Ep 227. - The Bloodied Emirates: How the UAE Fears a Free Muslim World with Dr Andreas Krieg
The UAE has curated a string of anti-revolutionary non-state actors across the Middle East to serve the state’s deeply secular interests. Abu Dhabi has waged a war against Islamic civil society and non-state actors under the pretext of fighting “terrorism” and today acts as the primary means by which the small but effective federation of seven emirates prevents the rise of independent states in the Middle East. Behind every foiled attempt to wrestle power from Arab dictators is the UAE, which has used its petrodollars and economic prowess to curtail civil society activism. Its deep alliance with Israel and its Zionist project have given the UAE an unprecedented means to act as a spoiler in the region. Today, we explore the tentacles of this project and its impact upon the hopes of much of ordinary Arab Muslim society.
Our guest today is Dr Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at the Defence Studies Department of King's College London and a strategic risk consultant working for clients in the Middle East and beyond. He recently penned a piece which forms the backdrop of our conversation on the assertive statecraft of the UAE.
You can find Dr Andreas Krieg here:
X: https://x.com/andreas_krieg
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/andreaskrieg/en
His article: https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/abu-dhabi-built-axis-secessionists-across-region-how
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Transcript - This is an AI generated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation
Introduction
0:00
they're using the military they're using societal power ideology and religion so it starts in Libya goes to Yemen and then goes to Sudan same model being played also in Somalia
0:08
immatis were flying dozens and dozens of plane loads of arms into eastern Libya the removal
0:13
of that Mosi government the UAE realized that the mosque was a threat demobilizing the power
0:19
of Islam many affluent Muslims in the west will go to Dubai and feel very comfortable in their
0:25
Islamic skin mostly Sufi sort of strand of Islam is apolitical apolitical the UAE has
0:31
really been firmly on the side of Israel and they just hunt them down and kill them
0:38
the United Arab Emirates has created a string of anti-revolutionary non-state actors across the Middle East to serve the state's deeply secular interests
0:47
abu Dhabi has waged a war against Islamic civil society under the pretext of fighting terrorism
0:54
and today acts as the primary means by which the small but effective federation of Emirates
0:59
prevents the rise of independent states in the Middle East behind every foiled attempt to wrestle
1:06
power from Arab dictators is the UAE which has used its petro dollars and economic prowess to
1:13
curtail civil society activism its deep alliance with Israel and its Sinus project has given the
1:20
UAE an unprecedented means to act as a spoiler in the region today we explore the tentacles of this
1:28
project and its impact upon the hopes of much of ordinary Arab Muslim society now our guest today
1:36
is Dr andreas Krie an associate professor at the Defense Studies Department of Kings College London
1:42
and a strategic risk consultant he recently penned a piece which forms the backdrop of our
1:48
conversation on the assertive statecraft of the UAE now please remember to press the subscribe
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2:12
ummah in need dr andreas Crigg welcome to the thinking Muslim thanks for having me well it's
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lovely to have you with us now I think this topic is a fascinating one and um uh you wrote
UAE’s role in Middle East
2:22
an article recently for the Middle East eye which we'll put in the show notes where you talked about just the sort of broad tentacles of the UAE of Abu Dhabi and and and how it acts maybe as a
2:34
malign way in in the Middle East i want to explore that today now in your article uh you talk about
2:39
a lot of specific case studies Sudan and Libya and Somalia and other countries but I just want
2:45
to get a broad a general understanding before we drill down into the specifics so you say in your article Abu Dhabi has cured a multi-layered network of violent non-state actors financiers
2:58
traders political figureheads and influencers to create bridge heads in countries of strategic
3:04
value to Emirati national interests explain that to me explain what you claim uh the UAE is doing
3:12
in the Middle East and beyond well if we zoom out I mean first we need to understand the UAE is a small state by all conventional metrics they're a country of 10 million of which only a million are
3:22
actually citizens so 90% are actually foreigners around 500 billion in terms of their GDP but in
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terms of size the way we would look at the UAE as a country is a small state um but since 2011
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since the Aspring they've really emerged as a as a as a major player in this part of the world but they always been somewhat um plagued by an inherent capacity shortage right if you only
3:45
have a million people citizens there were limits traditionally have been limits on what you can do in terms of state craft and so what they have been doing since the late 2000s and then very much
3:55
uh kind of increased this since the Arab Spring is really curating orchestrating networks of private
4:03
individuals outsourcing statecraft if you will to mercenaries to violent non-state actors of some
4:08
of them they created um the most important ones they've actually created they've given them the backing the financial support that they required but they also draw extensively on the market
4:18
like they use private corporations they use uh multinationals uh or individual traders to get
4:24
into countries and get into locations where they think they have an interest and that's a very new way of looking at statecraft it's very different from how we do it in the west
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very different from how we do it today in the UK but let's say you know historically this is how Britain built the empire it was done through use the use of the market how and the UAE I think
4:42
have learned from that uh and they've done it very very well because not only by delegation
4:48
do you achieve a level of plausible deniability because you can always say I have nothing to do with these people these are just private individuals these are just private companies
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some of them are based here and even if they're in invested or involved in sort of malign or
5:00
illegal activity which you know as we're talking about smuggling of commodities we looking at money
5:06
laundering a lot of this funneling and and also channeling uh streams of corruption uh in and out
5:12
of different countries um so if you know looking at that it looks like the UAE are doing something quite malign but they can say we have nothing to do with it because these are all private
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individuals private companies they do whatever they want to do we just offer the jurisdiction to them but it's obviously more sinister than that because the UAE is not just offering their
5:29
jurisdiction for these people to coincidentally operate out of the UAE every single company and
5:35
individual that uh that is involved in this sort of network ccentric statecraft um has been lured
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into the UAE by the leadership ship so it's not coincidental and it is strategic and I think that
5:46
makes the UAE very different from their neighbors in the Gulf where you know they usually quite passive the Emiratis are especially they be very assertive very strategic very measured in terms
5:58
of how they align the means they have available to themselves with the ends that they want to achieve
UAE and 2011
6:04
that's so you mentioned the 2011 as a as a pivotal moment in uh this sort of reemergence
6:10
of or emergence of UAE statecraft um um why 2011 what is it about this this moment that uh
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makes this relatively small state turns this small state into a into a a fairly robust regional actor
6:27
