Mohammed bin Zayed, who actually ruled the country during the period when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) started to follow a more active policy in the region, relations with Russia and China got tighter and became closer to Israel with a historical decision, officially becomes the head of state.
Mohammed bin Zayed highlighted “economic development” in the UAE’s foreign policy and took steps accordingly.
This was the reason behind his rapprochement with Russia and China.
However, with the Ukraine war that Russia started at the end of February, the USA and European countries expected support from the UAE and other Gulf countries to isolate Russia.
Both the failure to find this support and the fact that the US re-negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran, one of the UAE’s biggest rivals in the region, had caused tensions between the US and the UAE in the recent period.
Behind the UAE’s rapprochement with Israel, led by Mohammed bin Zayed, lies the opposition to Iran. Aiming to create an anti-Iranian front in the region, the UAE also keeps its distance from groups supported by Iran in the Palestinian conflict.
Mohammed bin Zayed, 61, also strengthened the UAE military while pursuing a more active foreign policy; for this purpose, it made large investments by using its rich oil and natural gas resources.
He not only strengthened his army, but also tried to be effective in the conflicts in the region by giving both financial and military support. Like its support for Khalifa Haftar in Libya and direct air support to the army fighting against Iran-backed Houthi groups in Yemen…
However, after a while, it was seen that this “hawk” started to move away from the policy gradually. He focused on developing the country’s economy, tourism and trade instead of military spending. So much so that the tension with Turkey and Qatar, which is a result of hawkish policies, has also ended in the last few years. He also took steps to repair relations with Syria; It became one of the first Arab countries to send an ambassador to the country after a 10-year civil war.
Mohammad bin Zayed, who is on the way to become a tourism and trade center and who took the de facto administration as the crown prince in a period when cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi were developing, talked about the US’s Iran policy, the war in Yemen and arms sales with the countries in the region. He developed trade relations with Russia and China at a time when they were separated.
Speaking to Reuters news agency, Kristin Diwan from the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute commented, “Mohammed bin Zayed has determined the future of many countries in the region, not just the UAE, when it comes to the use of force and state building.”
“Under his rule, the country will have a future based on a state-led global economic model, with a much more effective foreign policy and seeking to find partners not only in the Gulf but around the world.”
Following the announcement of the new leader, many world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced that they would go to the UAE for the funeral. However, it is not yet certain whether US President Joe Biden will go.
How Mohammed bin Zayed became crown prince
In the article published by the New York Times in 2019, which included a detailed profile of Mohammed bin Zayed, it was stated that Mohammed bin Zayed was actually the most influential leader in the region, stronger than Mohammed bin Salman.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait had begun when he was 30 years old as a commander in the UAE Air Force. The Pentagon saw Mohammed bin Zayed (Mbz) as a promising partner for the future, who wanted to protect his country from similar dangers and went to Washington for an arms purchase deal. Mohammed bin Zayed, the most prominent son of the Bedouin Sheikh, who founded the UAE and was even below a certain level of literacy, was a British-trained helicopter pilot. During his talks in Washington, he convinced his father to send $4 billion to the US Treasury in support of the 1991 Gulf War.
Thirty years later, he became a manager, managing a $1.3 trillion wealth fund known before the Covid-19 pandemic, creating the strongest military in the Gulf.
The close relationship he established with the US administrations since 1991 played an important role in this.
However, in the process that started with the Arab Spring in the 2010s, it ceased to be an important ally of the USA in the region and took action to implement its own policies in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and even Somalia by using its strengthened army. In this process, he experienced disagreements with the US administrations, which amounted to tension.
Both the nuclear negotiations that started between the USA and Iran during the Barack Obama era and Obama’s limited support for the Muslim Brotherhood in the first stage of the Arab Spring; He initiated the process that led to the Prince’s clear departure from the United States.
Muhammad bin Zayed, who predicted that Trump would win before the 2016 US Presidential elections, also developed close relations with Middle East advisers, whom he predicted would enter his close circle. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, was at the forefront of these people.
Although he seemed to have convinced former US President Donald Trump about his policy, the US Congress continued to keep a distance from the UAE, as it has since the era of Barack Obama.
Speaking to the Western press at the time, US diplomats said that Mohammed bin Zayed was “virtually obsessed” with two enemies: the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran.
