Abu Dhabi and the game of policy change in the region

Abdullah Al-Emadi

The rapid and rapid changes in the UAE's policies towards various issues and files related to the region can be described as Abu Dhabi's strategic game according to appropriate tactics for each position that serves its long-term strategy.

Of the transformations that will not be the last of what happened to the position of the UAE from the first regional force active in the Gulf (Iran), which increases the voices of the UAE against their policies sometimes and sometimes lower, depending on the prevailing political atmosphere and how to manage their interests as it is going on in that atmosphere.

Since the outbreak of the nuclear crisis between Iran and the administration of US President Donald Trump and reached a level that many said it was war, not just the other, where Abu Dhabi together with Riyadh - implicitly with Trump's intentions to launch a qualitative military strike scattering Iran's papers, provoked or enticed to a particular company or trap - There are still many doubts about the vandalism of four tankers in the port of Fujairah last month, and it is like a trap for Tehran to fall in, and it is easy to catch them militarily.

But that the voices and Emirati Emirati have ties with the official authorities, pointed the finger at Iran immediately before the investigations began, until Abu Dhabi realized the seriousness of that haste and began to fill the matter before the complexity, which made Tehran denounce several times the confusion of the UAE in dealing with the Iranian state, The most prominent form of condemnation was the call by more than 50 MPs in the parliament, President Hassan Rowhani, to reconsider ties with the UAE at all levels because of Abu Dhabi's hostile positions - according to their point of view - and agree their policies with the US hostility to Tehran.

Abu Dhabi and Riyadh against Iran
Abu Dhabi has clearly entered with Riyadh on the line of anti-Tehranism, and has supported Trump's shift toward Iran since the crisis between Washington and Tehran began. But both Abu Dhabi and Riyadh have recently felt that relying on Trump to control Iran's behavior as the capitals want them will not work.

Like Abu Dhabi, it quickly moved away from crisis situations. It withdrew abruptly from the scene of solidarity with Trump and confronting Iran, as it did for the first time when the international pressure on the Yemen war disaster intensified. The two capitals were increasingly blamed for the humanitarian catastrophe in the country. Abu Dhabi, in a step that it called a repositioning of its forces, which in fact will be revealed by the days more clearly, was only a gradual withdrawal from the Yemeni quagmire, even if any international action or action towards the crisis would be at an appropriate safety distance, Or so Abu Dhabi believes.

Then, before the discussion about the UAE withdrawal from Yemen was cooled under any name, the region suddenly had an Emirati-Iranian communication on coast security. The periodic meetings between UAE and Iranian coast security, suspended since 2013, were activated. In cooperation with the Iranian side in the issue of the security of the Gulf waters, which was filled with US and British warships and warships, in a scene that recalls the atmosphere and circumstances of tanker wars during the bloody conflict between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s.

Questions multiply
- What about Riyadh and the alliance with Abu Dhabi?
- How did Abu Dhabi take such a decision and left its ally in an anonymous confrontation with Houthi, which is in dire need of cooperation?
- Is it a second blow from Abu Dhabi to its ally in less than two weeks?
- How does Riyadh explain this sudden UAE move - at least to the people - because it is not yet clear whether the UAE's action is an individual or an understanding with Saudi Arabia, in preparation for creating the atmosphere for a forthcoming Saudi-Iranian cooperation as a second theory that holds true?
- Are there other sudden moves to Abu Dhabi awakened by Riyadh, especially that the Emirati political method and how to deal with the various files is almost clear to observers?

The questions do not stop at this point, especially with the apparent gradual change of positions of the two major conflicting powers in the region (Iran and the United States), which calls for any observer to be more attentive and focused.

The rapid change in attitudes from Abu Dhabi may call on Riyadh to reconsider many previous understandings and alliances with its neighbor. It is expected that this summer of hot Gulf will not end unless the relationship between the two capitals has deteriorated in many cases. Riyadh may find itself alone in the majority Those files, while the platforms.