The foreign policy of the United Arab Emirates

Middle East Journal

Volumn 50, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 57-69

  Rugh, William A ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0012909762     PISSN: 00263141     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. The UAE, along with Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait, has proven recoverable reserves of approximately 100 billion barrels, and only Saudi Arabia, with nearly three times that amount, has more.
2. The GCC was founded in May 1981. For details of this event, see John Duke Anthony, "The Union of Arab Amirates," Middle East Journal 26, no.3 (Summer 1972), pp. 271-87.
3. When Iran opened a school in Dubai in the early 1950s, the UAE authorities thought of it as a "secret forbidden citadel," and they were convinced that Iran also established intelligence cells in the UAE. They noticed that visiting Iranian officials sought to cultivate the emirate rulers. Abdallah Omran Taryam, The Establishment of the United Arab Emirates, 1950-85 (London: Croom Helm, 1987). pp. 32 and 227.
4. Dubai's re-export business is worth approximately two billion dollars annually, of which more than $900 million goes to Iran.
5. Statements on Iran's policy on regional matters are based on Iranian official statements in the Iranian media, reported in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) throughout 1994-95.
6. Abu Musa, 30 square miles in area, is 35 miles from Sharja and 43 miles from Iran. It has in recent times had about 800 Arab inhabitants, and produces about 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) of petroleum, which is shared between Sharja and Iran. The two Tunbs aie smaller and also about equidistant from Ras al-Khayma and Iran: Greater Tunb has had a few inhabitants, but lesser Tunb usually has been uninhabited.
7. On 9 December 1971, the UN Security Council debated the islands issue at the request of Arab members of the UN, and the British were criticized for their actions because of their treaty of 1892 with the emirates. Taryam, The Establishment, pp. 183-85.
8. Cited in the Middle East Journal 26, no. 2 (Spring 1972), p. 175 of the Chronology.
9. Support for the UAE in the dispute was expressed by the GCC, Egypt, and Syria in the meeting of their foreign ministers on 11 September 1992 (Manama Wakh news agency, 9/11/92, 0500); support by the Arab League came in a League statement from Cairo on 13 September 1992 (Cairo: Middle East News Agency [MENA], in Arabic, 9/13/92, 1992).
10. Information was obtained in the UAE in 1992; cited also in the Middle East Journal 41, no. 1 (Winter 1993), p. 97 of the Chronology, as reported by the Washington Post and the Financial Times (London), 29 September 1992.
11. Information was obtained in the UAE in 1992; cited also in the Middle East Journal 41, no. 1 (Winter 1993), p. 97 of the Chronology, as reported by the Washington Post and the Financial Times (London), 29 September 1992.
12. New York Times, 28 December 1992.
13. These opinions were expressed to the author in the UAE by private citizens, 1993-95.
14. These opinions were expressed to the author in the UAE by private citizens, 1992-95. See also Colin Powell, My American Journey (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 526.
15. Based on extensive personal interviews with UAE nationals in 1994-95.
16. This information was made available to the author in the UAE, 1994-95.
17. Al Sharq al-Awsat (Arabic daily), 17 April 1995.
18. I disagree with the claims of some analysts that Gulf leaders are all "uncomfortable" with the large US military presence in the Gulf. See, for example, James Bill, "The Spiraling Failure of US Policy toward Iran" (Paper presented at the Middle East Institute's 49th Annual Conference, Washington, DC, 30 September 1995).
19. In December 1994, at the GCC annual summit meeting, the GCC heads-of-state announced that its six member states (including the UAE) would eliminate the secondary and tertiary boycott. During 1994 and 1995, three GCC states - Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar - hosted multilateral conferences that included Israeli official delegations, but the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait did not. The international development bank was proposed at the 1994 Casablanca conference, endorsed by the United States, Israel, and a few Arab states, but no GCC states agreed to participate. In the Spring of 1995, the UAE minister of state for finance publicly denounced the project. At the December 1993 conference in Washington, DC, the UAE foreign minister pledged $5 million annually for five years for the Holst Fund, which is controlled by the World Bank.
20. UAE concern about US policy turning to a more anti-Arab and pro-Israeli direction was heightened by the fact that, after tightening restrictions on US companies in March, President Bill Clinton announced the tightening of the US trade ban on Iran before an American Jewish group on 30 April, and that, at the same time, he was opposing the Arab effort to force Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The 30 April executive order was explained by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher as a dramatic expansion of US sanctions; see Middle East Policy IV, nos. 1-2 (September 1995), p. 25.5.
