutual agreements. The UAE has discovered that Israel is one of the bridges to the US economy and high technology. If the UAE intends to have an oil-free economy in the future, Israel may be the best option to achieve this by pursuing a strategy of multilateralization.

UAE relations with Turkey also have a multilateral dimension to reaching common security goals. The two countries had good relations until the Arab Spring protests ties between them. Abu Dhabi and Ankara began to defuse tensions after a phone call in August 2021 between UAE Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The nations mainly have differences around issues in Libya, Syria and Egypt. The UAE is trying to resolve its disputes with Turkey by investing in the country.

Turkey is the largest backer of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region. The Turks claim the UAE participated in the failed coup of July 2016 against the Turkish government. Nonetheless, the UAE wants to end frictions with Turkey and has attracted Ankara by investing and increasing commercial ties. The Turkish lira has depreciated in recent years and Erdogan’s popularity has plummeted due to mismanagement in Turkey. Erdogan will not miss this economic opportunity with the UAE and welcomes Emirati investments. In this way, the UAE will likely easily resolve its differences with Turkey.

The current tendency to use force is contrary to traditional Abu Dhabi policy, yet increasing the strategic depth of the UAE is one of Abu Dhabi‘s most achievable goals in its strategy of self-reliance. This plan is the exact opposite of multilateralism. Unlike the use of force and hard power, Abu Dhabi seeks to achieve its objectives by using soft power, investment and humanitarian aid. In this situation, the tactical exploitation of economic cooperation takes precedence over political competition and military intervention in the region.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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In a fast-changing environment where international donors are less capable to meet funding requests from humanitarian organizations, the United Arab Emirates has taken a unique approach. The Gulf state’s method, which could be modeled on the logistics of major transnational corporations or a large military logistics operation, provides a glimpse into the future orientation of special humanitarian capabilities.

Establishing a Hub

The establishment of the first UAE hub in 2003 reflected a top-level and very strategic foreign policy judgment by the United Arab Emirates. It leverages the UAE’s highly developed status as a global node for airfreight and transit entrepot activity. It has gained an impressive list of committed partners — from UN agencies and major humanitarian organizations to charities and commercial suppliers of humanitarian-related services.

On this point alone, any regional replicant will find it difficult to duplicate the model exactly. The status of the international hub was reflected by being represented well after its launch and during its transition from a valuable strategic geographic location to an independent official humanitarian crisis response agency within the international community, according to a member of the royal family at the time of its founding. 

The EHC and its widening range of services, no longer only a regional storage hub for faster deployment of humanitarian supplies, but an expanding hub for humanitarian workers heading to the field, has also become more networked into international coordination mechanisms and processes. These national and often highly budget-driven and bureaucratic processes and their informal and formal international coordination are now well established in the EHC modus operandi, reinforcing it as a leading model for contemporary large and rapid humanitarian action.

An example of UAE pre-engagement with the club of donors was in the . The UAE, in 2015, through EHC predecessor institutions, flew selected humanitarian supplies toward the region following cyclone disasters over the past decade. The supplies proved less absorbable than expected. The transit stop was Brisbane, in Queensland, Australia, the location of the Australian government’s main South Pacific logistical base.

Following this natural disaster, the UAE recalibrated its approach. It recognized that even if it was able to act independently, beneficiaries’ interests and international coordination facilitate the path to effectiveness. Notably, aid to the region was used following the UAE’s diplomatic initiative in the South Pacific on climate change and its leveraging of gas and nuclear in the greenhouse debate.

By late February 2020, as the world began to address the spread of COVID-19, the UAE government set out to extend the role of the EHC. The aim of the directive by the Abu Dhabi government was to deploy the UAE’s “medical care capabilities at a time of crisis,” the Emirates News Agency . Its first task was to receive 215 citizens from neighboring countries evacuated from Hubei, China, as the began to interrupt international air travel. The EHC was to serve as a hub, receiving evacuees and providing necessary monitoring and preventive medical care, ensuring “privacy and dignity” throughout the process.

The EHC Today

Operations at the EHC now compliment an image of the UAE as a globalist and progressive international influencer through what some have called the world’s largest humanitarian hub. The additional success of the EHC in 2020 was a product of public and private sector cooperation that manifested the UAE’s foreign policy commitment to delivering and helping others deliver rapid crisis responses. The development of a hub for people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic continues to manifest itself in the role played by the UAE during the evacuation of Afghan refugees in August 2021.

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This support service, directly addressing people in danger, need and fleeing their country will require deep thinking and careful management. Like most sovereign states, the UAE itself, despite its fast-growing capability to balance its interests with the effects of its wealth and financial leverage, will face increasingly larger and more complex judgments about how to respond to incrementally higher demands for aid and human succor. These decisions will always come with distressing media coverage of human and environmental disaster events.

The success of the EHC is based on local capacity to deliver logistical infrastructure, a highly developed transport node and interest by an A-List of global humanitarians for a center close to several disaster-prone regions. These include the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean rim.

It will now need to deal with the deep and difficult policy problem, at least for humanitarians, of where to consolidate infrastructure and resources for rapidly accessible assistance to people suffering under complex situations. Here we will see realist foreign policy and the place and role of humanitarian assistance collide. Other wealthy states in the region will face the same problems under their current models of humanitarian support.

Humanitarian assistance, unless coupled with other incentives, rarely leads to a particular and favorable bilateral policy response. After all, the recipient state captures assistance from many quarters. Assistance by states such as the United Arab Emirates, if routine and on a policy basis more regular than opportunistic, will set a strong floor under the UAE’s global model. But it will be difficult to move from one crisis response to another without some clear “stop/go” decision points that do not appear mercenary.

Inter-Arab aid engagement has not been readily seen in humanitarian relief under the same Western and international media gaze as that of other UN member states. For the UAE, the dilemma stems from a priority to make its contributions visible and to showcase the model exemplified by the EHC. Clearly, realist soft power requires more from actions to provide international humanitarian relief. This is where real strategy concerning the concentration of aid and effective delivery will pave the way for success and emulation.

The Case of Afghanistan

The crisis continuing to expand in Afghanistan is a perfect example of emerging challenges and opportunities for new strategies. A growing need for assistance will not decline in the near future, nor will the need from time to time for states to explain their policy approaches and their prioritization of crisis responses. There is already a focus on the realpolitik of humanitarian support as a tool to advance interventionist global agendas. China’s COVID-19 vaccine aid is a clear example, especially as the breadth of Beijing’s response was undermined by the relatively poor efficacy of its vaccines.   

The model working out Abu Dhabi’s EHC allows states to advance more multilateral-driven crisis response strategies. In the case of the August reception of over 8,000 Afghan refugees, the UAE did not engage in unilateral interventionism. Instead, it responded to rapid coordination of responses to international needs for transport and hosting facilities, allowing an increasing number of Afghan nationals to be extricated during the chaos caused by the Taliban advance into Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

The UAE offered facilities to house Afghan refugees en route to third countries, such as the United States. It also provided relief to overstretched militaries and civilian organizations in Europe and the US that were overwhelmed by the number of refugees. Facilities such as those found at Abu Dhabi’s EHC proved a more dignified alternative to military bases and public facilities such as town halls, schools, temporary shelters and, in some cases, church-based facilities in the West.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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No doubt, MBS will not have forgotten revelations about Emirati attitudes toward Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s strategic vision of the relationship between the two countries. This was spelled out in  by Yusuf al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador in Washington and a close associate of MBZ, which were leaked in 2017. The emails made clear that UAE leaders believed they could use Saudi Arabia — the Gulf’s behemoth — and Mohammed bin Salman as a vehicle to promote Emirati interests.

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“Our relationship with them is based on strategic depth, shared interests, and most importantly the hope that we could influence them. Not the other way around,” Otaiba . In a separate email, the ambassador told a former US official that “I think in the long term we might be a good influence on KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia], at least with certain people there.”

A participant in a more recent meeting with Otaiba quoted the ambassador as referring to the Middle East as “the UAE region,” suggesting an enhanced Emirati regional influence. In a similar vein, former Dubai police chief Dhahi Khalfan, blowing his ultra-nationalist horn, in Arabic, “It’s not humanity’s survival of the strongest, it’s&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;the survival of the smartest.”

To be sure, Mohammed bin Zayed has been plotting the UAE’s positioning as a regional economic and geopolitical powerhouse for far longer than his Saudi counterpart. It is not for nothing that it earned the UAE the epitaph of “Little Sparta,” in the words of former US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.

Windows of Opportunity

No doubt, smarts count for a lot. But, in the ultimate analysis, the two crown princes appear to be exploiting windows of opportunity that exist as long as their most powerful rivals, Turkey and Iran, fail to get their act together. The Saudis and Emiratis see the Turks and Iranians as threats to their regional power. Both Turkey and Iran have far larger, highly educated populations, huge domestic markets, battle-hardened militaries, significant natural resources and industrial bases.

In the meantime, separating the wheat from the chaff in the Gulf spat may be easier said than done. , a Gulf analyst, notes that differences among Arab states have emerged as a result of regime survival strategies that are driven by the need to gear up for a post-oil era. The emergence of a more competitive landscape need not be all negative. Saif warns, however, that “left unchecked … differences could snowball and negatively impact the neighborhood.

Several factors complicate the management of these differences. For one, the Vision 2030 plan for weening Saudi Arabia off its dependence on the export of fossil fuel differs little from the perspective put forward by the UAE and Qatar, two countries that have a substantial head start.

