Over the past few months, essentially since the administration of US President Joe Biden entered the White House, officials in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have adopted a new strategy in terms of their foreign policies regarding Iran and renewing diplomatic ties with the Islamic republic.
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Initially, it was the Saudis who held a series of clandestine meetings in Baghdad with senior Iranian officials, attended among others by the Saudi ambassador to Iraq. Then the Emiratis opened a dialogue with the Iranians, even appointing former foreign minister Anwar Gargash to spearhead the efforts.
Gargash, who met with Ali Bagheri, Iran's deputy foreign minister and the man in charge of the Islamic republic's nuclear program, declared after the meeting in Abu Dhabi that its purpose "was to stabilize relations and reduce tensions with Iran." The senior Emirati diplomat added that a senior UAE delegation would soon reciprocate with a visit to the Iranian capital.
Aiming at Damascus as well
In the UAE, officials went further than dialogue with Tehran. After a phone call between UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan with the tyrant Bashar Assad, the UAE's foreign minister was dispatched to Damascus for a highly publicized meeting with the Syrian president. All of this, despite strong protestations from Washington that the UAE could be facing severe sanctions for violating the American "Caesar Act," which punishes bodies that do business with Syria.
In the Emirates, officials said the rapprochement with Damascus was meant to dislodge the rehabilitating Syrian regime from the tentacles of the Iranian octopus. Moreover, officials in Abu Dhabi stressed that they want good relations with all countries in the region and that within the framework of their country's policy of zero conflicts, al-Nahyan made a rare trip to Turkey this week, where he met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to sign a series of commercial, economic and diplomatic cooperation agreements.
However, now senior officials in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, too, are clarifying the main reason behind their about-face toward Iran and their zero-conflicts strategy. The anti-Iranian regional coalition that took shape during the presidency of Donald Trump – which culminated in the signing of the Abraham Accords and included Israel, Bahrain, the UAE and indirectly Saudi Arabia – has disintegrated and no longer exists in practice.
"It's true that one of the purposes behind the joint military exercises and drills that were recently held was to send a clear message to Tehran," a senior official in Abu Dhabi said in a conversation with Israel Hayom. "But the coalition that was formed with the encouragement of Trump and his administration, which was essentially an unofficial regional defense pact with American backing between Israel and the Gulf states that fear a radical ayatollah regime with nuclear weapons – has evaporated."
'Biden's disrespectful approach'
According to senior officials in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, it was Biden's agenda regarding the Middle East and the Iranian threat that spurred their policy shift toward Iran. "We are still studying the nature of the relationship with the new government in Israel and its leader. But Israel, despite the changes to its government, has fulfilled all of its promises toward us," a senior source in Abu Dhabi told Israel Hayom.
"The problem is Biden and his administration," the source added, "which has done everything to squander Trump's achievements in terms of normalization with Israel and to drive a wedge in the regional defense pact against the Iranian threat. Cases in point, the administration suspended the deal to sell F-35 fighter jets to the UAE, and Washington objected to and vetoed selling us arms we need. We weren't surprised by the Saudi attempt to engage in positive dialogue with Tehran in light of Biden and his administration's disrespectful approach toward the Saudi royal house and the kingdom in general."
Eyes to Sudan
The panicked US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the senior Emirati official said, didn't add to the sense of confidence in America among allies in the Middle East. The Biden administration's conduct vis-a-vis Sudan, meanwhile, and Washington's response to the coup carried out by the head of the transitional council, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, only exacerbated the concerns among Abraham Accords signatory states – including Sudan – that in the moment of truth, the American president and his administration won't give them the support and backing they need.
"The Biden administration is making every possible mistake, which could push Sudan toward political instability and even lead to Khartoum's resignation from the Abraham Accords," the senior UAE official said. "General Burhan worked to expel all the political elements in the country that undermined the military council and collaborated with radical Islamist elements that wanted to seize power. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok spearheaded this plot together with extremist political elements from the [Sudanese] Ba'ath party and Islamist political activists.
"Instead of supporting the steps Burhan took to form a liberal government, the Americans forced him to release Hamdok from detention and warned [Burhan] that if he didn't allow [Hamdok] to form a government, Washington would impose severe sanctions against Sudan. Burhan had no choice but to accept the American dictate," the UAE official continued.
"If Sudan again finds itself in the midst of a coup in which the jihadist and radical Islamist groups come out on top, no one will be surprised if they throw the normalization deal with Israel into the dustbin of history," the official added.
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