When the country declared its independence from Britain in 1971, Iran occupied three disputed islands in the gulf by sending troops.
The country’s enmity with Iran dates back to those times.
Ezzedine Ibrahim, the country’s first leader, whose father had appointed him as an “instructor”, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Although Abraham wanted to raise the young prince with his own teaching, this backfired. According to the leaks in WikiLeaks documents, Prince bin Zayef, during a conversation with American diplomats in 2007, said, “Then I realized that these men had another agenda, I did not want this kind of Islamist policy to be effective in my people. Because if a holy man in Mecca called, the soldiers in my army would 80 percent listen to him,” he said.
For these reasons, American diplomats say the Prince believes that “the Arab world is not ready for democracy” and that “Islamists will win any election”. So, while Prince was explaining this thought to American diplomats, “The Middle East is not California.” he said.
According to Tamara Cofman Wittes, a former US State Department official, within 25 years, with the weapons and technological support that the US sought in the region against Iraq in the 1900s, it “become a Frakenstein.”
Again, according to former US officials, there was something else that made Mohammed bin Zayed different from other Arab leaders; While other Arab leaders were late for appointments, keeping their counterparts waiting and not keeping their promises, this young prince, who was educated in England, “acted like a European, pouring his own coffee” in his daily dealings.
Marcelle Wahba, former US Ambassador to the UAE, explains that Mohammed bin Zayed took his visitors around in his own helicopters, showing how the country has grown through extensive construction activities. “MbZ always found something to surprise you.”
Explaining to his Western guests his plans to create a financial district resembling Wall Street, to open a campus of New York University in the country, and to open a branch of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in the country, Prince said that his country is “much more liberal than other countries in the region; He said that he had the right to worship, and that those who believed in other religions apart from Muslims were free to worship. So much so that he declared 2019 the “Year of Tolerance” and established a “Ministry of Tolerance”. In February, he hosted the Pope in the country.
There are 9 million people living in the UAE, of which about 1 million are citizens, while the rest are white-collar and blue-collar foreign workers. Abu Dhabi alone has 6 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves.
During the Gulf War in 1991, the UAE allowed American soldiers to be stationed at bases in its country. After this cooperation, the Prince’s commanders and air force pilots served with the Americans in Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan and Libya; He fought alongside the Americans in the fight against ISIS that began in 2014.
This collaboration developed further, and both recruited former American commanders as advisers to develop the military; as well as recruited ex-spies to develop the UAE’s intelligence service.
Among these senior figures were former US Chief of Staff James Mattis and one of the leading commanders of the US Army, General John Allen. Prince Mohammed bin Zayed told these US advisers that he “sees Israel as a reliable partner against Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
In the process, the UAE also developed its own weapons and intelligence tools and used them in the wars in which it played a role to demonstrate its power.
On the other hand, the border problems with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful country in the region, came to an end; There was a fight for the crown prince election inside. Mohammed bin Zayed did not miss this opportunity and the most suitable candidate to be his ally; By choosing Mohammed bin Salman, he started lobbying for him to be crown prince. So much so that he continued his lobbying efforts in the USA, suggesting Obama’s advisers to support Mohammed bin Salman.
In 2015, the two princes sent troops to Yemen. When Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince in 2017, the two princes announced their decision to impose an embargo on Qatar, this time citing their ties to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.
According to US officials and former diplomats speaking to the New York Times; While the world saw Saudi Arabia as the leader in both these events, it was actually Mohammed bin Zayed who had been preparing for a long time to take these steps.
At the same time, Mohammed bin Zayed was also telling Western diplomats that “the two princes, if supported, can work together to persuade the Palestinians to make a reasonable deal with Israel.”
Mohammed bin Zayed went to Washington DC to bid farewell to Obama, just before Trump was elected in November 2016. But that was not the main purpose of his visit to America, from there he went to New York, where he met with Trump’s advisers and secured the support of the new administration in the United States regarding the withdrawal from the Iran deal and the attitude towards Qatar.
Meanwhile, the administration of Abdel Fattah Sisi, who came to terms with the coup d’etat in Egypt in 2013 and took a harsh stance against the members of the Muslim Brotherhood, still needs billions of dollars from the UAE in order to maintain its rule.
In the recent period, both the emphasis on economic development and the harsh stance of the West after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul; It also pushed the UAE administration to acquire more allies and move away from hawkish politics.