Saudi Arabia sought to declare an initial success in the expanded rivalry by revealing last week that the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the airline industry body, had opened its  headquarters in Riyadh. IATA denied that the Saudi office would have regional responsibility. The announcement came on the heels of the disclosure of Saudi to create a new airline to compete with Emirates and Qatar Airways.

Further complicating the management of differences is the fact that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are likely to compete for market share as they seek to maximize their oil export revenues in the short and medium term. This is particularly before oil demand plateaus and then declines in the 2030s.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, economic diversification and social liberalization are tied up with the competing geopolitical ambitions of the two princes in positioning their countries as the regional leader. Otaiba signaled MBZ’s ambition in 2017 in an email exchange with Elliot Abram, a neoconservative former US official. â€śJeez, the new hegemon! Emirati imperialism! Well, if the US won’t do it, someone has to hold things together for a while,” Abrams wrote to the ambassador, referring to the UAE’s growing regional role. “Yes, how dare we! In all honesty, there was not much of a choice. We stepped up only after your country chose to step down,” Otaiba replied.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas

Differences in the ideological and geopolitical thinking of the princes when it comes to political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood reemerged recently. Differing Saudi and Emirati approaches were initially evident in 2015 when King Salman and his son began their reign in Saudi Arabia. This was a period when Mohammed bin Zayed, who views political Islam and the Brotherhood as an existential threat, had yet to forge close ties to the new Saudi leadership. At the time, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, barely a month after King Salman’s ascendancy, an interviewer that â€śthere is no problem between the kingdom” and the Brotherhood.

Just a month later, the Muslim World League, a body established by Saudi Arabia in the 1960s to propagate religious ultra-conservatism and long dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, a conference in a building in Mecca that had not been used since the banning of the brothers. The Qataris, who have a history of close ties to the Brotherhood, were invited.

After King Salman and his son came to power, Saudi Arabia adopted a harder approach toward Brotherhood-related groups as Mohammed bin Zayed gained influence in Saudi affairs. The Muslim League has since become Mohammed bin Salman’s main vehicle for promoting his call for religious tolerance and inter-faith dialogue. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are portraying themselves as icons of a socially moderate form of Islam that, nonetheless, endorses autocratic rule.

Last week, the kingdom signaled a potential change in its attitude toward Brotherhood-related groups with the broadcast of an interview with Khaled Meshaal, the Qatar-based head of the political arm of Hamas. The interview was aired on Al Arabiya, the Saudi state-controlled news channel. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls Gaza, maintains relations with Iran and is viewed as being part of a Brotherhood network. Meshaal called for a resumption of relations between Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian movement.

In 2014, Saudi Arabia designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. This was part of a dispute between Qatar, a supporter of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, which had all withdrawn their ambassadors from Doha. The Saudis were particularly upset by the close relations that Hamas had forged with Iran and Turkey, Riyadh’s main rivals for regional hegemony.

A litmus test of the degree of change in Saudi Arabia’s attitude will be whether it releases scores of Hamas members. These members were arrested in 2019 as part of Saudi efforts to garner Palestinian support for then-US President Donald Trump’s controversial peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Quoting the Arabic service of Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, Al-Monitor reported that Al Arabiya had  from broadcasting a segment of the interview in which Meshaal called for the release of the detainees.

Despite Differences

The Saudi–UAE rivalry and the ambitions of their leaders make it unlikely that Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed will look at structural ways of managing differences. This includes areas like greater regional economic integration through arrangements for trade and investment and an expanded customs union. The latter would make the region more attractive to foreign investors and improve the Gulf states’ bargaining power.

In the absence of strengthening institutions, the bets are on the crown princes recognizing that, despite their , “it doesn’t make sense for either one of them to let go of the other.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The kingdom kicked off its effort to cement its position as the Middle East’s behemoth earlier this year. In February, Saudi Arabia announced it would  doing business by 2024 with international companies whose regional headquarters were not based in the country. 

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The UAE 16^th on the World Bank’s 2020 Ease of Doing Business Index as opposed to Saudi Arabia at number 62. As a result, freewheeling Dubai has long been the preferred regional headquarters of international firms. The Saudi move “clearly targets the” United Arab Emirates and “challenges the status of Dubai,” said a UAE-based banker.

Saudi Arabia is a latecomer to the port control game, which is dominated by Dubai’s DP World. That company operates 82 marine and inland terminals in more than 40 countries, including Djibouti, Somaliland, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Cyprus. The kingdom’s expansion into port and terminal management appears to be less driven by geostrategic considerations. Instead, Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Gateway Terminal (RSGT), backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, said it was targeting ports that would service vital Saudi imports, such as those related to food security.

In January, PIF and China’s Cosco Shipping Ports  bought a 20% stake in RSGT. The Chinese investment fits into Beijing’s larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves the acquisition of stakes in ports and terminals in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Oman and Djibouti, where China has a military base.

Jens Floe, the chief executive officer of RSGT, said the company planned to invest in at least three international ports in the next five years. He said each investment would be up to $500 million. “We have a focus on ports in Sudan and Egypt. They weren’t picked for that reason, but they happen to be significant countries for Saudi Arabia’s food security strategy,” Floe said.

Saudi Sports

Saudi Arabia’s increased focus on sports, including a possible bid to the 2030 World Cup, serves multiple goals. First, it offers Saudi youth, who account for more than half of the kingdom’s population, a leisure and entertainment opportunity. Second, it boosts Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s burgeoning development of a leisure and entertainment industry. The Saudis believe this could allow the kingdom to polish its image tarnished by human rights abuse, including the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and challenge Qatar’s position as the face of Middle Eastern sports.

A recent  by Grant Liberty, a London-based human rights group that focuses on Saudi Arabia and China, estimated that Riyadh has invested $1.5 billion in the hosting of multiple sporting events. These include the final games of Italy and Spain’s top football leagues, Formula 1 races, boxing, wrestling and snooker matches, and golf tournaments. So far, Qatar is the Middle East’s leader in the hosting of sporting events, followed by the UAE.

According to Grant Liberty, further bids for events worth $800 million have failed. This did not include an  $600-million offer to replace Qatar’s beIN Sports as the Middle Eastern broadcaster of the UEFA Champions League. Saudi Arabia reportedly continues to ban beIN from airing in the kingdom, despite the lifting of the Saudi-Emirati-led diplomatic and economic of Qatar in January.

Oil Exports

Mohammed bin Salman’s&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č; plan to diversify and streamline the Saudi economy and ween it off dependency on oil exports “has set the creation of professional sports and a sports industry as one of its goals,” said , spokesperson for the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington. “The kingdom is proud to host and support various athletic and sporting events which not only introduce Saudis to new sports and renowned international athletes but also showcase the kingdom’s landmarks and the welcoming nature of its people to the world.”

The increased focus on sports comes as Saudi Arabia appears to be backing away from its intention to reduce the centrality of energy exports for its economy. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the crown prince’s brother, recently an International Energy Agency (IEA) report, saying “there is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply” as “the sequel of the La La Land movie.” He went on to ask, “Why should I take [the report] seriously?”

Putting its money where its mouth is, Saudi Arabia intends to increase its oil production capacity from 12 million to more than 13 million barrels a day. This is based on the assumption that global efforts to replace fossil fuel with cleaner energy sources will spark sharp reductions in American and Russian production. The Saudis believe that demand in Asia for fossil fuels will continue to rise even if it drops in the West. Other Gulf producers, including the UAE and Qatar, are following a similar strategy.

“Saudi Arabia is no longer an oil country, it’s an energy-producing country … a very competitive energy country. We are low cost in producing oil, low cost in producing gas, and low cost in producing renewables and will definitely be the least-cost producer of hydrogen,” Prince Abdulaziz said. He appeared to be suggesting that the kingdom’s doubling down on oil was part of a strategy that aims to ensure that Saudi Arabia is a player in all conventional and non-conventional aspects of energy. By implication, he was saying that diversification was likely to broaden Saudi Arabia’s energy offering, rather than significantly reduce its dependence on energy exports.

“Sports, entertainment, tourism and mining alongside other industries envisioned in Vision 2030 are valuable expansions of the Saudi economy that serve multiple economic and non-economic purposes,” said a Saudi analyst. “It’s becoming evident, however, that energy is likely to remain the real name of the game.”

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However, in Europe, the agreement is often downplayed as being yet another PR stunt designed for the mutual electoral interests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. Others dismiss this step as symbolic — a mere formalization of the relations that have existed below the surface between the parties for years now.  

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Improving Netanyahu’s declining approval ratings and boosting Trump’s image as a statesman before the US election on November 3 are among the main motivations behind this initiative. Nevertheless, they do not reduce the potential impact of the accords as a challenge to the status quo.

The Abraham Accords set in motion new regional dynamics at a time of new regional needs. The lesson learned from previous rounds of conflict and peace in the Middle East — from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977 to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in 2000 — is that when the timing is right, symbolic steps can become the catalyst for major political developments.

The accords break a long-standing taboo in the Arab world. The prevailing formula — as outlined by the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 — was that normalization would be granted to Israel in return for making meaningful political compromises vis-à-vis the Palestinians.

The accords have shattered this formula, as they replace the equation of “peace for land” with the Netanyahu-coined “peace for peace” approach, in which normalization is given almost unconditionally. Moreover, the accords reframe the role of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within the framework of Arab-Israeli relations.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been downgraded to yet another topic alongside other standing issues. The need to counter Iran’s regional ambitions or utilize economic opportunities have all become alternative frames of reference to Israeli-Arab relations. Prevention of annexation notwithstanding, Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinian Territories have hardly served as main motives for the UAE and Bahrain to normalize relations with Israel. This process of disassociating Arab-Israeli relations from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may create a domino effect, in which other Arab nations that are not involved in direct confrontation with Israel will follow suit.

