Israel and United Arab Emirates: Iran, Investment and Food Security

[Versión en español] [Version en français]

Last Thursday morning Naftali Bennett, Israel's prime minister, landed in Abu Dhabi for a special meeting with Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed had invited the Israeli prime minister for a quick visit for a private meeting at the presidential palace and to discuss a number of issues with their respective teams, following their meetings in Abu Dhabi last December and in Egypt in March this year.

Evidently, the focus of the meeting revolved around Iran, investment prospects, and the growing food security concerns stemming from the war in Ukraine, as discussed in this article.

Recently, the United Arab Emirates and Israel signed the first free trade agreement between the State of Israel and an Arab country, which will see the elimination of customs duties on around 95 per cent of goods. The agreement will further enhance trade that had already reached $900 million by 2021, a considerable figure for two countries that are usually importers. Indeed, more than bilateral meetings, the free trade agreement is reinforcing the foundation on which the long-term Abraham Accords were built, confirming the UAE's 2020 turning point as the first Gulf country to normalise relations with Israel and only the third Arab nation to do so after Egypt and Jordan.

The official joint Israeli-UAE statement included mentions of economic and other cooperation, and noted that the two leaders also discussed 'advancing regional architecture' and regional issues.

Indeed, concern about Iran, including its nuclear programme, was widely seen as a factor that led the UAE to forge ties with Israel under the US-brokered agreements known through President Donald Trump's mediation as the Accords of Abraham, and joined by Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. In return, the Trump administration offered military supplies to the United Arab Emirates, US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, removal of Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, and reintegration of the country (and its ruling class) into the international credit system.

The formal recognition of Israel by the United Arab Emirates raised obvious concerns in Iran, and some protests from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in his role as a self-proclaimed champion of the Palestinian cause, but now the Turkish-Israeli agreements have provided the balance Turkey sought. Nevertheless, Erdoğan played his card and protested Israel's approval of the supply of 50 F-35s to the UAE, which for years had covered up General Haftar's offensives in Libya with air operations. This agreement was subsequently suspended by US President Joe Biden, and it is not surprising that one of the elements on the table is precisely the F-35 and the reintegration of Turkey in a quid pro quo for the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, among other factors.

To this should be added another, reinforced, axis. The Emirati foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan (AbZ), paid a visit to Turkey on 28 May 2022, along the lines summarised by DAILY SABAH in this brief article. The Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported that AbZ met with Erdogan in Istanbul, where the two discussed "ways to enhance bilateral cooperation", particularly in international security. AbZ also took advantage of the trip to Ankara to meet with his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. The two foreign ministers discussed recent developments in the region, and especially in Libya and Yemen, and emphasised that their countries hope to finalise a substantial trade partnership by the end of 2022. On 30 May, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar held a meeting with UAE Minister of State for Defence Affairs Mohammed Al-Bowardi in Abu Dhabi.

Ultimately, the collaboration that led to the Abraham Accords is still seen as necessary, as the strategy of maximum pressure on Tehran desired by President Trump with the US withdrawal from the Nuclear Deal and the launch of tough new sanctions has not yielded concrete results either on fissile material enrichment or on the regime's apparent resistance; the approach pursued by the administration is ongoing. The Abraham Accords also reflect convergences in other quadrants, starting with the contested eastern Mediterranean, where we see two elements in tandem: the return of the Gulf to the Mediterranean in the strategic mind and the aspect of a major connecting element with the Indo-Pacific space, for example with India through the CEPA with the United Arab Emirates.

For these reasons, Iran was once again the focus of attention at the working meeting between the respective working groups led by Bennett and Mohammed bin Zayed. It is true that the UAE has been seeking an admittedly difficult reconciliation with Tehran since late 2021, and that we can find confirmation from the recent visit of the Iranian foreign minister to Abu Dhabi, but it remains wary of Iran's regional policy, in particular its support for hostile groups such as the Iranian proxy Houthis in Yemen, loyalist forces backed by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Despite a truce after seven years of war, which formally broke out in 2015 and has killed nearly 400,000 people. In fact, during the nuclear negotiations in Vienna, the Yemen issue was on the table between the United States and Iran, and for the latter this issue was never an end in itself, but a tactical element to exert pressure for strategic negotiations with Washington.