so a lot of things happened um but the key sort of moment was the fall of the regime in Egypt and so
6:34
the beginning of the Arab Spring which obviously took place in late 2010 in Tunisia but you know that kind of set in motion a massive development across the region and the problem wasn't just
6:44
that the old sort of powerhouses authoritarian dictatorships collapsed but that the old sort of
6:50
guarantor of stability the United States weren't really doing anything about it i mean they were sitting on the fence Obama at the time president sitting on the fence of should we or should we
7:00
not support Mubarak and then they dropped Mubarak and then they endorsed uh the then freely elected
7:05
Muslim Brotherhood president um and that for the Emiratis was an absolute pivotal moment
7:10
because they said we're on our own nobody's really thinking strategically about security stability in
7:15
the region we are on our own and we have to take over responsibility and so they did in 2011 in Libya they got involved together with the countries i mean that was uh you know one moment
7:24
where Kata and the UAE actually during the Arab Spring were s sort of cooperating even though on different sides but they were cooperating against the Gaddafi regime trying to bring stability in
7:33
Libya um but they the idea that they're a small state and they really need to curate
7:38
um and create power with whatever means available to themselves that was a wakeup call where the
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Amiradis said we are on our own and we have to take over responsibility and so they did so when we think about the UAE um Muhammad uh bin uh Zade comes to mind um uh just you know give us a a lay
Hierarchy of UAE
7:58
of the land who who are the key figures here i mean in your article you talk about Bernie Fatima
8:04
um explain this sort of leadership uh hierarchy of the of the UAE so the UAE like all the neighboring
8:11
countries they are a tribally based monarchy right so they're monarchy but they're also a federation of seven different emirates uh each of which have their own royal family or have their
8:21
own amir and leader uh and then Abu Dhabi is the capital but traditionally at least when the
8:28
Emirati the Emirates were found in 1971 there was supposed to be a bit of power sharing going on it
8:33
wasn't all sort of concentrated in the hands of of the al- Nahan which is the royal family of of Abu Dhabi but what we've seen over the last couple of decades is a concentration of power in the hand
8:43
of the al-Nan and beyond that we've seen Muhammad bin Zed and the bin Zed children the the children
8:48
of Zed specifically um the sons of that wife of Zed Fatima hence why they call them Bani Fatima
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these sons have really reshaped Abu Dhabi and thereby afterwards also Emirati statecraft in in
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to their liking and so what we see is a massive concentration of uh force and concentration of
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effort in in the hands of these three brothers in particular so Muhammad bin Zad he's the president
9:14
mansour bin Zad is sort of the the financial uh you know state craft economic statecraft
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uh sort of wizard um you know he's he's leading uh you know he's using the massive massively
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deep pockets of the UAE of Abu Dhabi to kind of drive statecraft overseas and the last one is Tahn
9:32
binite uh who is more or less has been for a long time in the shadows but he's the national security
9:37
adviser and he has been curating all kinds of networks also again using private companies
9:42
but not necessarily for for economic return but for strategic return so he's using these sort of
9:48
relationships to extract uh uh influence uh and and and also power for Abu Dhabi and so these
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three have really risen uh into into this into this position of power since very much since the
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late 2000s but accelerated since the Arab Spring um with Muhammad bin Z really in the shadows of
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his brother who for a long time ruled the country and then died but in the shadow really curated
10:15
uh this massive apparatus of statecraft in Abu Dhabi which today is dominating the UAE
Donate to Baitulmaal
10:25
alam alalaykum today we're continuing man's efforts on the ground for water
10:31
supply project today we're targeting a new tint camp with hundreds and
10:36
hundreds of displaced families that are suffering from the lack the critical need of drinking water thank you for the organization of man thank you
11:00
brothers and sisters we would like to thank uh Betal institution may Allah bless you
11:18
so can I ask you about philosophy like what is it what are the ideas that underpin
Anti-Revolutionary forces
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uh this uh this sort of turn uh to this this new UAE statecraft i in your in your piece and and a
11:32
few pieces that you've written in your book you talk about the anti-revolutionary forces uh that the UAE are supporting across the Middle East um that just paint a picture of of what is
11:43
it they're trying to do uh in that region look there's a lot of anecdotal evidence about the
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childhood and youth of Muhammad bin Zad um he was overseas uh he lived in Morocco for a while and
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allegedly there he had some exposure to people who were close to a Muslim Brotherhood way of thinking
12:02
Islamist approach to state craft and life uh and you know I think he said that in in or people have
12:09
he said he mentioned that to others where he said you know for him a pivotal moment in his life was 9/11 when he saw first of all what happened at the heart of American financial power in New York uh
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and then also seeing Muslims uh involved in that in the name of Islam and for him that was kind
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of a shock shocking experience and he said okay that is not the form of Islamism that I endorse
12:31
um and so that was that kind of I think was one pivotal moment for him uh but then over the years
12:39
obviously the UAE unlike for example Qatar or Oman had an opposition group that was also
12:45
aligned with the glo with the overall thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood the alah movement
12:50
um they weren't really a very much you know by by most uh sort of um you know external by most
12:58
standards they wouldn't have been a threat to the regime per se but they were advocating for a form of governments which was more inclusive where there were checks and balances and which wasn't
13:07
as authoritarian and autocratic um and that in itself is a threat and was perceived as a threat
13:14
by the al-Nan a threat to regime security um and so taking all of this together The philosophy now
13:21
is really run the overall philosophy is driven by the culture of Muhammad bin Zad and that's a
13:27
culture of uh defense security centric i mean he's he's a man who led the security sector he's a man
13:34
of the security sector he went to Sanhurst here in the UK so he's very much a military man yeah what
13:39
you end up with is a a sort of strategic culture in Abu Dhabi that was really defined by this one
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or is defined by this one man Moz a military man who looks at the world through the lens of threat
13:53
rather than a lens of opportunity and he's also someone who frames the world very much in a zero
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sum fashion i need to win you need to lose uh and even when they look at win-win situations at times
14:04
they are still I would say win-win situations where the Emiratis kind of retain more control
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uh than the other side they want to be always slightly stronger than the other side the other side that they're working with and so that is a sort of mindset that is very uncommon I'd say
14:21
for the Gulf in general I mean tribal politics have always been about pragmatism it's about
14:26