Shifting Regional Priorities

The potential of the Abraham Accords to change regional realities relies on its extraordinary timing. As the COVID-19 crisis takes its toll, national priorities — from Khartoum to Kuwait City — are partially shifting from traditional political considerations to urgent economic needs. The decline in oil prices and the  in growth of more than 7% in Gulf Cooperation Council countries in 2020 have turned general goals such as diversifying the Gulf economies and utilizing new global business opportunities into immediate necessities.

In this nexus, normalization with Israel provides an undeniable opportunity. Israel’s status as a leading hi-tech hub presents a viable platform for joint cooperation in multiple fields, from agriculture to health. For other regional actors, such as Sudan, US endorsement of the normalization process offers the opportunity to mend relations in the hope of lifting sanctions and receiving financial aid.

From an international perspective, the potential of the accords to influence the Israeli–Palestinian political stalemate remains a key question. On the one hand, the accords serve as yet another disincentive for Israel to reengage with the Palestinian issue. They demonstrate that Israel’s acceptance in the region does not necessitate paying the price of tough compromises on the Palestinian front.

The Israeli public’s sense of urgency for dealing with topics such as the Israeli occupation or Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories will decrease even further, as the accords enhance the comfortable illusion that the events shaping Israel’s future in the Middle East are taking place in Abu Dhabi and Muscat instead of in Gaza and Kalandia.

Nevertheless, the accords reintroduced the terms “peace” and “normalization” into Israeli public discourse after a decade of absence. The violence affiliated with the Arab Spring in 2011 enhanced the Israelis’ self-perception of their as a â€śvilla in the jungle.” These events had turned their perception of normalization with the Arab world from a token concern into an outdated distraction. Now, and for the first time in decades, public polls indicate a change in the Israeli public mindset regarding normalization, both on the political and economic levels, reinstating it as a matter of value.

Reengage With the Palestinian Issue

The Abraham Accords invite European leaders to rethink their policy approach regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the last two decades, the European Union’s approach has been to compartmentalize the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians from the regional context and focus on bilateral relations. The accords offer new opportunities to leverage the broader regional context as a basis to reengage with the core Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Europe’s involvement in enhancing Israel’s regional normalization is not a withdrawal from the two-state solution. On the contrary, it should become a factor in reconnecting the normalization process with efforts to influence Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinian Territories and Gaza. The converging interests between the moderate regional forces and Europe have already been demonstrated in the campaign against annexation.

At present, leveraging the accords to constructively influence the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sounds highly unlikely, as the actors involved either aim to cement the separation between the topics (Netanyahu) or under-prioritize the need to engage with it (Trump). Nevertheless, possible changes to the political leadership in the near future in Israel, the United States and the Palestinian Authority — combined with growing Arab public pressure on the normalizing countries to address the Palestinian issue — might present an opportunity to harness regional influence to impact Israeli policies.

Instead of observing from afar, Europe should be at the forefront of the effort to promote this regional dynamic as a conciliatory vector. After all, who can speak better for regionalism as a basis for peace than the EU?

*[This was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions relating to foreign and security policy.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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COVID-19: What Indonesia Can Learn From South Korea and Taiwan

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The recent strengthening of Indonesia–UAE ties was demonstrated when President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo  Abu Dhabi in mid-January and signed 16 agreements with the UAE’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. The deals, which are deemed as the biggest in Indonesian history, consist of five government-to-government agreements in the fields of religion, education, agriculture, health and counterterrorism. They also involve 11 business-to-business deals in various sectors, including oil and gas, petrochemicals, ports, telecommunications and research. The estimated total value of this investment stands at $22.9 billion, or about 314.9 trillion rupiahs.

Changing Relations

Although Indonesia was not one of the UAE’s major consumers for energy previously, this may soon change. This fact was showcased by a $270-million  on liquefied petroleum gas between Indonesia’s state-owned energy corporation PT Pertamina and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). The two companies, along with the UAE’s investment vehicle, Mubadala, also  a memorandum of understanding (MoU) titled, â€śEvaluat[ing] a Potential Crude to Petrochemical Complex Project at Balongan” in West Java worth $12.6 billion.

Those agreements were also  by another $3-billion long-term deal on naphtha supply between ADNOC and PT Chandra Asri Petrochemical Tbk. These developments were perhaps caused by the  in energy demands among the UAE’s usual consumers, such as China and the US, due to the coronavirus lockdowns around the world.

Another important sector that Indonesia and the UAE agreed to boost their cooperation is defense, which has been the major highlight in the two countries’ ties in recent years. In February, when the deadly coronavirus was spreading fast around the world, Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto  to Abu Dhabi to meet with the UAE’s Minister of State for Defense Mohammed Ahmed al-Bowardi to strengthen defense diplomacy between the two countries.

Besides defense diplomacy, Subianto also explored potential cooperation on the manufacturing of drones, weaponries, munitions and aerospace. The visit between the two top defense officials also focused on cross-training in counterterrorism operations and their application in hot spots throughout the Middle East and Africa. 

It is important to note that the UAE opened up a defense attachĂ© office in Jakarta in December 2019. At that time, Malian Prime Minister Boubou Cisse and Malian Ambassador to the UAE Boukary Sidibe  with Bowardi to discuss Emirati and Indonesian assistance to Mali and the rest of the G5 Sahel nations. This expansion of military-to-military relations across the Sahel by the UAE is illustrative of Abu Dhabi’s scope of transregional operations, which will grow further in the wake of the UAE’s pandemic assistance.

Beyond energy and defense sectors, Jakarta and Abu Dhabi  their aim to partner in promoting a moderate understanding of Islam which, according to the two sides, “is very important for efforts to prevent extremism and terrorism.” This collaboration was marked by the signing of an MoU by Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs and the UAE’s General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowment.

The UAE’s Soft Power

The partnership will  exchanging experiences developing the capacity of imams and preachers in boosting the UAE’s&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č; â€śtolerance and moderation” concept, as well as sharing experiences and expertise in the field of Quran memorization, translation and publication. Both countries also agreed to exchange delegates in Islamic forums and to cooperate in the construction of mosques. Indonesia has closed all mosques in the country as part of its measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, and it has  services and educational lessons via the internet. In one sense, this falls within the idea of Islamic boarding schools, except it is online and to a wide audience.

Accordingly, the UAE has  to build the Mohammed bin Zayed Grand Mosque in Solo, Central Java, that will enable scholars, politicians and academics from both nations to discuss ways to reinforce religious moderation. Indonesia and the UAE also  to cooperate in implementing digital education programs for madrasa students and to strengthen their partnership in the halal food sector.

The overall purpose of this Emirati soft power effort is building up the  of the Abrahamic house, where Christianity, Islam and Judaism exist together under one roof and to use that principle to guide religious discussion between the two countries in terms of “tolerance and moderation.”

Recently, as part of the agreement’s implementation, Indonesia’s National Standardization Agency (BSN)  a deal with the Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology to recognize each other’s&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;halal certificates. Such a partnership is aimed at enabling Indonesian products to reach the UAE’s market, and vice-versa.

Certainly, the UAE’s latest COVID-19 assistance to Indonesia was just the latest development in the growing Jakarta–Abu Dhabi relations in recent years. Since 1976, the two governments have witnessed remarkable, yet silent, growth in their two-way relationship. In 2020, these moves by the UAE are part of expanding the country’s soft power policy.

One important development that is often missed is that Jokowi has  to appoint Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed as a member of a steering board for his new capital plan, alongside Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Looking for Other Partners

Against the backdrop of any potential economic downturn in China as well as the US and Europe caused by Beijing’s&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;trade war with Washington and now the coronavirus pandemic, many countries — including the UAE and Indonesia — have tried to find alternative partners. Indonesia’s geographical position as Southeast Asia’s biggest economy and a G20 member makes it an alluring target for investment. With a population of more than 267 million, Indonesia is an enticing consumer market for Emirati exports. This factor is why the UAE’s investment in the Indonesia archipelago is the most dominant among Gulf Arab countries, according to Indonesia’s&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), which has  a representative office in Abu Dhabi. 

At the same time, Indonesia’s&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;strategic location offers the Emirates an opening to boost its ties with other countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc. In particular, the UAE’s relationship with neighboring Malaysia is problematic, given previous issues between Abu Dhabi and Kuala Lumpur on issues ranging from Islamic affairs to financial issues involving the 1MBD investigation. By tightening their relationship, both Abu Dhabi and Jakarta can put pressure on Kuala Lumpur’s Islamic â€śâ€ť regarding political issues such as Kashmir and Islamophobia. However, all three nations complement each other in terms of mil-to-mil relations.

For Indonesia, long-standing , which has grown amid the COVID-19 pandemic, has presented difficulty for China, which is one of Indonesia’s largest investors. Consequently, bolstering relations with fellow Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East is seen as a safer option by Jakarta. The China-US trade war has driven some firms to choose Southeast Asian nations over China as a base for their operations, but few have opted for Indonesia, causing Jakarta to look to the Gulf.

To be clear, COVID-19 has provided Indonesia and the UAE with a chance to enhance their bilateral relations at a critical time in transregional relationships. The UAE will remain important to Indonesia as a country in the Gulf that can serve as a gateway to new markets as well as a major hub for the largest Muslim-majority country’s expansion throughout the greater Middle East. Assistance from Abu Dhabi could steer its ties with Indonesia in a more strategic direction.