Indeed, we have recently learned of the leak to the Wall Street Journal that Israel had evidence that Iran stole classified documents from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) almost two decades ago and used them to hide its nuclear activities from international inspectors.

Israel's prime minister publicly confirmed the report and presented documents that Israel apparently seized from Tehran in the course of a 2018 operation.

For all these reasons, the prospects of resuming the nuclear deal are slowly fading and the recent condemnation of Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which had the unanimity of almost all members, 30 with the exception of Russia and China, was a strong indication of this, rendering futile Tehran's effort to avoid censure by offering a last-minute meeting, when the US and the E3 (Britain, France and Germany) proceeded to table the resolution in the face of evidence that would further indicate a lack of cooperation on uranium traces found at three undeclared sites. This removes an incentive for a full reopening towards Iran by the UAE and rather pushes Mohammed bin Zayed to hedge against an Iranian reaction in various scenarios to the possible end of negotiations. For the time being, Iran has turned off some of the cameras at nuclear sites in response to the IAEA resolution. Moreover, prior to the IAEA resolution on 8 June, the former spokesman for Iran's nuclear negotiating team, Hossein Mousavian, stated that unless the JCPOA is reinstated, it will pave the way for Iran's nuclear dossier to be referred to the UN Security Council. On the other hand, Iran has warned that it will leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if the IAEA Board of Governors refers its dossier to the UN Security Council, as we can see here and also here.

This is what Israel and the United Arab Emirates refer to as "regional architecture". That is, preparing for the containment of Iran and the measures unleashed by Iran, which will include Turkey, and with its clash between Ankara and Tehran in Iraq and Syria. Indeed, in Washington, bipartisan groups of US lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced a bill on 9 June 2022 that authorises the US administration to cooperate with Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, in addition to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, as well as Iraq, in the development and deployment of an integrated air and missile defence against Iran. The bill, spearheaded in the Senate by Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), requires a report on the Pentagon's plans to be submitted to lawmakers no later than 180 days after passage. Lawmakers intend to include the new measure in the 2023 defence spending bill.

The Deterring Enemy Forces and Enabling National Defenses Act (DEFEND) is mainly declaratory and diplomatic in nature, and is not budgeted. On paper it serves to strengthen cooperation between Israel and its Arab neighbours on the basis of the 2020 Abraham Accords, and also to enable the Pentagon to help these allies as much as possible to locate, identify and defend against any means that Iran and its proxies might launch against them. Turkey's positions against Iran should be seen as a separate dossier, and this is also where containment of Russia would fit in, as I have already explained in this paper.

These would range from explosive and armed drones to ballistic and cruise missiles. The sophisticated joint air defence system would extend thousands of kilometres across the Middle East and provide its members with superpower-level early warning. At a later stage, we should see Israel helping its allies not only to locate and identify threats, but also to intercept them, something that is already looming large over the Middle East. For more on this, I recommend reading the following article by Ben Caspit in AL-MONITOR.

Iran's proxies have been repeatedly attacking Saudi Arabia with drones and ballistic and cruise missiles amid the Riyadh-led campaign in Yemen. At the same time, the US has withdrawn several of its own air defence batteries from the Gulf as Washington shifts its strategic focus to counter China's military and economic rise. Such decisions have increased friction between Washington and its Gulf allies, and this could also be a clue to understanding the behaviour of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Earlier this year, the Houthis took credit for drone strikes that executed missions in the UAE for the first time, prompting the then crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, to seek additional US military support.

This led to the need to help build an integrated air defence architecture among US allies in the Middle East.