sort of win-win situations obviously there was is has been a lot of fighting traditionally as Um but you're trying in the Gulf at least you're trying to find common ground and then work from
14:36
there and being assertive against your neighbor in particular something quite alien in in the way
14:42
that we've seen it at least playing out played out uh by Abu Dhabi uh in in various in various
14:48
in on various occasions against Qatar against Oman and so on i mean historically and and maybe again
US policy and UAE
14:53
this is a sort of a simplistic characterization of the region but historically uh we especially
14:59
during the cold war we tend to think of these Arab states as quite client states or at least states that are within the orbit of the west and and they tend to engage in regional and foreign policy
15:10
um after consultation with with the west now in a previous answer you mentioned that as the west
15:17
resolves and moves away from the Middle East actors like the UEI have sort of stepped in like is there a relationship between US policy for example European Union policy objectives
15:28
in the Middle East and uh the the activities of the UAE government yeah so the Amiratis were so
15:35
again going back to them being a small state they used to be traditionally a client state to the US
15:41
or to the west they saw themselves there i I like that and then after 2011 they said "We're on our own and we need to diversify our relationship." So we can't claim they're autonomous in in in
15:50
their They're becoming increasingly they're trying to become more autonomous obviously in terms of where they get their weapons from it's still the US and they still want US protection but they're
15:59
also saying we can't rely on it hence we need to diversify our security relationship um but more
16:04
than that they've become extremely assertive as well and one thing they've done very well so one
16:09
of the pivotal moments in the US UAE relationship uh was a an episode in 2006 uh when DP World one
16:17
of the biggest state-owned enterprises and biggest logistics firms one of the biggest logistics firms in the world who operate ports they wanted to get into American ports operating American ports on
16:28
the eastern seabboard and at the time the Bush administration was saying we're not having a Muslim state running uh our port facilities and you at the very peak and height height of
16:39
um the the war against terror and so the UAE said "Okay we need to change our image we're not like the other Muslim states we are different." Um and so they have really and that was you know 2006
16:50
everyone was talking about counterterrorism and how terrorism was the greatest threat to national security and they've really um jumped onto onto that bandwagon of saying we are going to be the
16:59
leader on counterterrorism and we're going to adopt the sort of narratives that we've seen
17:04
in the UK in the United States which kind of you know the sort of prevent uh strategy
17:10
of saying let's put all Muslims uh under you know in doubt let's let's question what they
17:15
do because that potentially are terrorists and that is here is a Muslim country endorsing that uh there's a Muslim country investing into think tanks and um what we call the CVE community the
17:26
countering violent extremism community since 2006 where they said "Okay we are a Muslim country but
17:31
we want to support uh these think tanks these research centers and these these experts quote
17:37
unquote on on violent extremism." Um and thereby become a champion of counterterrorism um and so
17:44
uh you know the the way that they've looked at the United States as well is through that lens of counterterrorism and they're like we want to be a partner helping the US fighting
17:53
terror and obviously in in the 2000s that was very much on vogue and then 2011 as we come to
17:59
the Arab Spring Obama administration terrorism wasn't that much of a sort of driving force but
18:06
luckily for the Amirati dash happened and you know ISIS started to occur in in Syria and Iraq
18:11
uh 20134 and then suddenly it was on vogue again and again the UAE was leading sort of that push of
18:18
saying we are and it's it's not just countering violent extremism because it's really CVE or
18:24
countering terrorism with a particular focus on Muslims it's Islamic terrorism in particular um
18:29
and so they have they've really owned that um that they own that narrative and it has been extremely
18:35
potent since in 2013 Muhammad Morsi was deposed from government and uh you argue that the UAE was
UAE’s removal of Morsi
18:43
pretty pivotal in uh in the moves against Morsy i mean exp how did how did the UAE go about removing
18:52
Morrisy after a year of of of governance i think we should go back to again 2011 right we see a lot
18:58
of Islamist groups as the best organized groups that kind of occurred in the in the quagmire and
19:04
the chaos of collapsing regimes in you know in in Libya and in Tunisia and in Egypt and and also in
19:09
Syria so Islamist groups are well organized they start occurring not just as civil societal actors
19:15
but also as militant actors yeah um and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt obviously was the
19:21
the most potent and you know longstanding sort of opposition force in in the Arab world uh and they
19:27
now suddenly were were driving opposition not just opposition but also were elected into power in
19:33
2012 that for the Amiratis was an absolute shock moment and obviously then Morsey was also endorsed
19:39
by by the west as a democratically elected leader um obviously Morsey made loads of mistakes right i
19:45
mean you know the the sort of um deep-seated distrust uh visa v the Egyptian military um
19:52
the fear of being persecuted led him to persecute others saying "Okay I have to cement uh my power
19:58
as much as I can because uh God knows what's going to happen next year." So he became increasingly authoritarian um obviously the Egyptian uh economy and social politics didn't move anywhere you know
20:09
obviously the the Egyptian regime had collapsed there had been chaos for over a year or two years
20:14
um the economy is not doing well and most Egyptians were anyway disenfranchised alienated
20:20
uh by any sort of leadership not just with the Muslim Brotherhood but they wanted things to move quickly and things didn't move quickly um not only because of the Muslim Brotherhood but
20:27
also because of Moz's policies so in 2013 early 2013 we see very small groups popping up uh I
20:36
think it was originally Alexandria um of liberal groups liberal opponents to the Muslim Brotherhood
20:42
liberal secular Egyptians who said you know we we we opposed the the the Morsey government as
20:47
much as we opposed the Mubarak government we want a liberal secular sort of revolution they were a
20:52
French group a tiny French group a few thousand um and they kind of developed into you know somewhat
20:58
the what they call the Tamarud movement uh civil societal movement uh opposing um uh the Morsei
21:04
government uh and what the Emirati had realized realized is that if you were using that organic
21:11
movement and push it provide it with material support information support uh you know military
21:18
support as well as support of the Egyptian military you could kind of orchestrate something that is that will grow from this very small fringe group into quite a big movement so the the what
21:28
the Amiratis were doing they were ripening the opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood from kind of January 2013 until June 2013 over six months this Tamaroo movement grew from this sort of
21:39
small fringe group into into something a movement within Egypt that brought nearly a million people
21:45
onto the streets you had mass protests and in the in the background so what the what the what the Amiradis did they obviously funded uh actors on the ground they uh they engaged with
21:56
media companies and and PR companies but also with Egyptian media outlets to kind of push a narrative
22:02
how bad the Muslim Brotherhood was they in the background engaged with the Egyptian military
22:07
and military intelligence trying to kind of create this pretext that then the Egyptian military could
22:12
seize in June 2013 uh as you know when the when the coup happened so it started as an organic
22:19
movement and then it became sort of a a a mo a a um a subverted movement for Emirati interests and
22:26