*[ is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Pragmatic countries eying long-term economic sustainability know they must invest in technology amid an expected explosion of artificial intelligence (AI). According to a by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), AI adoption will account for 45% of the world economy’s total gains by 2030. The “greatest economic gains” from AI will be in China, estimated at a 26% boost to GDP, and North America with about 14.5%. PwC says this is the “equivalent to a total of $10.7 trillion and accounting for almost 70% of the global economic impact.”

There is a sense of competition between cities around the world. At Collision, one of North America’s biggest startup conferences on tech that took place in May, venture capitalists (VC) discussed where is the best place to invest. The event took place in Toronto for the first time, yet another sign of how the Canadian city is becoming a key player in this highly competitive sector.

At one session I attended, bosses from top tech cities such as San Francisco, New York, London, Amsterdam or even countries like Israel pitched their localities as the places to be. The main criteria revolved around concentration of talents, the proper ecosystems backed by education institutes or simply quality of life.

As a journalist who has lived in both the United Arab Emirates and Canada, I believe it’s worth taking a look at both countries to compare the industry.

AI IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Apart from Israel, there is not much mention of any other Middle Eastern country as a key place to invest in. This is due to the low level of patents in a region that excels in pushing its talent abroad due to conflicts, political suppression and among other factors needed for economic development.

What’s interesting is that, in March, Emirati media outlets reported that Dubai is ranked first globally in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) for AI and robots, citing figures from the Dubai Technology Entrepreneurship Campus (Dtec), a tech hub by the Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA). It was also prepared in collaboration with ArabNet and startAD. The former is a Beirut-based organization focused on tech business and innovation in the Middle East and North Africa, and the latter is the innovation and entrepreneurship platform anchored at NYU Abu Dhabi.

As reported by the , Dubai attracted $21.6-billion worth of FDI in high-end technology transfers — AI and robotics — between 2015 and 2018. Most of this came from the member states of the European Union and the United States, $5.7 billion and $3.9 billion respectively. The authors of the article mention that — with AI expected to account for 45% of the global economy’s gains by 2030 — the projected annual growth of AI to the UAE is 33.5%. This is followed by Saudi Arabia at 31.3%, the rest of the Arabian Peninsula at 28.8% and Egypt at 25.5%.

THE CANADIAN TECH INDUSTRY

When compared to Ontario, the Canadian province has raised nearly $1 billion by AI companies from 2015 to 2018, according to figures supplied by the Canadian Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. These investments refer to all types of private and public capital, including VC funds, grants, mergers and acquisitions, and other types of private investments.

Yet Toronto absolutely wins over Dubai in terms of its diverse talent, solid tech ecosystem, innovation and, most importantly, its political stability backed by its Canadian culture and values. These are not only attractive for skilled migrants, but even for Americans who are escaping the populist President Donald Trump — the latter point was evidently made at the Collision conference.

Since 2016, Google, Uber, Adobe, Autodesk, Samsung, LG, Fujitsu, Huawei, Accenture and Etsy have all opened an AI research and development lab in Toronto. Suburbs in the Greater Toronto Area, especially Markham, have also managed to attract big names such as IBM. In 2018, opened a technical center in the same . York Region, which Markham belongs to, already has the “” of tech companies in Canada.

FLYING TAXIS IN DUBAI

But one thing Dubai is probably doing that’s garnering the attention of foreign investment is the ease of experimentation, less regulation and the government’s willingness to amend regulations once it sees opportunity. For example, in 2017, Dubai an unmanned two-seater drone designed to transport people autonomously. The Autonomous Air Taxi (AAT), which the UAE claimed would be the world’s first “self-flying taxi service,” is by a specialist German manufacturer called that has Daimler and Intel as investors.At the time, the Roads and Transport Authority of Dubai expected the trial run — in tandem with issuing legislation required to operate the unmanned flying vehicles — to take place in about five years. But with Volocopter hungry to unleash its first air taxi by the end of 2019, it announced on May 23 that it had entered a partnership with the UK-based vertiport owner and operator Skyports, with plans to the first-ever Volo-Port in Singapore by the end of this year.

While Singapore, the first state in Asia to release a framework on ethical use of AI, seems to be stealing Dubai’s thunder in having the world’s flying taxi make its actual debut, the UAE continues to be relentless. In April, the UAE cabinet launched a national strategy for artificial intelligence. As usual, the overly ambitious UAE is planning to position itself as a global leader in AI by 2031, according to the government.

Also, as diplomatic tensions continue between the West and China over Huawei, a leading Chinese tech company that has faced accusations of being a , the UAE is inching closer to take the lead for the (OBOR) initiative. The OBOR is a trade strategy by Beijing to revive the countries that line the ancient Silk Road. To take advantage of what China’s plan has to offer, the UAE has axed visa requirements for Chinese nationals and wants its share from a $15-billion Chinese tech fund announced last year.

In Canada, where startups are in need of venture capital, there are some impressive companies, including the Canadian-Israeli firm SkyX that uses long-range drones backed with AI sensors to check oil pipelines. Based in Markham, SkyX founder Didi Horn is a former Israeli fighter pilot, and Canada has managed to snap him.

Most importantly, the country’s first publicly-owned (DDC) in the field has tested its equipment in remote areas. Ron Struthers, a specialist on drone stocks, has DDC’s drone as “leaping ahead of any competition [such as Google and Amazon, who are both developing their own drones] with a new long range and heavy pay load drone.” But after new Canadian regulations on drones in January, DDC asked for more regulatory “flexibility,” giving a glimpse of how Canada has succeeded in attracting the likes of Horn but not Volocopter.

UAE WILL ATTRACT BIG AI FIRMS

Although Dubai was unable to keep hold of Volocopter for it to make the global debut in the United Arab Emirates, its vision and flexibility will at least enable it to arrive in the Middle East. Indeed, it is without a doubt that the UAE will continue to make international headlines.

In fact, the Dubai-based ride-hailing firm Careem, which uses AI technology, is in the process of being acquired by industry giant Uber for $3.1 billion, with $1.7 billion being in convertible notes and $1.4 billion in cash. The UAE, the first in the world to create a ministry for AI, is also pushing forward with gusto to create a solid AI ecosystem at home, which will bring in the big names over the long-run. In March, the country put forward $408 million to build “new generation” Emirati schools. These schools will include design and robotics labs as well as AI facilities. This could be part of the national investment in AI, which has reached $2.5 billion in the past decade, according to a recent by Microsoft and Ernst and Young.

As the United Arab Emirates takes the lead in the Middle East and bolsters its base, its chances in bringing the world’s leading AI firms will surely increase.

*[ is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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In June 2017, a group of countries led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates formed a diplomatic and economic blockade against the state of Qatar. Yet rather than bringing Qatar to its knees, the crisis has benefited the tiny Gulf nation in numerous ways. The siege has forced Doha to diversify its relations regionally and globally to gain independence from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s spheres of influence.

Qatar, a gas-rich Arab emirate, has reassured the world that regardless of the embargo, its economy has not been affected and it is ripe for investment. In fact, Qatari citizens have not particularly felt the impact of the blockade. Rather, it is — making up % of the country’s population — who have been hit the most for a number of reasons.

First, at the outset of the crisis in 2017, Qatari employers living in Arab countries enforcing the embargo were deported and forced to put business operations on hold. This meant South Asian construction workers were stranded in the Gulf. Second, foreign workers — especially from South Asia — primarily comprise the blue-collar working class in Qatar, so they were disproportionately harmed when the blockade caused material shortages and closed construction sites. Third, because migrant workers are often paid low salaries, even the slightest increase in food prices can immensely impair their standard of living.

Meanwhile, the state itself has triumphed over the blockade’s economic impact. By November 2018, Qatar was no longer spending any of its financial reserves to offset the embargo’s deleterious effects and, as a result, its economic prospects seem promising.

The Economy and Al-Udeid

Ironically, Qatar owes its current success to the Saudi-led coalition’s economic and diplomatic severance. Had it not been for the blockade, Qatar would not have been so incentivized to fortify its global reputation. While and grants won over many policy officials and academics, Qatar most efficaciously solidified a positive relationship with the US by intensifying America’s military dependence on the country.

In Qatar’s al-Udeid airbase, the US has a forward listening post on Iran, US Central Command operating headquarters and a Gulf-based launching pad to wage its military campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The Qataris used the airbase to counter US President Donald Trump’s pro-Saudi foreign policy. Doha to expand al-Udeid’s resources and upgrade Hamad Port for use by the US Navy, all in exchange for a closer relationship with Washington.

Additionally, it was the very embargo intended to incapacitate Qatar’s economy that led to its prosperity and diversification. To compensate for severed economic ties with other Gulf states — including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain — Doha sought innovative ways to attract international business and foreign direct investment (FDI). Now, companies are to operate in Qatar because it has “a legal environment based on English common law, the right to trade in any currency, 100 percent foreign ownership, 100 percent repatriation of profits and a 10 percent corporate tax on locally sourced profits.”

Even pre-existing firms that wanted to maintain their Qatari clientele contributed to Doha’s financial success. These companies had to relocate their businesses to the country, thereby increasing FDI and local jobs in Qatar. Despite the embargo, FDI to Qatar by 4% in 2017, and the number of new companies licensed to operate in in the country by 66% in the same year.

The Saudi-led blockade has also contributed to Qatar’s self-sufficiency. Along with foreign direct investment, the domestic production of medicine and agricultural products has grown significantly.

