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The United Arab Emirates attempted to persuade its neighboring Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to coordinate a military response to Iran’s barrage of missiles, rockets and drones during the recent war. When those neighbors declined, Abu Dhabi’s leadership was left frustrated, sources familiar with the matter have told Bloomberg.
UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, widely known as MBZ, made several phone calls to fellow leaders, among them Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in the immediate aftermath of the joint Israeli and American strikes on Iran that began on 28 February. Convinced of the strategic necessity for a unified retaliatory posture to deter Tehran, MBZ reached out in the expectation that shared peril might at last produce shared resolve.
Yet his neighbors demurred. This, they insisted, was not their war.
Yet his neighbors demurred. This, they insisted, was not their war.
The refusal has only deepened the strains already visible between the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration, for its part, was fully aware of the Emirati proposal and lent its own weight to the effort to bring Riyadh and Doha into the fold.
MBZ sought to frame the moment in historical terms for his Gulf Cooperation Council counterparts. The GCC itself, he reminded them, had been founded in 1981 precisely in response to the threats unleashed by Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979. The argument carried the logic of self-preservation. It did not carry the day.
These revelations offer one plausible explanation for the UAE’s subsequent conduct: its withdrawal from OPEC and OPEC+ at the end of April, and its increasingly close alignment with Israel. Left without the collective shield it had sought, the Emirates acted alone. Despite the absence of Gulf support, Abu Dhabi carried out limited strikes against Iranian targets in both March and April.
Iran, for its part, repaid the region with ferocity. The UAE endured the most intense barrage of the entire conflict, with Tehran dispatching nearly 3,000 drones and hundreds of missiles toward Emirati territory before any truce took hold. Last week, Iranian forces struck the key oil port of Fujairah, hard by the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia, having declined coordination with its neighbor, eventually struck Iran on its own terms in March. Riyadh then pivoted, assisting Pakistan’s mediation efforts between Washington and Tehran. Qatar, meanwhile, briefly contemplated retaliation after Iran targeted the vast liquefied natural gas facility at Ras Laffan, but chose instead the safer ground of de-escalation. Bahrain and Kuwait, ever aligned with Saudi caution, likewise kept their distance. Oman, bound by longstanding ties to Tehran, was never expected to join such an enterprise.
Emirati and Saudi spokespeople have not responded to requests for comment. What remains is the portrait of a region divided even in the face of a common adversary, where the clearest strategic thinking has come from the smallest and most exposed player. The UAE, at least, appears to have drawn its conclusions from the episode. Whether its neighbours will eventually be forced to do the same is the question that now hangs over the Gulf.
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MBZ sought to frame the moment in historical terms for his Gulf Cooperation Council counterparts. The GCC itself, he reminded them, had been founded in 1981 precisely in response to the threats unleashed by Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979. The argument carried the logic of self-preservation. It did not carry the day.
These revelations offer one plausible explanation for the UAE’s subsequent conduct: its withdrawal from OPEC and OPEC+ at the end of April, and its increasingly close alignment with Israel. Left without the collective shield it had sought, the Emirates acted alone. Despite the absence of Gulf support, Abu Dhabi carried out limited strikes against Iranian targets in both March and April.
Iran, for its part, repaid the region with ferocity. The UAE endured the most intense barrage of the entire conflict, with Tehran dispatching nearly 3,000 drones and hundreds of missiles toward Emirati territory before any truce took hold. Last week, Iranian forces struck the key oil port of Fujairah, hard by the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia, having declined coordination with its neighbor, eventually struck Iran on its own terms in March. Riyadh then pivoted, assisting Pakistan’s mediation efforts between Washington and Tehran. Qatar, meanwhile, briefly contemplated retaliation after Iran targeted the vast liquefied natural gas facility at Ras Laffan, but chose instead the safer ground of de-escalation. Bahrain and Kuwait, ever aligned with Saudi caution, likewise kept their distance. Oman, bound by longstanding ties to Tehran, was never expected to join such an enterprise.
Emirati and Saudi spokespeople have not responded to requests for comment. What remains is the portrait of a region divided even in the face of a common adversary, where the clearest strategic thinking has come from the smallest and most exposed player. The UAE, at least, appears to have drawn its conclusions from the episode. Whether its neighbours will eventually be forced to do the same is the question that now hangs over the Gulf.
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