21. In December 1993, the UAE pledged $25 million over five years to the Palestinians, provided it was managed by the World Bank through the Holst Fund. UAE limited financial aid to the Palestinians, despite US urging, is a role reversal from the pre-1990 period, when the UAE contributed heavily to the PLO.
22. The bank project was endorsed by Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states, but not by any wealthy Gulf state, probably for this reason.
23. In 1957, Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran announced his intention to annex Bahrain, and since at least 1968, Iran has publicly opposed the idea of Bahrain joining the federation - facts that the Arab leaders were well aware of in 1971. See Taryam, The Establishment, p. 76.
24. Taryam, The Establishment, pp. 216, 219-20. Taryam argues that the Saudis deliberately withheld recognition as a tactic to pressure Shaykh Zayid on the border issues. The 1974 agreement involved several thousand square kilometers of land south of the Liwa Oasis, including the Zarara oil field, plus a Saudi corridor to the sea between the UAE and Qatar.
25. The GCC's "Peninsula Shield" force of 10,000 men, based at Hafr al Batn in Saudi Arabia, is only a symbolic force, and attempts to strengthen it significantly and to implement other forms of military cooperation have not yet succeeded, despite the efforts of the UAE defense minister and chief-of-staff. Some in the UAE suspect that Oman's proposal at the 1991 summit to increase the force to 100,000 men was merely an Omani scheme to find employment for Omani conscripts, paid for by the wealthy GCC members. For a discussion of the reasons for failure of the expansion idea, see John Duke Anthony, "The Dynamics of GCC Summitry Since the Kuwait Crisis," US-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee, Occasional Papei no. 3 (Washington, DC: US-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee, Fall 1992), pp. 2-3.
26. The foreign ministries of Egypt, Syria, and the GCC states met in Damascus on 6 March 1991 to discuss regional security and economic cooperation. See the Middle East Journal 45, no. 3 (Summer 1991), pp. 489-90 of the Chronology, as cited in the New York Times and FBIS, 1 March 1991.
27. On 12 December 1971, when the UAE was officially founded, only six emirates joined: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharja, Ajman, Um al-Qaywayn and Fujayra; Ras al-Khayma refused to join, but then did so on 11 February 1972. Shaykh Zayid remembers that when he was in a confrontation with Saudi Arabia over Buraimi in 1955, the British helped expel the Saudi military contingent, and he remembers the role they played in his accession to the rulership in 1966. Information obtained by author from sources in the UAE, 1994.
28. Shaykh Zayid's statement is cited in Stephen Zunes, "The US-GCC Relationship," Middle East Policy 3, no. 1, p. 105.
29. The only major military purchase before Desert Storm, which went to a US company, was a Hawk air-defense missile system, which the UAE bought in the 1980s from Raytheon. Fighter aircraft were purchased from France and Great Britain, and artillery from South Africa.
30. Since the late 1940s, the United States has maintained a substantial naval presence in Bahrain -carefully avoiding the label "base" - and, since 1980, the United States has had a defense cooperation arrangement with Oman, next to the UAE, which permits prepositioning of US equipment there.
31. The UAE bought 30 Apache helicopters from McDonnell-Douglas in 1992, and a military communication system from Westinghouse in 1993. In 1995, US suppliers were leading contenders for the sale of a large number of fighter aircraft and for frigates for the navy, but the decision has not yet been made, and budgetary prudence may delay these decisions into 1996.
32. In 1994, UAE ports saw 253 US Navy ships and 453,627 US naval personnel liberty days.
33. UAE forces entered in May 1993 after US forces, and left in March 1994, just before US troops pulled out; the military commanders worked closely together.
34. Because of Britain's historic role in the UAE, no visas at all are required for UAE nationals to visit Great Britain or British nationals to visit the UAE.
35. In his superbly written and very insightful analysis of the UAE's internal situation, Dr. Jamal al-Suwaidi reported that, while 77.9 percent of UAE university students surveyed supported Western assistance in the 1990-91 crisis. 63.9 percent disapproved of it afterwards, and only 8.3 percent regarded Iran as the main danger to the UAE. This student attitude contrasts sharply with official UAE policy. Jamal al-Suwaidi, "Arab and Western Conceptions of Democracy," in David Garnham and Mark Tessler, Democracy, War and Peace in the Middle East (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 82-115.