United Arab Emirates strongman Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ), who became as soon as formally elected president on Saturday, has led a realignment of the Center East that created a unique anti-Iran axis with Israel and fought a rising tide of political Islam within the situation.
Working within the back of the scenes for years as de facto chief, Sheikh Mohammed, 61, remodeled the UAE armed forces precise into a high-tech drive, which coupled with its oil wealth and industry hub reputation, prolonged Emirati affect internationally.
Mohamed began wielding energy in a length when his half-brother President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, who died on Friday, suffered bouts of illness, including a stroke in 2014.
MBZ, as he is understood, became as soon as driven by a “clear fatalistic line of thinking” that Gulf Arab rulers can also no longer rely on their vital supporter the US, per outmoded US envoy to the UAE Barbara Leaf, particularly after Washington abandoned Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak for the length of the 2011 Arab Spring.
From his energy frightening within the capital Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed issued a “nonetheless and frigid” warning to then President Barack Obama no longer to back uprisings that will most definitely well spread and endanger Gulf dynastic rule, per Obama’s memoir, which described MBZ because the “savviest” Gulf chief.
A US Negate Department legit serving within the Biden administration, which has had fraught ties with the UAE in newest months, described him as a strategist who brings historical standpoint to discussions.
“He will talk no longer only referring to the repeat, but slip back years, a long time, in some conditions, chatting with trends over time,” the legit stated.
MBZ backed the 2013 armed forces overthrow of Egypt’s elected Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi, and championed Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as he rose to energy in a 2017 palace coup, touting him as a particular person Washington can also take care of and primarily the most keen one ready to start up the dominion.
Encouraged by heat ties with the then US President Donald Trump, the 2 Gulf hawks lobbied for Washington’s maximum tension marketing and marketing campaign on Iran, boycotted neighbouring Qatar for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, and launched a costly battle to take a look at out to interrupt the grip of Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis.
The UAE furthermore waded into conflicts from Somalia to Libya and Sudan sooner than upending a long time of Arab consensus by forging ties with Israel in 2020, alongside with Bahrain, in US-brokered affords is known as the Abraham Accords that drew Palestinian ire.
The accords were driven by shared issues over Iran but furthermore perceived advantages to the UAE economy and fatigue with a Palestinian management “that doesn’t listen”, stated one diplomat.
Tactical thinker
While diplomats and analysts witness the alliance with Riyadh and Washington as a pillar of UAE formula, MBZ has no longer hesitated to slip independently when interests or economic causes dictate.
The Ukraine disaster exposed strains with Washington when the UAE abstained from a UN Security Council vote condemning Russia’s invasion. As an OPEC producer, alongside with oil titan Riyadh, the UAE furthermore rebuffed Western calls to pump more.
Abu Dhabi has no longer considerable varied US issues by arming and backing Libya’s Khalifa Haftar in opposition to the internationally recognised authorities and enticing with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
With Riyadh, the greatest divergence came when the UAE largely withdrew from Yemen because the unpopular battle, by which bigger than 100 Emiratis died, got mired in armed forces deadlock.
When Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir reneged on a promise to abandon Islamist allies, Abu Dhabi orchestrated the 2019 coup in opposition to him.
Although he says he became as soon as in their ideology in his childhood, MBZ has framed the Muslim Brotherhood as one amongst the gravest threats to stability within the Center East.
Enjoy Saudi Arabia, the UAE accuses the Brotherhood of betrayal after it sheltered participants persecuted in Egypt within the 1960s, only to witness them work for switch in their host nations.
“I’m an Arab, I’m a Muslim, and I pray. And within the 1970s and early 1980s I became as soon as one amongst them. I have faith these guys obtain an agenda,” MBZ stated in a 2007 assembly with US officers, per Wikileaks.
Trained within the UK
Trained within the UAE and the armed forces officers’ school at Sandhurst within the UK, Sheikh Mohamed’s distrust of the crew heightened after 2001, when two of his countrymen were amongst the 19 hijackers within the September 11 assaults on the US.
“He regarded round and saw that loads of the younger generation within the situation were very in Osama bin Laden’s anti-Western mantra,” one other diplomat stated. “As he as soon as stated to me: ‘In the event that they’ll attain it to you, they’ll attain it to us.’”
Despite years of enmity, MBZ chose to secure with Iran and Turkey as COVID-19 and rising economic competitors with Saudi Arabia grew to change into focal level to building, pushing the UAE in direction of extra liberalisation whereas preserving a lid on political dissent.
Seen as a moderniser at home and a charismatic americans’s man by many diplomats, MBZ doggedly promoted the previously low-profile Abu Dhabi, which holds the UAE’s oil wealth, by spurring building in energy, infrastructure and expertise.
As deputy supreme commander of armed forces he became as soon as credited with turning the UAE armed forces into one amongst the precise within the Arab world, per specialists who enlighten he instituted armed forces service to instil nationalism as adversarial to entitlement amongst an prosperous population.
“He doesn’t beat round the bush … he needs to take hold of what isn’t working correctly, no longer staunch what’s working,” stated a provide with obtain admission to to Sheikh Mohamed.