The divide between Saudi Arabia and the UAE became very clear to outsiders when the UAE signaled it was doing a major drawdown of its troops in Yemen. This told the Saudis that they could no longer depend on the highly-trained Emirati troops for muscle -- anywhere. I think that's the overriding reason King Salman asked Trump to station several hundred troops in Saudia Arabia. I think Russia's Sputnik thinks so too.
The above photograph was taken at the Arab Islamic-American summit on May 21, 2017, in Riyadh. That's Jordan's King Abdullah II on the right in the front row; he's standing next to Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who is standing next to President Donald Trump. The man with the serene smile standing on Trump's other side is Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammad bin-Zayed al-Nahyan, popularly known as MbZ, who is the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates. That's the man King Salman is looking at as President Trump speaks.
Sputnik dredged up the two-year-old photograph to accompany their July 20, 2019 report headlined US Secretary of Defence Authorizes Military Personnel, Resource Deployment to Saudi Arabia.
The problem is that the Saudi and Emirati governments are so opaque that observers have to piece together what's really happening between the two from a patchwork of news reports about, say, their actions toward crisis situations in Libya and Sudan. But in my July 17 post, UAE's major move against forces of darkness by promoting Sufism, I stressed that the divide between KSA and UAE while not very broad at this point is very deep; it can't be sealed over because it goes to the heart of the struggle for Islam's soul.
MbZ is no angel, although I think Middle East Eye, which positively detests him for his strong anti-Muslim Brotherhood stance, has a tendency to demonize him. But all you have to do is read through Wikipedia's listing of his initiatives to know that he is genuinely dedicated to elevating Islam to a major force for religious tolerance. His government's promotion of Sufism in Syria is just one indication of this.
However, the Saudi-Emirati divide is much older than events in the past few years suggests; in fact, it is existential.
[...]
When the UAE came into existence in December 1971, Riyadh achieved its objective of excluding Qatar and Bahrain from the new federal state. Tremendous Saudi pressure forced the UAE to sign the 1974 Treaty of Jeddah that ceded claims to the Khor al-Udaid inland sea that linked it to Qatar. Riyadh refused to recognize the UAE's independence until its president, Zayed bin Sultan, signed the treaty under duress although the UAE has not yet ratified the treaty.
When UAE head Khalifa bin Zayed took office in 2004, he visited Riyadh and demanded the treaty's abrogation, ushering in an explosive crisis between the two states that took six years to subside.
Emirati officials viewed the hostile Saudi behavior as another siege: Since its creation, the Emirate has had to grapple with formidable security challenges from both its Arab and Iranian neighbors and has been overburdened with territorial disputes from the beginning. Iran seized the Abu Musa and Lesser and Greater Tumb islands; Oman established its sovereignty over Buraymi Oasis while Saudi Arabia completed the UAE's diminution by cutting it off from Qatar.
Early on, Zayed bin Sultan had serious doubts whether the new federal entity could survive. In the words of two observers of the Gulf:
Because the UAE was a relatively small state, its leaders recognized that defending the country's security from both internal and external threats depended on skillful management of diplomatic relations with other countries.Saudi efforts to prevent the UAE from becoming a competitor in the GCC have succeeded despite the UAE's soft power. Thus, for example, in December 2004, Riyadh vetoed a Qatari-UAE plan to construct a causeway to link Abu Dhabi and Doha without having to travel through Saudi territory.
[...]The passages are from "Un-Brotherly" Saudi-Emirati Ties by Hilal Khashan for the Spring 2018 edition of Middle East Quarterly. Kashan is a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut. I consider his entire analysis to be a must-read for Americans trying to make sense of present Middle Eastern conflicts.
One of the advantages Middle Easterners have in their dealings with Washington is that they know Americans are very poorly informed about the region, despite a large number of news reports about U.S. involvement in conflicts in the Middle East. The war reporting tends to contextualize events around how Americans want to view the conflicts. That's a valid consideration for Americans, but it edits a great deal out of what is actually happening and ignores background that is key to understanding events.
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