Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the strongman of the United Arab Emirates, who is expected to become his country’s president, has led a process of shifting alliances in the Middle East, establishing a new anti-Iranian axis with Israel and countering a rising tide of political Islam in the region.
Sheikh Mohammed, 61, who was considered for years the de facto ruler of the Emirates, turned his country’s army into a force equipped with advanced technologies, which, in addition to the country’s oil wealth and status as a business center, led to the expansion of the UAE’s influence on the international scene.
Sheikh Mohammed began expanding his powers at a time when his half-brother, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the United Arab Emirates, who died Friday, suffered from ill health following suffering a stroke in 2014.
The former US ambassador to the UAE, Barbara Leaf, says that Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed was driven by a “certain vision” that summarized the leaders of the Arab Gulf states can no longer count on the United States as their main support, especially following Washington abandoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011.
According to the memoirs of former US President Barack Obama, who was president at the time, Sheikh Mohammed from the capital Abu Dhabi issued a “calm and cold” warning to Obama once morest supporting uprisings that might spread and threaten the thrones of the ruling families in the Gulf region. Obama’s memoirs describe Sheikh Mohammed as the “most shrewd” leader in the Gulf.
A US State Department official currently serving in the administration of US President Joe Biden, whose relations with the UAE have deteriorated in the past few months, described him as a strategist who gives discussions a historical perspective.
“He talks not only regarding the present, but goes back years and decades, and sometimes he talks regarding trends over time,” the official said.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed supported the army’s 2013 overthrow of then-elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, and supported Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when assuming the position in 2017, describing him as a man Washington might deal with and the only one who might open up the kingdom.
Encouraged by warm relations with then-US President Donald Trump, the two Gulf leaders sought to galvanize support for Washington’s campaign to put maximum pressure on Iran, imposed a boycott on neighboring Qatar for its support of the Muslim Brotherhood and launched a costly war to try to break the hold of the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen.
The UAE intervened in conflicts across the region from Somalia to Libya and Sudan before breaking out of a decades-old Arab consensus and establishing relations with Israel in 2020 along with Bahrain under US-brokered agreements known as the Ibrahim Accords, which angered the Palestinians.
Those agreements were motivated by shared fears of Iran, a diplomat says, as they were motivated by supposed benefits for the UAE’s economy and the weariness of the Palestinian leadership, “which does not listen.”
Between strategy and tactics
While diplomats and analysts see the alliance with Riyadh and Washington as a pillar of the UAE’s strategy, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed did not hesitate to act independently when economic interests or reasons dictated that.
The Ukrainian crisis revealed cracks in relations with Washington following the UAE abstained from voting in the Security Council on a draft resolution condemning the Russian invasion.
As an oil-producing country alongside the major oil-producing country Saudi Arabia, the UAE has also rejected Western calls for increased production.
Abu Dhabi has also ignored US fears that it is arming and supporting Khalifa Haftar in Libya once morest the internationally recognized government, as well as dealing with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
With Riyadh, the biggest dispute came when the UAE largely withdrew from Yemen following the unpopular war, in which more than 100 Emiratis were killed, turned into a military stalemate.
When Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir broke off a promise to abandon his Islamist allies, Abu Dhabi orchestrated the 2019 coup that ousted him.
stability first
Although he says he was drawn to their Islamist ideology as a child, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed portrayed the Muslim Brotherhood as one of the most serious threats to stability in the Middle East.
Like Saudi Arabia, the UAE accuses the Muslim Brotherhood of treason following harboring persecuted members in Egypt in the 1960s by seeking change in their host countries.
WikiLeaks reported that Sheikh Mohammed said in a 2007 meeting with US officials, “I am Arab, Muslim, and indigenous. In the 1970s and early 1980s I was one of them. I think these guys have an agenda.”
Educated in the Emirates and the Military Officers College at Sandhurst in Britain, Sheikh Mohammed grew increasingly suspicious of Islamists following 2001, when two of his countrymen were among the 19 hijackers who carried out the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Another diplomat said: “He looked around and saw that a lot of the younger generation in the region were very drawn to Osama bin Laden’s anti-Western slogan.
“And as he once said to me: If they can do it to you, they can do it to us.”
Despite years of hostility, Sheikh Mohammed chose to engage with Iran and Turkey at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing economic competition with Saudi Arabia shifted the focus to development, pushing the UAE toward greater liberalization while continuing to curb political opposition.
Sheikh Mohammed is seen at home as a pioneer of modernization, and many diplomats see him as a charismatic charismatic man who has persistently promoted Abu Dhabi, which owns the UAE’s oil wealth, by stimulating development in the energy, infrastructure and technology sectors.
As the deputy supreme commander of the armed forces, he is credited with transforming the UAE army into one of the most effective armed forces in the Arab world, according to experts who say he established military service to instill patriotism among the wealthy population.
A source close to Sheikh Mohammed said, “He doesn’t like prevarication… He wants to know what isn’t working well, not just what’s working.”