they were they were extremely pivotal in that i think that was that was something where the Egyptian where the Imiratis were very influential and I think for them that was a a moment where
22:34
they realized actually if we and it wasn't just money it also the power of orchestration bringing
22:40
different actors together let them all work together towards a common goal which was the removal of that Mosi government you can actually have an impact you don't need the United States
22:49
to shape and change regimes in the region if you have potent partners that you can work through
22:55
or work with you empower them leading from behind even a fairly small state like the UAE can have a
23:01
massive impact and I think the same sort of model was then reused a year later in 2014 in Libya with
23:08
Hafta saying if we can do it in Egypt maybe we can do it in Libya and so this is kind of where this exes of secessionist started this entire movement the counterrevolution uh uh to to the
23:18
Arab Spring really uh uh unfolded so I just want to understand this counterrevolutionary movement
Counter revolutionary movement explained
23:24
is it that the UAE observe these groups to be uh insufficiently secular insufficiently
23:32
uh connected to the sort of historical um um I suppose sort of trajectory of of governments
23:39
in the Middle East that tend to be dictators or tend to be undemocratic uh or is it is it that uh
23:46
they have a very explicit goal of preventing any Islamist form of governance in the Middle East
23:52
like explain that philosophical idea to me of of I think it it has so obviously they look at it
23:58
through the lens of being an authoritarian tribal monarchy where you know where freedom of speech
24:05
was never a thing but where freedom of speech has entirely disappeared in the UAE over the last 15 years um and here is a civil societal movement whether it's the Muslim Brotherhood or any
24:15
other Islamist NGO yeah that is able to mobilize people in one direction or the other potentially
24:22
shaping the course of history toppling regimes and replacing it with an Islamic democratic sort
24:29
of government or form of government um I think they so it's the the focus on threat um and beyond
24:36
that I think it's it's grown from a fear of the Muslim Brotherhood to fear of civil society at
24:42
large right uh and the key issue you know as you know the the sort of forum that exists even today
24:48
in authoritarian countries in the Middle East is the masjid is the the mosque the mosque is sort
24:53
of the the root cause of mobilization for people right all the protest during the Arab Spring Arab
24:58
Spring started from a sermon usually on Friday prayer because that's where people come together that's the kind of the only forum you've left outside the house where people can come together
25:08
talking mostly about religion but also talking about societal issues and political issues And so the UAE realized that the mosque was a threat and so their entire policy this some
25:18
people call it the Jeffersonsonian approach of kind of a divide between state and religion that they're advocating since 2011 is about full control of civil society full control of society
25:29
and so Islam has always been a form of mobilizing people against tyranny and so it's a very powerful
25:36
narrative a very powerful mobilizing mobilizing force even without is putting an ism on the Islam
25:41
right um so controlling the mosque was key for the Emiratis and so they were the first ones in the Gulf where the sermons on Friday prayers were written by the Ministry of Alf by a by
25:52
a secular civil authority um basically completely demobilizing the power of Islam to kind of inspire
26:00
and and and move people um controlling that um and so this is where where this is coming from this
26:06
is where the fear of Islamism comes from right islamism is very much a western term but this
26:12
idea that Islam can be politicized um that was the greatest fear for them because it's something
26:17
that naturally occurs in in a Muslim country and if you don't control it it can topple you
26:22
and that's kind of where you know and this depth development that we've seen starting in 2011 has
26:27
further further radicalized to a point where they don't just export this ideology to other Emirates
26:32
in the UAE but exported it to the Arab world uh through their various sort of clients like CC in
26:39
Egypt or Hafta in Libya um and you know the SDC in Yemen and and you name it but they've exported
26:46
it even to the west where you know there's this very infamous um I think it was a 2015
26:52
2016 interview with Abdullah bin Zed the brother of Muhammad bin Zid the foreign minister who went
26:58
uh on record and saying you know we are we are much stronger on counterterrorism than Britain is we're much stronger than than the United States these days because we have zero tolerance for any
27:07
form of Islam and Islamism um and that is kind of bizarre this is kind of a point that they're still
27:14
taking this is an approach they're still taking where they're saying we are tougher on Islamism than the West you know there is a paradox here because of course um many uh affluent Muslims
Islamic society contradiction
27:26
say in in in the west will go to Dubai go to UAE uh and visit or even migrate there for a period
27:32
of time and work and and feel very comfortable in their Islamic skin in in these places because
27:37
of you know the the sort of Islamic sensitivities are somewhat safeguarded by uh the the UAE state
27:45
but you know you you seem to argue that that on one level uh the UAE is actually working against
27:52
Islamic civil society from flourishing in in the Middle East uh yet a lot of Muslims will will
27:59
um uh will find comfort in in UAE society and and uh their sort of practice and adherence of Islam
28:07
in fact it's fair to say that the UAE also uh patronized I suppose a number of Islamic scholars
28:15
uh who very regularly uh sing the praises of the UAE state so explain that sort of contradiction
28:22
there to me please right i mean Dubai is obviously not representative of the UAE but Dubai has always
28:27
Yeah always over the last 30 years been certainly not a hub for Islamic scholarship or a hub of a
28:33
sort of an you know it's it is in a situated in a Muslim country is extremely secular you know people measure um the progressiveness of the UAE in Dubai based on you know the sort of
28:44
umbrella alcoholic drinks they can have on the beach and the bikinis they can wear and that sort of stuff and I think hence the appeal is is is probably more towards non-Muslims in this part
28:52
of the world but also Muslims go there because they say you know it's soio economically makes sense yeah um but the Emiratis have cultivated a sort of ideology about Islam you know they first
29:05
of all mostly Sufi sort of strand of Islam saying it's apolitical apolitical the idea of the wiel
29:12
meaning the idea that you know if you are the uh if you are the lord of the land you have absolute
29:18
control as you know even they go some people go as far as even if you allow people or you force
29:24
people not to pray you still have to obey the ruler and any sort of resistance against the ruler is absolutely haram that sort of Sufi quietest approach is another form of Islamism because it's
29:35
a politicization of Islam yes but a very quietest one is the polar opposite of the sort of Muslim Brotherhood Islamism yeah um and I think for most people who just go for a week to Dubai to have a
29:45
fun on the beach they will not see that they will not expose be exposed to it but Sufism has been
29:51
and so Sufism is obviously the leading branch of Islam now in in the UAE but it's something
29:56
they've also again exported under the umbrella of countering violent extremism of saying there
30:01
is another form of Islam out there for Muslims in the western world to embrace where they say take the political out of it if you you know you can use Islam to you know talk about you know poetry
30:11
you can look at architecture but don't use it for social politics because that's when it's dangerous and that's kind of where they draw the line so as long as you're a Muslim in Dubai and you
30:20
don't talk about social issues or political issues you're fine once you go off and become political
30:25
even on a post on social media you could get fined or you could be arrested and that happens to all
30:30
kinds of Brits Muslim and non-Muslim so it's a very fine line and you wouldn't realize that if you were there for a week i think once you live there and have a lot of friends who moved