For example, Qatar decided to  security through , a company that has become the country’s largest locally-owned fresh dairy and beverage supplier. Driven by the impossibility of importing foods from nearby countries, the Qatari government implemented Baladna and other infrastructure projects to cope with the desert landscape. These initiatives use innovative solutions to transform the arid landscape into fruitful agricultural land, which is much more than what other Gulf states can boast about.

Due to its newfound economic vigor and weighty relationships in the global community, Doha is rising to regional prominence, even threatening Saudi and Emirati hegemony in the Gulf. Equipped with financial stability and independence from its neighbors’ agendas, Doha provided $500 million to , $150 million to civil servants in and additional aid to at the beginning of 2019. Unlike other Gulf states, Qatar does not have to abide by the economic rules of the Saudi and Emirati-led (GCC). Instead, it can undermine this hierarchy by distributing regional aid to places like Lebanon, where Saudi Arabia has been working to counter , an Iran-backed political, military and social organization.

Jamal Khashoggi and Human Rights

Qatar’s uprooting of the status quo is well-timed, thereby increasing the odds of its successful ascension to regional prominence. Surviving its own defamation at the hands of the Saudi-led coalition, Qatar can now bask in the condemnation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been criticized for the war in Yemen, the incarceration of women’s rights activists and the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Similarly, the UAE clings onto its credibility after a British graduate student, Matthew Hedges, for spying despite the lack of clear evidence. So long as these besmirched Saudi and Emirati reputations persist, Qatar will have the opportunity — not just the financial means — to secure its status as a key regional player.

Of course, no country has a perfect human rights record and Qatar is no exception. In March 2016, a by Amnesty International found that migrant workers building the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha for the 2022 FIFA World Cup had “suffered systematic abuses, in some cases forced labour.” While the country officially amended its sponsorship system for foreign workers , it has still faced from human rights organizations.

Mediating between the US and Iran

Even more surprisingly, the coalition inadvertently pushed Qatar and Iran closer. Fearful of Doha’s openness to Iran, the Saudi-led coalition enforced a trade and travel embargo on the Qataris back in 2017. This led to a loss of imports and the in countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia to all Qatari-registered aircraft. However, the blockade cemented relations between Iran and Qatar as the Iranians made up for lost trade and helped Doha devise new .

Although, amid current tensions between the US and Iran over the failure of the nuclear deal that was agreed in 2015, the embargo has also brought Qatar closer to Washington. Due to lobbying efforts, financial grants and the developments at al-Udeid airbase, the relationship between Qatar and the US has never been better. Uniquely situated in the good graces of both Iran and the US, Qatar could serve as an indispensable mediator between the two. Just recently, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani placated Iranian concerns about new US military deployments to the Middle East. As by Mark Perry in The American Conservative: “It’s likely, as this writer has been told by senior Pentagon officers, that al-Thani brought just the opposite message: that the new deployments are not a preparation for war, but an attempt to prevent it.”

At the end of May, Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz hosted a triple summit in Mecca for Arab and Muslim leaders. Despite the ongoing embargo, he invited Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to attend, which was aimed at establishing a diplomatic consensus on regional issues, including Iran. Although the emir did not travel to Mecca, opting to send the Qatari prime minister instead, his unexpected invitation lends credence to the idea that Qatar is an invaluable asset in diffusing tensions between Iran and its adversaries.

Despite lacking the coercive force of a large state, Qatar boasts a trifecta of close relations with Washington and Tehran, influence in US circles and recent negotiating success. In February and March, Doha the longest round of peace talks between the US and the Taliban to date. Although no agreements were finalized, Qatar facilitated unprecedented strides toward peace in Afghanistan, giving Doha the image of a potential peacemaker between the US and Iran.

Two years after the Gulf crisis began, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh have nothing to show for their coalition’s efforts to pressure Qatar into surrendering. Rather than folding to its GCC neighbors, Doha has challenged the Saudis and Emiratis. Qatari economic successes, coupled with Saudi and Emirati reputational shortcomings, provide further opportunity for Doha to continue rising to regional prominence.

*[ is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ. A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Baladna raises livestock. Updated: June 12, 2019.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The West has grown reluctant to intervene in ongoing crises in the Middle East and North Africa. At the same time, several Arab states are increasingly determined to flex their muscles with the aim of establishing a regional order that advances their interests.

The United Arab Emirates’ current campaign across North Africa is a case in point. Abu Dhabi has become the capital for meetings regarding many of the Arab countries engulfed in transitions and civil wars. But as the cases of Libya, Syria and Yemen have shown, it is questionable to what extent the UAE and/or other Arab states will be able to form a united front on contentious regional issues and whether increased Arab involvement in military crises may lead to disagreements, rather than coordinated interventions.

Stepping up to the plate

Although the European Union is on the doorstep of the military struggle that is currently unfolding across the Mediterranean Sea, it is split between backing the Libyan National Army (LNA), which enjoys French support, and the Government of National Accord (GNA), which appears to enjoy broader support from within the EU. On April 5, the UK, France, Italy and the UAE a joint statement condemning “military posturing and threats of unilateral action” that “risk propelling Libya back toward chaos” during a “sensitive moment in [its] transition,” emphasizing that “there is no military solution to the Libya conflict.”

Yet shortly after this, there was a telephone conversation between US President Donald Trump and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. Trump praised General Haftar, who leads the LNA and is a former resident of Virginia with dual Libyan-American citizenship. The US has actively blocked a British-backed UN Security Council resolution on the cessation of violence in Libya. With an indecisive EU and an incoherent US foreign policy, Arab countries cannot count on Western states to lead in Libya. From the perspective of the regional governments, they hold the key to determining the outcome of the Libyan crisis.

Although the EU lacks any coherent foreign policy as a regional bloc, the Arab states do too. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for example, are actively aiding Haftar’s LNA, while Qatar has put its eggs in the GNA’s basket. Qatar and Turkey are still delivering supplies to allies by both air and sea in Tripoli and Misrata. Doha has been critical of the Arab states supporting Haftar, that the UAE wants to create a regime mirroring its own image in Libya. Added to this, the Twitter fighting between serious Gulf scholars and other figures is vicious.

The division that exists in the Arab world — between the countries imposing an embargo on Qatar, the Qataris themselves and those caught in the middle — appears to persist in the countries’ regional foreign policies. The question is whether Arab states can bridge the divide between them in order to form coherent responses to ongoing crises in the region, or if they will only end up adding fuel to the raging fires.

Arab Solutions to Arab Problems

Although divided, Arab states did manage to form a military coalition in March 2015 to combat the Houthi rebellion in Yemen. The US-backed coalition, which included Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Sudan, Morocco and Jordan, cooperated to aid the internationally-recognized government of Yemen in its fight against the Houthi rebels. What was supposed to be a display of Arab ability to restore order in the region, however, quickly turned into a fragmented coalition with differing interpretations of the strategies and tactics required to put a halt to the violence.

Not only has the coalition failed to effectively end the violence in Yemen over the past four years, but it also lost several of its members as the conflict progressed. The embargo of Qatar since 2017 by a number of the coalition countries, for instance, caused Doha to pull out of Yemen. While unrelated, Rabat similarly suspended its in February 2019 after Saudi media outlet Al Arabiya called into question the sovereignty of Morocco over the Western Sahara.

In addition, the remaining coalition members have shown little unity, often bickering among themselves over military contributions and the ongoing peace process in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, for example, would have liked to see a more active contribution from coalition partners such as Kuwait and Bahrain, who have only contributed to a . This type of squabbling must be recognized as part of the Gulf landscape between the various countries, which is having a deep social-psychological impact on the citizenry that is likely to last generations.

The experience in Yemen does not bode well for the prospects of Arab interventions in the region, as the coalition lacks the military structure required to facilitate a coordinated campaign. The fact that Saudi Arabia and the UAE carry out different types of missions, assisting various actors and using proxies to shape Yemen’s future is an important determinant of the outcome of power struggles facing the region. While there have been attempts by the US to promote cooperation between Arab countries through the formation of the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA), also referred to as the “Arab NATO,” these attempts have been mostly difficult due to the divisions among its prospective members.

Given the complex security environment, an event may force a quick overcoming of disagreements. In the meantime, without some form of unified command, it remains to be seen as to whether Arab states will be able to learn from their experiences in Yemen and properly address future crises in the region. The UAE and Egypt are focusing their energy on Arab states in Africa. Their biggest security concerns are Sudan and Libya and the nexus between these two countries as General Haftar’s campaign to take Tripoli by force continues. It is also likely that a lack of unity among Arab states will cause them to support different factions within conflicts, potentially causing violence in the region to escalate, as currently appears to be the case in Libya.

Russia to the rescue?

Unlike Western powers, Russia seems to have both the means and the willingness to intervene when its interests are at stake. If Moscow’s interests and those of Arab states align more closely in the future, Russia may prove to be the most reliable military partner for governments in the Middle East and North Africa.

Although Yemen is arguably an example of a failed Arab military intervention, Syria is perhaps the most notable example of what happens when Arab countries do not engage in direct military intervention but instead opt for sponsoring proxies. Under the Obama administration, the US took decisive action in Syria to turn the tide against President Bashar al-Assad. Yet with a growing number of extremist groups gaining power in the country — most notably the Islamic State — Russia intervened in September 2015 and used its hard power to fundamentally alter the course of the crisis.

