After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February, the Gulf States found themselves in a very difficult position. It was a war that served not one of their interests. They had warned the U.S. against the war and lobbied hard to prevent it, and they exerted strenuous effort to stay out of it. And yet, they provide the platform for thirteen U.S. bases and 50,000 U.S. troops that has made the war on Iran possible.
As American missiles rained down on Iran and Iranian missiles rained down on the Gulf countries, reports emerged that the U.S. was using the latter nations’ territory and airspace. Bader Al-Saif, assistant professor at Kuwait University, says that the Gulf states do not want to be seen as part of a U.S.-Israeli front against Iran and that they know that this is an illegal war launched amid negotiations that Tehran had appeared to approach in good faith.
Reports that Saudi Arabia was pushing the U.S. to continue the war and to put an end to the Iranian threat were denied by Saudi Arabia, and both Al-Saif and Maria Luisa Fantappiè, head of the Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa programme at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, say that there is no evidence of such Saudi lobbying and that the reports are not true. According to President Donald Trump, it was the leaders of the Gulf states, including Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, who had asked him last month to “hold off” on an imminent U.S. attack that would have restarted major hostilities.
But while the rest of the Gulf countries went one way, toward restraint and staying out of a war they were trying to end, the United Arab Emirates went another. The UAE urged the other Gulf countries to take a more aggressive posture in their defense and to join the United States. They alone said they would be willing to join a U.S.-led international effort to “secure navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.” And on the very day the Gulf Cooperation Council opened its recent summit, the Emirati government announced it was leaving the Saudi-led OPEC group of oil-producing nations.
But then the more sensational revelations came. In an extraordinary first, Israel sent an Iron Dome battery, interceptors, and dozens of IDF operators to the UAE, to help intercept Iranian missiles fired at the UAE. It was the first time that Israel had transferred an Iron Dome battery to another country and suggested a level of cooperation between the two nations previously unknown.
Then it was reported that the UAE had secretly entered the war by carrying out military strikes on Iran, attacking a refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf.
The UAE’s more aggressive and rogue stance made it a leading target of Iranian missiles. Hassan Ahmadian, associate professor of Middle East and North Africa studies at the University of Tehran, says that Iran sees the UAE and Bahrain as the worst offenders and that they have been struck the most, with the UAE being struck more times than all the other Gulf states combined.
But then a strange thing happened. On May 4, Iran struck the UAE’s Fujairah port—and then did not strike the UAE again. There had long been rumors, and even some reports, that Qatar and Oman may have struck their own deals with Iran to avoid further retaliatory strikes. And now, the same rumors have surfaced about the UAE, and Reuters has recently corroborated them. Four unnamed sources told Reuters that the UAE had agreed to release between $10 billion and $20 billion of funds to Iran that are frozen under U.S. sanctions. Two of the sources say that $3 billion has already been delivered.
Perhaps having realized that aligning with the U.S. was making them the key target for Iranian missiles and that, contrary to the promises, the U.S. was unable to defend its territory, the UAE updated their tactics and engaged with Iran rather, than confronting it. Two sources told Reuters that the release of frozen Iranian funds had been promised “in return for a halt to Iranian attacks on the UAE.” (The UAE has denied the report.)
Furthering the intrigue, according to one of the sources “with knowledge of the arrangement,” the intent of the deal went beyond stopping the missile strikes. It has long been clear that Iran would not accept any peace deal without sanction relief and the release of at least some of its frozen assets. The U.S. has insisted that, unlike their representation of Obama’s JCPOA, the U.S. would not be bribing Iran to curb its nuclear program out of a position of weakness, and that any release of funds would be tied to performance.
The UAE releasing funds to Iran would allow Iran to receive frozen funds at the front end of the agreement while allowing the Trump administration to save face. The White House has called claims of side agreements that allowed frozen funds to flow back to Iran at the front end “misinformation,” but the UAE seems to have facilitated precisely that arrangement.
Over the past several months, the UAE’s pendulum has swung wildly from Iran hawkism to engagement with the Islamic Republic that makes a peace deal possible. This strange pattern of relations could be made even stranger if, as one source told Reuters, the arrangement between the UAE and Iran went further than stopping the strikes to encompass “rebuilding of bilateral ties, including intelligence sharing and economic cooperation.” Such reports suggest the U.S.–Iran peace deal, with the help of the UAE, could help transform the Middle East and reintegrate Iran and the Gulf nations.
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