30:38
there and moved back it becomes very suffocating because you constantly have to watch what you say
30:44
who you engage and so on because it is I would say probably the most authoritarian country in in the Middle East probably similar to Iran i mean what what you described of the UAE is actually
UAE strategy
30:54
quite you know on one level a very interesting development because of course uh we're used to
31:00
governments in the Middle East really working acting day by day and not really thinking strategically but here we've got a state that is uh very much thinking strategically and and
31:11
thinking ahead and and developing not just hard power you know these these substate actors that
31:16
you talk about which we will discuss when we look at Sudan and Libya but also a lot of soft power
31:22
uh across across the world i mean you know on one level there is an impressive quality we can
31:28
attach to for the UAE i mean is that a am I am I um am I being fair there when when describing
31:35
the I think they're a fascinating case study for I think they're a role model in many ways
31:40
for other countries in the region certainly in the Gulf yeah um whether you know whether you agree with their agenda or not but I think what is what is impressive is that they have a
31:49
complete synchronization of all levers of power and influence so it's not just soft and hard
31:55
i mean they're using the military they're using societal power uh ideology and religion they're using economic power all of it is aligned towards driving and securing uh national interest for the
32:06
UAE that's more you can say more than you can say about any other Arab country I would say at least
32:11
at at the moment um uh and and obviously they do have a lot of wealth but the power and influence
32:16
that they have is not just their wealth it's also the careful orchestration and obviously
32:21
also you know very topheavy leadership you know anybody who falls out of line in the UAE and Abu
32:27
Dhabi is is gone um that is not the case even in a country like Saudi Arabia where there are
32:32
still some heterarchical structures rather than just hierarchical structures right so
UAE, Sudan, Hemedti
32:37
um I'm going to temper what I've said there with of course it its malign activities in the region
32:42
so Sudan comes to mind and you talk about Sudan in your most recent Middle East eye article um
32:49
uh General Hemeti uh has been waging a uh a civil war in in in Sudan and um it's horrid and
32:57
horrific and and we've seen massacres on a grand scale across across Sudan for the last two years
33:04
and uh there's uh there's famine in some of some parts of of Sudan and and it's unrelenting uh can
33:10
you just sort of paint a picture of of the UA's relationship with this particular general and and
33:16
the activities of the UAE in Sudan go back to how strategic the UAE are so they built relationships
33:24
um and networks with individuals and outlets very much ahead of time um before they might
33:30
necessarily become useful and some of it some of them will never get become useful but the relationship with Hmet's family goes back to the early 2010s so way before this war in in Sudan
33:41
starts um uh at the time obviously he was already an infamous warlord uh in Darur he was involved
33:49
in the genocide there in the in the 2000s um but also a wealthy man who controlled territory where
33:54
you had oil uh sorry where you had gold mines so he became a businessman um with his own militia
34:01
but he was influential and an influential man who needed an outlet to launder his money to launder gold and he the UAE kind of offered his jurisdiction their jurisdiction to him and saying
34:10
you know if you want to put your money in our banks or you want to invest you know you you're you're happy to do so that was a very strategic move that became extremely handy uh after Bashier
34:20
the the the the old president long you know four decades president of of of Saddan uh uh
34:27
left office and was was overthrown and then when the civil war starts in um in Sudan they suddenly
34:33
have someone there that they have a long-standing relationship with not just this this is someone who's dependent on the UAE so it goes back to the point I was trying to make earlier the idea that
34:43
the Amirs are good at weaponizing interdependence so they they're offering relationships access to
34:48
the jurisdiction of the UAE whether it's through commodity trade or financial services or logistics
34:54
um any sort of supply chain or even PR support you can get it in the UAE they're offering it
35:00
and over time individuals develop a dependency on that hub the UAE that develop a dependency on on
35:07
these sort of services and that jurisdiction and that's a dependency the UAE can use it looks like
35:12
interdependent like you know let let me you know one uh you know you help me I help you sort of
35:17
thing but over time it becomes a codependence where the UAE can say look if you want to continuously bank in this country if you want to do x y and zed we need something from you now and
35:28
he was willing to give it Um so the Emiratis got involved in 2015 in Yemen they needed a fighting
35:33
force on the ground to you know after they suffered quite uh significant losses uh in Yemen
35:39
and the RSF which is the you know the militia that that is run by in Sudan um was offering to fight
35:48
for as a as sort of a proxy or mercenary force uh for the UAE and also for the Saudis and Hei
35:54
was the guy they could call they could rely upon so there's this long-standing relationship um and
35:59
so he fights in in Yemen uh I RSF troops do they make money they bring that money back into Sudan
36:06
they bring the weapons back into Sudan and so once the revolution starts in Sudan they already have a
36:12
curated long-standing and trusted relationship with one of the key protagonists that they can
36:17
use and push in the back so not only does this guy now have you know he's a billionaire and the Himemet family they're billionaires they have their own money much of it laundered through you
36:27
know gold trade through UAE the UAE have emerged for the last 15 years or 10 years as the leading
36:33
hub for commodity trade especially gold trade um so if you have gold and you want to bring it to market the UAE offer you the services and the infrastructure to do so they have a banking
36:42
sector which is leading in the region if you want to put your money in and you want to convert it into crypto you can do that in the UAE if you then want to uh get access and buy arms you can do that
36:52
in the UAE if you want to have a private uh jet or even more a private cargo plane that drives
36:58
and flies these weapons into anywhere in Africa the UAE have companies that offer that um so you
37:05
have an infrastructure there if you wanted to run a war the UAE has all of it at hand and you don't
37:11
need to rely on the state to do so these are all semi or private entities um and when I say semi
37:16
some of them are based in entities that are owned by the royal family so it's always a blurry line
37:23
between state and public uh sorry the be state and private um but on paper they are private
37:28
commercial entities who can help you do this stuff and this is where you know Vagnner Group for example the mercenary the infamous Russian Russian mercenary force has used the UAE relied on the UAE
37:38
since 2019 to build their bridge head in Libya in northern Africa um and all their Africa operations
37:44
wouldn't have been possible they wouldn't be able to roll out that network if it hadn't been for the UAE as a jurisdiction offering offering them all the services to keep this network of mercenaries
37:54
and mercenary companies alive so that makes the Emirati extremely powerful why is it that there
38:01
isn't any scrutiny or very much scrutiny on on uh this the UEIE as a jurisdiction for these
38:08
very unsavory activities in fact I remember um maybe a few months back there was a UN report
38:14
which exonerated the UAE and suggested that it has no there is no relationship between uh the
38:20
UAE and and uh and uh he in Sudan what's what's going on there i haven't seen that report um but
38:28
so the the overwhelming evidence any sort of UN council of experts EU experts yeah independent
38:35
researchers academics are all pointing the finger i mean there's journalist it starts even with journalistic investigations investigative journalists who've really unpacked how weapons