This was a turning point in the Middle East’s geopolitical history, with Moscow proving capable of creating facts on the ground through a military campaign that was risky due to the complex nature of the conflict. Although some Gulf states at first objected to the Kremlin’s actions in the Syrian government’s defense, these monarchies had no ability to counter the Russians in Syria in a manner that could influence the outcome of the war in their favor.

Despite Russia and many Sunni-ruled Arab states being on opposing sides in the Syrian conflict, the Gulf monarchies are now looking to Moscow as a power that can impose order in ways that Western and Arab states cannot. For example, when visiting Moscow in April, Kuwait’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled al-Jarallah for Russia’s aid in bringing the Yemeni conflict to an end. Although he did not mention military measures, he welcomed Russia’s influence as both a UN Security Council member and a superpower in solving some of the region’s challenges.

The Arabian Peninsula and Russia already have a fairly broad spectrum of cooperation, ranging from energy to space flight. In other words, a more integrated approach to regional security would not be farfetched at all. Amid the political situation in Brussels and Washington, the Gulf states see Russia in a unique light at this juncture of regional Arab division. Given how the Kremlin is using its military aircraft and naval craft in more aggressive ways in other regions — such as the Baltics or Venezuela — it is increasingly likely that Russia will position its military in other parts of the Middle East. The optics of such a move will send a strong message that Russia is back in the Middle East and Africa, and this time with permission from Gulf states.

*[ is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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As a business leader and property developer in the United Arab Emirates, I have seen our geographically tiny nation develop a wide global influence. To manage this power responsibly and conscientiously takes both an understanding of the country’s needs, along with those of the world at large.

Few know this fact more intimately than the nation’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, known as Sheikh Mohammed. For over a decade, his leadership has been marked by a strong consciousness about the UAE’s unique place in the world, and its responsibility to set an example through a strong economy, partnerships, anti-terrorism and philanthropy.

As chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, the crown prince oversees all that happens within the borders of his continually growing nation.

Leadership in Prosperity

The UAE, blessed with substantial fossil fuel reserves, is forever seeking to grow beyond this ephemeral source of capital and enhance its position in the international order. To that end, bold plans have been enacted, such as .

Launched in 2010, the aim of Vision 2021 is to cement the UAE as a leader in the Middle East and worldwide by developing a formidable knowledge economy, one not beholden to oil reserves but centering true, permanent leadership in education and finance. In Sheikh Mohammed’s , the people of his country “are the real wealth, not the 3 million barrels of oil.”

New York University Abu Dhabi, opened in 2010, represents perhaps the Emirates’ most noteworthy step toward international educational preeminence. The keynote speech from Bill Clinton to the inaugural graduating class set the tone for this new generation of leaders, uniquely prepared to help bring the vision of a better world into reality.

Leadership in International Relations

One of the ways to ensure the economic viability of the United Arab Emirates is to forge and sustain strong relations with partner countries. The UAE’s international stance is important not just in the Middle East, but in terms of the world at large. For the nation to reach the goals of Vision 2021 and beyond, its place in the international order must be unyieldingly firm.

The principles of diplomacy put in place by Sheikh Mohammed’s predecessor, Sheikh Zayed, have held strong and been the foundation for the future. The UAE is to be a partner and friend to fellow global leaders, and the cooperation-based partnerships built and grown on his watch are the pathway to a more peaceful world, equipped to handle any problem laid before it.

Partnerships with nations like the US, the UK, France, China, South Korea and many more — not to mention its fellow Arab states — make the UAE ever-ready to engage in constructive international endeavors.

Leadership in Safety

As a leading figure in the Middle East, Sheikh Mohammed has taken a powerful and principled stance against forces seeking to do harm. While the UAE itself has extremely low , the international order depends on leading figures to keep a watchful eye on malevolent forces that pass within their purview.

An unmistakable part of 20th-century leadership is ensuring the safety of citizens from the nefarious forces behind international terrorism, drug trafficking and other destructive actions. In this regard, the crown prince has proudly taken a leading stance, overseeing one of the Middle East’s most formidable anti-terror frameworks. Recognized by the UN as a , the UAE stands firm against those who wish to do harm to the peaceful citizens of the world.

Prevention being a vital form of anti-terror action, the 2012 establishment of the  in Abu Dhabi stands as a monument to the UAE’s commitment to ending large-scale violence by fostering a peaceful international order.

Leadership in Philanthropy

Charitable endeavors, especially for a nation as prosperous as the UAE, must always be a leading concern. To achieve the goal of uplifting those in need, Sheikh Mohammed has been a continual example of generosity and support. Whether fighting disease or threats to nature, his work has always been toward preserving and protecting the good in the world.

In partnership with the Gates Foundation, the crown prince has to the delivery of lifesaving vaccines to impoverished children in the Middle East. His commitment to curing destructive disease goes even further, with a  to the fight against debilitating polio infections. Every child deserves a life unencumbered by disease, and these efforts are helping the international community reach that goal.

Extending his mission to protect the vulnerable, Sheikh Mohammed established his  to sustain animal populations worldwide. The fund provides necessary support for conservation initiatives around the world, with an additional goal of increasing awareness of these crucial causes. A generosity of spirit distinguishes these goals, which fit well into the overall drive of the UAE: to leverage the good fortune into being a leading force in a more free and sustainable world.

A geographically small nation with grand importance on the world stage, the United Arab Emirates combines international prominence with a conscious focus on what’s simultaneously best for its people and the world.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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As the world’s media has once again picked up on the  of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s involvement in the brutal murder of journalist , another story is receiving scant attention.

Alya Abdulnoor is a young Emirati woman who was arrested in July 2015 and eventually charged with financing international terrorist groups, though the only evidence presented was a record of websites she had visited. Abdulnoor was not politically active; she was concerned about the impact of the civil war in Syria on women and children and had been collecting donations on their behalf.

When she was arrested, Abdulnoor was already suffering from cancer. She was detained in an unknown place for four months, according to the Geneva-based International Centre for Justice and Human Rights (ICJHR). She was subjected to torture and forced to sign a false confession that was used to convict her. This is standard practice in the United Arab Emirates; it was used against the acclaimed human rights activist  and the noted academic Nasser bin Ghaith, as well as dozens of other political prisoners.

In May 2018, a voice recording was smuggled out of Al Wathba prison, in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi, and given to the ICJHR. In it, Abdulnoor detailed how she was exposed to torture, continuously intimidated and deprived of adequate medical care. Even though she was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer shortly after her arrest, for several years the authorities did nothing to alleviate or treat the disease. She was eventually moved to a specialist hospital, but only after the cancer had spread throughout her body and she was unable to stand or walk without assistance.

On January 10, the ICJHR , Abdulnoor was moved against medical advice to a non-specialist hospital. When her family was able to visit her on January 21, she was under heavy guard in a windowless room without ventilation. She was chained to her bed.

The family has repeatedly requested that she be allowed home to die, citing federal legislation that allows such a practice, but the authorities have rejected all their requests. The family believes the move to the second hospital and the appalling treatment she is being subjected to is a punishment for their efforts.

The ICJHR notes: “Alya Abdulnoor is still denied basic hygiene care and adequate medical attention despite her critical condition now that cancer has reached her brain, her liver, lungs and her bones, making her pain unbearable. Despite the repeated requests of the family, the [Emirati] authorities are still refusing to deliver a medical report on Alya’s current state of health.”

Let Her Go Home

Stop for a moment and think about what the authorities in a country that Britain is happy to call a good friend and ally are doing to a dying woman and her family. It is extraordinarily cruel and happens only because the crown prince and effective ruler of the UAE — Mohammed bin Zayed — believes that, like his Saudi counterpart, he can behave with impunity, emboldened by the certainty that we will raise no objections. He is able to conduct his inhumane business in the shadows.

The Abu Dhabi crown prince has also largely escaped global criticism for the conduct of the UAE in Yemen, unlike Mohammed bin Salman, who is rightly held responsible for an aerial war that has killed of civilians. However, the Emiratis, too, have much to answer for. Among other charges, they stand accused of carrying out mass torture, including rape in  set up by them in the south of Yemen. Yet that has had far too little international exposure and condemnation.

Alistair Burt, the UK’s minister of state for the Middle East, has a warm relationship with the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash. Writing in an Emirati newspaper in 2017, Burt had about their relationship: “It would be wrong to suggest that we see eye-to-eye on everything, but the depth of the relationship means that serious questions can be raised without fear, and positions better understood to mutual benefit.”

Minister, I ask you now and as a matter of extreme urgency to raise the case of Alya Abdulnoor with your Emirati counterpart. Tell Dr. Gargash to allow her to go home to die.

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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This year, Dubai played host to the 2016 World Government Summit, which was attended by more than 4,500 participants from 130 countries. The summit showcased “the tremendous growth of the UAE, the geopolitical, economic and social challenges it currently faces,” as well as its plans “to recapture its legacy of innovation in the sciences that goes back to the Islamic Golden Age,” according to the co-authors of this opinion piece. They include Daphne Chen, Crystal Nwokorie, Valentina Ryabova, Dongye Zhang and Ahmed Fikri—all students from the Wharton MBA Class of 2016 who attended this year’s summit.

Background

The Dubai Museum is housed in the oldest building in the Emirate. It was built in 1787 as the Al Fahidi Fort and converted to a museum in 1971. It contains artifacts several millennia old. It is, in a sense, symbolic of the 2016 World Government Summit (WGS) held at various modern locations in the city recently. The theme of the WGS was “Advancing the Future While Preserving the Past.”