38:44
end up in the hands of the RSF how they're being smuggled from Abu Dhabi or from the UAE via Chad
38:50
by Uganda into Daur and other parts of Sudan so that's all very well documented i think there is
38:55
no one who's who's doubting that there's no one in government here in the UK that is doubting that and I think part of the uh relationship or the problematic relationship that the UK
39:03
has with the UAE at the moment is also due to the fact that that the UK has called them out for for what they've been doing um but the Amiratas are very good at shaping perception again goes back
39:13
to networks right they have they they spend a lot on PR they have a network of PR companies network
39:19
of people that if they don't necessarily buy them to speak or push their narratives at least they
39:25
pay them to stay silent um experts who will say "Oh that's all not that bad what we've seen in
39:30
the UAE or saying this is all coincidental." And another beautiful uh game that the UAE are playing
39:36
is since they're a country of seven emirates they're using one jurisdiction like Dubai or
39:41
Ajan or or Shaja um and playing them off against Abu Dhabi so Abu Dhabi is saying "Oh yeah a lot
39:48
of the smuggling is happening through Ajalan gold smuggler or it's going through Sharah um or going
39:53
through Dubai we could we don't know anything about it but we'll clamp down on it we we in Abu Debbie don't know anything about it um which they obviously do um but they can basically say you
40:02
know it's a bit of that divide and rule element where they're saying you know we we the federal government doesn't support this but yes there are entities in other jurisdiction in the UAE where
40:12
that that are involved in this sort of trade um and that gives them plausible deniability um and so we've seen that game being played uh as well and but there is plausible deniability because
40:21
going back to the point I made earlier these are private networks or semi-private networks and even if you can point the finger and you have a relationship between someone like Tahum bin and
40:31
his network of companies and the relationship of these companies with those companies such as Vna
40:37
or others like companies even if you can establish that relationship it's still a very very indirect
40:42
relationship there are layers upon layers upon layers in this network um and to make a case
40:47
of saying actually there's a direct relationship there is never a direct relationship and I think that's the beauty of networkcentric statecraft there is this layer of plausible deniability
Sudan’s case in ICJ
40:56
the uh Sudanese government recently uh lodged a case that the ICJ or or uh suggesting that the
41:04
UA should be held accountable for supporting herd and and uh uh this counterrevolutionary force very
41:10
recently a judgment has come back uh that the ICJ has uh no jurisdiction over over the UA's
41:18
activities and and of course the UAE government has made a lot of hay out of that and suggested that it's you know it it exonerates them and make and you know the accusations have been
41:28
uh have been um uh you know incorrect i mean what happened there and explain that that ICJ judgment
41:34
to us the judgment so far is it's um and it's clearly say says in the judgment itself none of
41:41
it has to do with the with the evidence provided and nothing has to do with the complicity of they
41:46
not made a judgment on the complicity of the UAE in supporting the RSF was a judgment based purely
41:52
on this I think article 9 uh uh which says that the you know the ICJ has no jurisdiction
41:58
um in in this case um but it it it doesn't exonerate the UAE's from the responsibility
42:04
that they have and again that's what it says in the judgment there is all of the parties involved
42:09
in the conflict have a responsibility to make sure that genocide war crimes crimes against humanity
42:15
uh do not occur um so the evidence that's been provided showing what the UAE are doing and how
42:22
they do it it's overwhelming i don't think there's anyone who's doubting it right not in the US not in the UK uh not in other European capitals and they've been calling out the Emiratis
42:32
uh for it what is extraordinary though is that the UAE sustained that pressure and I think that's
42:38
also a very important point going back to what you asked earlier about um you know most most of them are client states the UAE is not acting like a client state you call out a client state like the
42:47
US calling out their client say stop it you would expect your client state to fall in line but that
42:53
no longer occurs the UAE have made themselves indispensable um and so relevant in this part
42:58
of the world in East Africa that the US the UK and other European countries can't do without them anymore they've injected themselves into the debate in not just the debate but activity in
43:07
Somalia in Yemen in Egypt in Libya in you know um that and also in Chad in other areas that if you
43:15
wanted to do and settle any of these conflicts you have to speak to the UAE so you can't antagonize them and here is a country that is willing to uh you know play a zero sum game of saying you want
43:24
something from me then you have to be quiet about this and then obviously there is the massive investments we see that with the Trump administration the UAE inject or they promised
43:32
to inject hundreds of billions of dollars in the UA US economy potentially uh billions into the UK
43:39
economy and you know at a time when economies are not doing very well governments in the US or also
43:45
you're in the UK can't afford not uh to you know go into bed with the UAE so these things are being
43:51
played very strategically in a way that we in the west are not comfortable with or that we are not used to because again I think too many people look at the Gulf states as client states which they are
43:59
not they have agency they have autonomy strategic autonomy and they're willing to use it and the UAE
44:05
first more than any anyone else are willing to use it coercively if they have to um can we turn
UAE and Libya
44:11
to Libya because of course there is this there's a conflict that has been raging for some time in Libya after the successful revolution against uh rebellion against uh Colonel Gaddafi and the
44:23
uh UA and you intimated this previously had been supporting another general Khalifa Haftar uh in
44:29
his quest to undermine the the government the the official government the UN recognized government
44:36
uh in in Tripoli um uh it it seems like there's a lot of there's a parallel there really with with
44:42
what's happening in Sudan you know a general uh who's who's um uh who has been undermining that
44:49
central government like explain the dynamics of what's happening in Libya to us please again Libya
44:54
precedes activities in Sudan um and so we start off talking 2013 Egypt it then moves a year later
45:02
May June 2014 into their support for Hafta who was this kind of degenerate um former H Gaddafi
45:10
officer who then offers himself and has an agenda of saying I want to create a strong state based on
45:16
a strong security sector again a sort of military dictatorship um and he's he suggests to the UAE
45:22
that he can take the country which he obviously couldn't failed multiple times um but the Emirati
45:29
still back him they're still becking him today and for a you know for more than a decade now they have built a very very strong relationship and by creating a relationship in parallel to the
45:38
existing relationship with the UN back government they've created a sort of substate actor or a
45:44
quasi state actor which is the Libyan national army LNA run by again around a patrimonial network
45:51
run by the Hafta family it's not just Hafta himself he's an aging man I mean his sons are equally important um all of them bank through the UAE so their private wealth in the UAE so they're
46:00
dependent on the UAE um but they can also draw on UAE relationships whether it's the relationship with Russia so the Maratis offered the Vartner relationship to them they kind of paid for uh
46:11
Vagnner to emerge in Libya in 2019 and in becking Hafta uh very very powerful relationship um they
46:19
have provided uh you know they provided military aid to them arms in 2020 during the height of the
46:25
COVID pandemic when we're all focusing on what's going on uh with COVID and lockdowns the Emirati
46:31
were flying at dozens and dozens of plane loads of arms into eastern Libya and that is important
46:36
because that became sort of the arsenal of military arsenal from which all of what I call the
46:42
axis of secessionists are still drawing from today so the UAE dump these weapons in Libya and then
46:48
have empowered their own proxy their own surrogate Hafta who then later on helps out Hemeti in Sudan
46:54
who is you know flying arms through to Chud and from Chud going into into into Sudan um and so
47:02
what you what emerges is this carousel and that's what I'm trying to what I wrote about in this article which is kind of a network of networks and it starts in Libya because here you have this
47:12
non-state actor who can't really capture Tripoli the capital of Libya who uh yet is not though
47:18
being defeated is not disappearing he still holds quite a lot of power and control in eastern Libya
47:24
and becomes a quasi state actor and that model and that's an interesting one and you know you ask yourself why are they replicating ating that model because they replicated that in Yemen in
47:33
after 2015 when they backed the southern movement and then built the STC the southern transitional
47:38
council on top of that um which the same model they realized they can't take the country they
47:44
don't want to take all of Yemen because they can't fight the Houthis so they just take whatever is the kind of the juiciest bit of it which is the the the areas along the coast um because again
47:53
that's where uh the Emiratis can put build their ports Abu Dhabi ports and DP well they can put their ports so um by focusing on that only they're kind of creating again another secessionist group
48:04
next to the UN back government that the Saudis support uh and that exists in parallel still today
48:09
to uh to the the government in SA now we're going then 2019 into into Sudan and obviously since 2023
48:18
they're really actively pushing the RSF visav the SAF the in Sudan again another secessionist actor
48:25
against the UN back government um same model so it starts in Libya goes to Yemen and then goes to
48:31
uh goes to Sudan and then over the last couple years we see the same model being played by the Emiratis also in Somalia where they're backing uh uh the the sort of federal states in Pantland
48:43
Somaliand and also in Juba which are entities you know states of of the Federation of Somalia
48:48
and backing their quest for independence so also secessionist movements same model they build up a a militia group a a violent non-state actor they uh provide material support and training
48:59
and arms um and then on top of that they kind of lend their own sort of political diplomatic cloud
49:05
to these non-state actors giving them legitimacy and what so what starts in Libya has become now
49:12
a model that the UAE have applied across Eastern Africa and it seems to work they haven't won but
49:18
you know if you ask yourselves why they're doing it I think you know my conclusion is obviously they want access they're also saying it's better to have full control over a small enclave than
49:28
shared control over an entire country so having uh you know full control over the juicy bits of Yemen
49:35
is better than trying to in you know compete for competi compete for influence across Yemen same
49:40
in Sudan having influence over the RSF territory is better than competing for all of Sudan in Libya
49:46
the same thing you can't get all of Libya but at least you have full control over a very juicy very
49:51
rich part of of Libya um and so that is kind of the policy they the strategy that they're
49:56
driving and since they're not being contested and nobody's competing with them really um they are
50:03
still the most potent player among many in all of these countries they're always the primis interrus
50:09
if not the most influential power and imagine going back to a country of a million of a million
50:14
citizens been elevated to what I would say is middle power status because of that it it's really
Unease about bloodshed?
50:20
extraordinary what the picture you paint here is very evocative i mean um uh this is um this sounds
50:26
very machavelian to its extreme and um countries like Libya for a long period I know it's it's it's
50:32
somewhat changed now but for a long period was a failed state you know it became a vacuum for um uh for um uh criminality and for smuggling and for uh for very nefarious activities um
50:45
uh from a UAE perspective they have no qualms with the bloodshed the trail of of devastation that
50:53
they uh they uh establish within these countries i take it that's not a problem for them no these are
51:00
means to an end i mean the argument the Amiratis would have there is you need to break some eggs to make an omelette so these are unfortunately means to to an end in Libya in Sudan in in in
51:09
Yemen i mean Yemen the stuff that they've done I mean they've hired mercenary bands to hunt down
51:15
you know terrorists which they you know which are just civil societal actors who are very loosely affiliated sometimes with the Muslim Brotherhood or opposition figures and they just hunt them down
51:24
and kill them and it's all paid for by the UAE i mean the BBC did a very good documentary on that wow okay um Syria um uh I' I've read and again I haven't I hadn't followed the the since the um you
Syria
51:37
know the surprise revolution you know we've uh uh we've uh we've started to follow Syria once again
51:42
but once upon a time the UAE opted for stability in Syria um do you feel that the um uh the advent
51:52
of this new government the HSL government led by Ahmed Shara uh in a way has has been a u an
52:00
affront to uh to uh UA's policy in in Syria is it a you know a a an indication that there is there
52:08
are limits to uh the success of this strategy syria taken on its own is certainly a defeat
52:15
it's probably a massive strategic setback for the UAE also for that overall policy of creating and
52:20
installing uh you know returning to authoritarian stability idea of establishing security sector
52:26
based dictatorships and then not only that having a an Islamist of you know of jihadist nature
52:33
actually becoming the president that certainly is a setback but they've shown the pragmatism in this of you know hosting Alshara even being a mediator now between Alshara and Israel you know they've
52:44
been pragmatic in this but it's also because they realized that there's nothing to rescue anymore I mean they've been defeated cuties and the Saudis are certainly in the driver's seat um
52:53
But it doesn't you know the same kind of happened in Libya in uh in 2019 where they they they backed
53:00
the LNA's quest to take over Tripoli and they failed but it hasn't led to the defeat of the LNA same in Sudan i mean there's been a couple of setbacks for the RSF but these are operational
53:09
setbacks not strategic ones i think Syria is a strategic setback for them but they never invested as much into Syria as they have invested into all these other African countries
53:18
that I mentioned earlier or plus Yemen so far we haven't spoken about uh the relationship the very
UAE and Israel
53:23
strong relationship between the UAE and Israel i mean the UAE is the most fervent advocate of the Abraham Accords and uh it it just seems to me that um when it comes to Gaza and the horrific um uh
53:36
situation in Gaza the UAE has really been firmly on the side of Israel uh in this in this conflict
53:42
in inverted commerce um can you characterize explain that relationship what is the nature of
53:47
that relationship between Israel and the UAE so if you go back to everything I said earlier in terms
53:53
of their strategic mindset yeah strategic culture in Abu Dhabi it very much aligns with Israel's
53:58
strategic mindset right israel is extremely um hard powerheavy in the way they engage um the
54:05
the the the Israelis have a deep-seated fear of civil society in the Arab world they have a fear of the Arab world they framed the Arab Spring as the Arab winter from the beginning they said
54:14
this is a major setback because they know the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims uh will not tolerate
54:20
the sort of atrocities that are being committed uh by Israel against the Palestinians for decades um and so having dictators in power that the Americans can deal with or that they can deal
54:29