US President Barack Obama presented the keynote address by video link on the opening day of the summit. “When a government listens to its people, that is how we move forward,” he said. “Embracing reform will continue to have a partner and friend in the US.”

Reform has been a way of life in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has undergone an incredible identity transformation since the birth of the confederation in 1971. (Dubai is the largest city in the UAE.) What was once a network of loosely organized, semi-nomadic communities is now one of the wealthiest, most-educated and perhaps even happiest countries. It is now the most diversified economy in the Gulf and the second-largest economy in the Arab world.

It is, therefore, appropriate that the UAE play host to the WGS, which it has done since the summits started in 2013. The 2017 summit will expand the canvas further. According to Ohood Khalfan Al Roumi, the UAE’s minister of state for happiness who is also vice-chairman of the organizing committee of the WGS, among other things the summit will be opened to participation from companies and organizations.

This year’s summit, attended by more than 4,500 participants from 130 countries, was a testament to the tremendous growth of the UAE, the geopolitical, economic and social challenges it currently faces, and the lessons that other nations might glean from its 40-year history in nation-building. It was a forum that brought together thought leaders and innovators from all around the world, from fields as diverse as international development, energy, biomedicine and space travel.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates © Shutterstock

The summit provided an overview of how the UAE plans to recapture its legacy of innovation in the sciences that goes back to the Islamic Golden Age, a period between 800 AD and 1200 AD marked by momentous intellectual and cultural achievements. This was a time when the Muslim world, not the West, was the center of science and innovation. People from around the world descended on the Middle East to learn under the tutelage of great intellectuals like Ibn Al-Haytham, the father of modern physics, and Muhammad Ibn Zakariya Al-Razi, an influential philosopher and ophthalmologist of the time. In their lectures on Islamic Science and the Islamic Golden Age, Jim Al-Khalili, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Surrey, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, reminded the summit participants that the key to this period’s success was a culture of inquiry, dominated by people who were not afraid to challenge and be challenged.

The obstacle the UAE now faces as it attempts to breathe life into this legacy is not only to remind its constituents that innovation is a birthright, but also to put in place programs and education that further its plan to demonstrate science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) leadership in a world where innovation is currently largely a Western export. If the Middle East was once the bedrock of global innovation, what is stopping the region from resurrecting this legacy and what role will the UAE play in leading the charge?

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

One of the voices leading the campaign for nations to become better stewards of innovation was Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), who took the stage to describe his theory of the fourth industrial revolution, based on the premise that technology, digitization and the Internet of Things is transforming the way we interact on social, physical and even biological levels. He warned governments that the technological and innovation revolution is coming like a tsunami, so they had better be prepared for it. For the UAE and many Middle Eastern nations, adapting to the new systems that spring from this revolution requires more than just investment in science and technology. It requires a culture of innovation and discovery, once abundant in the region and which is now experiencing revitalization.

One initiative that was discussed during the summit was the UAE’s first mission to Mars. Concern has been increasing about the mismatch between demand and supply of qualified STEM professionals in the UAE. Increasingly, nations are attempting to close that gap. As Ibrahim Al Qasim, director of education and media outreach for the Emirates Mars Mission, and Tyson both noted, the space race of the 1960s was responsible for a generation of young minds getting interested in the sciences. Making big bets to stimulate and glamorize such endeavors is, at the very least, a bold move to enliven interest in STEM.

A central question of the summit was: What is the role of government? After three days of seminars, speeches and discussions, the answer seemed to converge around the idea that governments should become a platform for the delivery of public services. With people becoming ever more fluent with technology and interfacing with digital objects, if governments are to survive, they must adapt to such trends. Computing power doubles every 18 months. People are moving faster and expecting more than ever before.

Reform has been a way of life in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has undergone an incredible identity transformation since the birth of the confederation in 1971.

One example of experimentation with the government-as-a-platform idea was the launch of healthcare.gov in the United States. Despite the desire to meet users online, where they are comfortable ordering other services, the healthcare.gov launch was a disaster and its enrollment rates low—a question mark on whether or not the government is even capable of running such platforms. Beyond the US, even in high-income OECD countries, it still takes more than eight working days and about five different procedures to open a new business.

Some promising early signs are now visible, such as the United Kingdom’s government-as-a-platform initiative and the UAE’s government portal government.ae, indicating that the effort toward the plug-and-play mode of government services is still being tinkered with and improved. However, some wonder whether or not the private sector is better equipped to deal with such services.

The Integration Doctrine

Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s deputy prime minister and minister of the interior, shared with the audience the UAE’s integration doctrine. In this approach, the leadership, government and community work hand in hand to continuously learn from the past to better prepare for the future. Governments have to be proactive in foreseeing disruptions and planning for them to eliminate the risk of failure caused by surprised reactive responses. This is only achievable when governments are aligned on the vision and are collaborating rather than competing on the implementation. The integration doctrine sees past failures as valuable opportunities to learn and improve rather than a chance to blame someone else.

With the celebration of the UAE’s advancement comes the realization of how fragile this prosperity might be due to the political and economic turmoil in the region. Given the deep interdependencies among Arab countries, the UAE’s prosperity is highly dependent on the prosperity of its neighbors. In the past, it was this very interconnectedness that allowed the region to flourish. Therefore, significant attention at the summit was given to not only how to advance future development but also how to preserve those precious results that were so hard to achieve. Arab countries have a lot of potential for economic growth that is determined by the availability of natural resources, human capital and young working populations. However, political and social unrest in the region might prevent countries from realizing these resources to their fullest potential.

Five Challenges for the Arab Region

Speaking at the summit, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Secretary General Abdullatif Al Zayani shared five challenges that should be collaboratively addressed by Arab countries in order to preserve and enhance the prosperity of the region and of each individual state:

United Arab Emirates © Shutterstock

1) Collaboration and a shared vision are key to stabilizing the situation in the region. The scale and magnitude of the current political and economic turmoil in the region are such that no one individual state has the capabilities to resolve the situation on its own. At the same time, no individual state can afford to not take action under the current circumstances, as inaction deters investments, partners and business from the region.

2) Restoring safety and security. Arab nations must provide a safe and secure environment to all its citizens. It is crucial to create a secure environment to facilitate economic growth and to attract foreign capital, especially given that some Arab states are in the process of diversifying their economies away from dependence on fossil fuels. For example, the UAE’s ambition is to become a global hub for associations, tourism and commerce. This aspiration will be challenging to achieve unless tourists and investors believe in the UAE’s commitment to safety with respect to not only the UAE but also its neighbors. Gaps in security have already more than halved the tourism industries in Egypt and Tunisia.

3) The eradication of terrorism. Terrorism in the region remains a wide-ranging threat to political, economic and social stability. Terrorism should be eliminated by averting terrorist funding and preventing atrocities through cooperation between international police and national governments.

4) Mobilizing efforts and resources by Arab countries to provide assistance to millions of displaced refugees from Palestine, Syria and Libya. Arab countries cannot accept watching Syrian children die of hunger or drown in the Mediterranean. Unified efforts should be employed to provide human relief to all such refugees. This plea arrives in the midst of the migrant crisis in Europe. Hosting Arab nations should provide those people who seek asylum from repressive regimes with all necessary support to establish themselves in a new place, such as access to health care, education and employment.

5) Initiating of the process of national reconciliation among Arab countries. Many Arab countries will need to be reconstructed both physically and institutionally. Arab people in those countries should be guaranteed human rights and the hope for a better future. Those Arab countries devastated by wars and social unrest lack sufficient resources to reconstruct their cities and societies. Surrounding Arab nations should collaboratively assist in the restoration of peace in their less fortunate neighbors.

All this is easier said than done. But the summit lit up the road ahead. The WGS bills itself as “a knowledge exchange platform at the intersection between government, futurism, technology and innovation. It functions as a thought leadership platform and networking hub for policymakers, experts and pioneers in human development. The summit is a gateway to the future.”

Dubai 2016 showed some glimpses through that gateway.

*[This article was originally published by , a partner institution of .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Gulf states are lining up as targets for criticism by international trade unions and human rights groups for their treatment of foreign workers. Qatar, long in the firing line after its winning bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022, was recently joined by Abu Dhabi as a result of projects to build world-class museums, luxury hotels and a campus for New York University.

Dubai is likely to be next in line after its winning bid to host the 2020 World Expo, which is expected to generate $7 billion in construction projects.

A comparison of the media fallout as well as campaigning by trade unions and human rights groups of Qatar and Abu Dhabi highlights the power of the World Cup and soccer. This puts the onus of responsibility on sports associations, including FIFA, for ensuring that hosts meet international standards of human rights.

As a matter of principle, there is little news in the abominable conditions of foreign workers in the Gulf where they often constitute a majority of the population. This writer wrote his first report on the plight of foreign workers in the region in 1976. Vast realms have been written since.

The Independent focused several years ago on the UAE. Yet it took Qatar’s winning of the World Cup to put the issue on the agenda, with any number of groups and government organizations since seeking to get on the bandwagon.

Britain’s The Guardian ensured that it moved even further up the agenda with a series of recent reports on workers in Qatar involved in World Cup-related projects. In contrast to those reports, revelations in The Guardian’s sister publication, The Observer, about workers’ conditions on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat (Happiness) Island have had a more muted fallout than those about Qatar.

Workers’ Rights in the Gulf

Yet Abu Dhabi is not just about the arts and education, of which there are far more restrictions on academic freedom than in Qatar; although this is not to suggest that the Gulf state is a beacon of freedom of expression, research and the press.