with having one point of contact is always better than having to deal with a civil societal group or a democratically elected uh uh entity they fear Islamism i studied in Israel and so I can
54:40
tell you that the way that they frame the Muslim Brotherhood the way that they frame political Islam Islamism the the Arab street and so on is very much the same way that the Isra that the
54:50
Emiratis have framed it so there is an ideological alignment um there is an ideological alignment in terms of the the order that the Israelis would like to see they would like to see an
54:58
authoritarian stab they believe in authoritarian stability Arab dictatorships running the region the UAE would like to see the same sort of regional order um so that's it we we always talk
55:09
about this being a pragmatic relationship with the UAE and the UAE used this primarily to get access
55:14
to uh Republicans and people in the far right in in Washington it's their out of jail card going
55:19
back to all the bad things that the Moratis are involved in one reason they've never been really called out properly by a lot of congressmen and women in America is because they're on the side
55:28
of Israel and many times when I have conversations with you know staffers or people in Washington over over the issue of the UAE one of the things that always comes back is like yeah it's not great
55:37
what they're doing but you know they're the ones who normalized with Israel so it goes a long way it's an out of jail card but beyond that it's also it's not just a pragmatic alignment it's
55:45
one that is ideological um you know the fear of of of any of any sort of resistance fear of you know
55:52
obviously Hamas being kind of the worst nightmare sort of um entity i'm not endorsing them at all
55:57
but um you know just having to you know for them what goes on in Gaza is more about the problem
56:03
here is Hamas the problem is in Israel and that's ideological right uh finally I mean this has been
How to resist UAE state craft
56:08
a fascinating conversation i think a lot of my viewers will be very very um perturbed by just the
56:14
sort of the breadth of the tentacles of of the UAE and what it's been doing uh since the uh the the
56:19
advent of the Arab Spring um how does one resist this i mean UAE has diplomatic power it has soft
56:26
power it uses hard power uh economic might it's able to uh change narratives uh here in the west
56:33
um it does a lot to um uh to curate a particular image of itself and uh and it's been pretty
56:40
successful I think in in in doing so it's become a hub for uh for for sports and cultural activities
56:46
across uh across the world uh how does one resist this very malign uh state craft that the UAE has
56:53
has curated look it's the only reason the UAE have been so successful over the last 10 years
56:59
is the Arab Spring is because they've operated more or less in a vacuum where you know the West has disengaged from Africa and the Middle East and also where the partners or the the sort of
57:08
competitors around like Saudi or Qatar have been quiet because they've been you know in in you know focused inward or whatnot um I think the greatest strategic mistake the UAE have made um was in 2017
57:20
when they tried to ostracize the countries from the the GCC i think that was a strategic mistake
57:25
because the countries who were very you know disorganized quiet never really spoke about what they're doing and why they're doing it never had any real networks in the west didn't have any
57:35
you know sort of support in the west uh suddenly went into a resistance mode where they you know
57:41
started to invest into PR where they're trying to attack the Emiratis where they use their networks not just Alazer but you know all of it to kind of expose what the Emiratis were up to um and that
57:52
kind of created uh suddenly the Emiratis were no longer operating in a vacuum because when it came to Libya the country supposeded it uh when it come to Syria when it came to Syria the countries
58:02
opposed it uh when it comes to Palestine countries opposed it so suddenly the Emiratis had to fight
58:08
uh you know they had to actively compete uh Saudi as well I mean Saudi for MB when MBS
58:13
came into power 2015 2016 17 18 he was under the wings of MBZ they've since fallen out there's now
58:20
competition over economy the Saudis realized if they want to grow they need to get some of the FDI
58:26
some of the investments from the UAE and divert it to Saudi So they there is competition now between Saudi and the UAE even over Yemen where the Saudis are no longer happy with what the UAE are doing
58:36
there's competition between Saudi and UAE over Sudan where the Saudis are backing the the UN back government so suddenly the UAE over the last couple of years have found themselves on the other
58:45
side of a lot of that competition and as all of the Gulf states especially Qatar Saudi UAE are
58:52
uh are competing in that space and have all their own diplomatic cloud suddenly the UAE's narrative
58:57
becomes ever more problematic in terms of selling there's another problem the UAE's narrative has been like the Israeli one extremely coercive it was it's about compelling people to say something
59:07
coercing people to say something it's not about it's not an organic consensual hearts and minds
59:13
they have failed to win hearts and minds in the Arab world and I think Gaza has really exposed this i think the Arab accords are done in a way that the Saudis no longer want to touch it i
59:22
don't think the Saudis would want to normalize with Israel in the in in the given context um and I think that in this kind of context and the Amiratis have failed to be a consensual
59:32
actor and that is something that I think is now becoming ever more uh overt and problematic as
Disapproval from Emirati public?
59:37
they move forward actually one one final question i mean do we see within the Emirates do we see
59:43
um any sizable um disapproval from from its publics i know it's very hard to gauge and
59:50
um uh public opinion is of course across the Arab world is a very very difficult thing to to assess
59:56
but um you know Saudi Arabia we do see uh levels of public disapproval with some of the activities
1:00:02
of of MBS is there any like-minded activity in in in uh UAE i mean you you hit the nail on the head
1:00:10
i mean the UAE is a black box in many ways uh it's very difficult all the evidence you ever have is anecdotal really um but because they are the most coercive and more most invasive police state in
1:00:20
this part of the world because they know how to use you know Israeli technology lot pegasus and all these kind of invasive hacking devices that they have if you land with your phone in Dubai
1:00:30
your data your phone is owned by and really so that is you know that that is a that is something
1:00:36
that is is very is a big deterrent for people to speak out and obviously since the Arab Spring they've really clamped down on civil society and on on freedom of speech um so it's very difficult
1:00:46
to to really speak out and when Arabs when UAE citizens speak out they usually do it in London
1:00:52
and even then they're very careful because they don't know who's watching and who's listening to their devices um but there is certainly resistance and we've seen it over the last
1:00:59
couple of years especially there is a north south divide a north south divide in the UAE where the
1:01:04
northern emirates are far less well off than let's say Dubai and Abu Dhabi where they kind of most of
1:01:10
the soldiers are fighting in Yemen are from the northern emirates uh we've seen them not feeling that they're part of that Emirati project and they're not they're disproportionately um you know
1:01:20
gaining from what the UAE are doing and not people in Dubai are not happy with Abu Dhabi taking over uh all the ministries and dictating terms of policy and statecraftraft so there is a there
1:01:29
are rifts in in that society but they're kind of kept together for the moment um but very difficult
1:01:35
as I said it's very anecdotal because there's no such thing as public opinion and no ways of of measuring in the UAE thank you so much Dr andreas Crier i mean it's been fascinating quite
1:01:45
very disturbing as well if you imagine but uh I I would imagine you're not going to be um lounging
1:01:51
on a beach anytime soon in in Dubai definitely not no thank you so much for your time today thank you
1:02:00
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