Abu Dhabi, too, is about sports. FIFA has organized in recent years several tournaments in Abu Dhabi, while the International Cricket Council (ICC) moved its headquarters in 2005 from London to Dubai. The UAE would like to see others follow suit.

While Gulf states compete for topping the list of where workers’ conditions are worst, Abu Dhabi and the UAE compare unfavorably to Qatar not only when it comes to academic freedoms.

Besides cracking down on research institutions and activists and barring critical researchers from entering the country, the UAE also has the dubious distinction of being the world’s only government to hire an army of at least 800 Africans and Latin Americans, who are parked outside the capital for the eventuality of major labor unrest or a popular revolt – an indication of how far it is willing to go to keep the ruling family in power.

In a bid to avoid joining Qatar and Abu Dhabi in the firing line, Bahrain — already on the defensive for its brutal suppression of a 2011 popular uprising and its ongoing crackdown on majority-Shiite Muslim activists that has led to the continued incarceration of scores of athletes — recently announced that it would adopt Gulf labor standards. These include banning the confiscation of workers’ passports and ensuring timely payment of wages.

Abu Dhabi: A Worker's Paradise?

While Qatar has acknowledged the need for change and problems with implementation and enforcement of existing workers’ rights, Abu Dhabi has sought to project itself as a workers’ paradise.

"The UAE has built the world's greatest labor camp, complete with manicured cricket grounds, a chess center, a multilingual library with works by Ayn Rand and Barack Obama, the UAE's first multi-denominational prayer hall, film screening rooms, tug-of-war competitions, a coffee shop and landscaped grounds. Regular government press releases show groups of smiling dignitaries who have come to admire the Saadiyat Construction Village, while promotional videos show smiling workers playing cricket in spotless whites," The Guardian reported, noting that a majority of workers on Saadiyat lived in what can only be described as appalling conditions.

The message is clear: Gulf states have long gotten away with sub-standard living and working conditions as a result of the international community, including sports associations. They have, at best, paid lip service to globally accepted standards and their own professed values. While Gulf states promise change and reform of their labor laws and regulations, they fail to put their money where their mouth is.

To Qatar’s credit, the Gulf state — unlike the UAE — has engaged with trade unions and human rights groups. That engagement has given it some degree of the benefit of the doubt. The proof, however, will be in the pudding.

Because of the FIFA World Cup, Qatar has taken the heat of the focus on workers’ conditions in the Gulf. That hardly makes the circumstances of foreign workers in the UAE less onerous or lessens the onus on international sports associations to uphold universal values. For the Gulf states, the litmus test will be implementation and enforcement rather than adoption of lofty principles and showcases to keep critics happy.

*[Note: James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture at the University of Würzburg, and the author of  blog.]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy. 

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The world watched with great interest as mass protests, starting in December 2010, swept the Arab world, most prominently leading to the ouster of Egypt’s and Tunisia’s long-standing presidents. In Libya, an armed opposition campaign, with NATO air support, brought a violent end to Muammar Qaddafi’s 42-year rule. The initially peaceful protests in Syria against the Assad government turned into a bloody civil war, which has cost more than 100,000 lives, led to over 2.1 million refugees, and continues to rage on.

Almost forgotten were protests in the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf – namely the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain , Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Apart from temporarily heightened coverage of the , events in the Gulf were mostly left in the background, as the turbulent events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria dominated the headlines.

The GCC countries are hereditary monarchical systems, with varying degrees of parliamentary influence. Kuwait’s parliament, for example, first elected in 1963, has law-making and certain veto powers in the country’s system of a constitutional monarchy in which the Emir has the final say on policies. In contrast to that, the Shura Council in Saudi Arabia, seen as an absolute monarchy, has very limited rights and draft laws are always to be approved by the king. In a recent move, however, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who appoints all members of the council, for the first time nominated to join the Shura Council.

Overall, parliaments in the Gulf are not the centers of power, as ultimate authority lies with the executive and its rulers.

The importance of this region derives from the fact that several key Gulf states, first and foremost Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are crucial players in the global energy market with Riyadh holding “” and being the largest producer and exporter of total petroleum liquids.  is currently the world’s largest supplier of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and holds the third largest natural gas reserves in the world. Both states rely heavily on rents from natural resources; despite diversification efforts, a common pattern in the Gulf. Furthermore, the United Arab Emirates is the “” in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Apart from economic ties, several Gulf states have close political and military relations with Western countries. Bahrain hosts the US Navy’s fifth fleet and signed a with the United Kingdom in 2012. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar serves as the forward headquarters of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM). Moreover, Kuwait is considered as a counterterrorism partner for the US and played an important role in the Iraq War as a key platform for US and coalition forces’ operations. US-Saudi relations have been a cornerstone of US strategy for the Middle East.

However, many human rights organizations have criticized Gulf states for their poor human rights record, which includes the repression of and . Qatar recently came under fierce criticism, following reports that were made public by  of serious mistreatment of migrant workers. These migrants were brought to the country to build the 2022 FIFA World Cup construction sites.

51łÔąĎ’s Middle East Editor, , speaks to , a renowned expert on Gulf politics from the University of Cambridge.

Matthiesen is the author of the recently published book, , which talks about political uprisings and political dissent in the Gulf states. He received his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, examining: “The Shia in Saudi Arabia: Identity Politics, Sectarianism, and the Saudi State.” He is currently a research fellow in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, and a research officer at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Langendorf and Matthiesen talk about the stability of regimes in the Gulf, an upsurge in activism, Western interests at play, and the role of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Manuel Langendorf: You recently published a book entitled:    . What is your main message in the book and what propelled you to write it?

Toby Matthiesen: I had worked on the Gulf States and sectarianism for my PhD, and was in Bahrain on a research trip when the uprising started. So I saw the historic events unfolding before me, and started to understand the sectarian logic behind the crackdown.

The main message of the book is that the Gulf regimes were willing to go all the way to prevent any GCC state from becoming a constitutional monarchy or a democracy, and one of the main tools they employed was increasing sectarianism.

Langendorf: How were protests in the Gulf states covered by the media? Were there any common patterns and shortcomings?

Matthiesen: While Bahrain did receive some coverage in early 2011, the Gulf protests and crackdowns have generally received much less attention than comparable events across the region. This is partly because of access restrictions for Western media, but also partly a result of PR campaigns financed by the GCC states.

Particularly, Bahrain has spent millions through PR companies in the US and in Europe to try and change its tarnished reputation.

Langendorf: As we witness continuous unrest, especially in Bahrain, do you see the stability of the GCC’s rulers in danger? What are the prospects for real change?

Matthiesen: I think it is a long process. The GCC states have been quite effective at repressing the different movements for change. Kuwait and Bahrain are the countries that may have to change first; the others will try to hold out for longer.

We should not expect the ruling families to give in to reformist demands without pressure. I think that if these countries do not profoundly reform, there may come a time when these states fracture and descend into civil strife.

Langendorf: Many human rights organizations criticize the Gulf states’ repression of political and religious activists? A recent case was the warnings by Saudi ministries against participation in the October 26 campaign to demonstrate the factual ban on women driving cars. Have the Arab Uprisings which started in Tunisia almost three years ago brought an upsurge in activism in the Gulf?  

Matthiesen: Yes, definitively. Whether the ruling families like it or not, we have seen a new repertoire of contention spreading across the Gulf, including to Saudi Arabia. These instances of protests, petitions, driving campaigns, student protests, online debates and so on, may not be threatening the core of the system, yet they are steps towards a further politicization of the population on a hitherto unseen scale.

Langendorf: Given the fact that the Gulf still holds massive natural resources and the US Navy’s 5^th fleet is stationed in Bahrain, what role have Western interests in the Gulf played during the uprisings?

Matthiesen: They have been crucial in shaping Western non-responses, particularly towards the Bahraini uprising. The US does not want to jeopardize the future of its naval base in Bahrain by taking a too-strong position towards democratization.

The West has essentially sacrificed any interest it once had for democratization in the Gulf for economic, strategic and security interests. This strategy may be self-defeating, however, since long-term unrest and civil strife in Bahrain will also endanger the future of the naval base and of the security of the Gulf states more generally.

Langendorf: Several Gulf states have lent diplomatic and financial support to the new military-backed government in Egypt after the ouster of Mohammed Morsi in July. Many have interpreted that as part of these governments’ strong anti-Brotherhood stance. Was or is the Muslim Brotherhood a real threat to the ruling families of the Gulf?

Matthiesen: Yes, definitively. The Muslim Brotherhood is the most organized quasi-opposition force in most GCC states. This is why Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, in particular, sought to weaken them in Egypt, so that they will not be empowered in the Gulf.

We see a regionalization of Gulf security dynamics, where key Gulf states seek to defend their national security interests far from their borders in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and elsewhere.

Langendorf: There has been much talk about a rivalry between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Both countries, for example, seem to back different Islamist forces in Syria and Egypt. As an observer of Gulf politics, what is your take on this rivalry?

All the smaller Gulf states, except Bahrain, are wary of Saudi Arabia’s influence in the GCC. Saudi Arabia’s size, wealth, and military power makes it the dominant force in the GCC. The rivalry with Qatar has to be seen in this context.

Also, Qatar wants to be the leader of a new kind of political Sunni Islam that is at odds with the ways in which the Saudis want to use Islam. This is why Qatar has supported the Muslim Brotherhood, while Saudi has cracked down on the Brotherhood. But Qatar punched above its weight, and while we still do not really know what the reasons for the abdication of former Emir Hamad were, the new Emir has certainly tried to ease tensions with the Saudis.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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