UAE: Petro-dictatorships stand by America

The US and Israel have launched an illegal war of aggression against oil-rich Iran. As a result, petro-dictatorships across the Arabian Gulf, including the UAE, which hosts US military facilities, have become a target for Iranian retaliation.

With foreign billionaires fleeing the tax haven of Dubai, the UAE is clearly upset about US-Israeli terror painting a target on its back but unwilling to atone for its imperialist sins.

UAE’s betrayal of Arab states

The UAE is a playground for air warfare training. The tiny emirate hosts the US 380th Air Expeditionary Wing, made up of 10 aircraft squadrons who operate MQ-9 Reapers drones.

Emirati misadventures in Sudan haven’t gone unnoticed either, with it backing genocidal actors and in doing so fuelling Sudan’s genocide – as the UN recently conceded. Since Iran began retaliating, the authoritarian state is apparently trying to distance itself from the US-Israeli operation which has already killed 555 people in Iran, including “about 180 young children,” and emphasising its:

categorical rejection of the use of the territories of regional states as arenas for settling disputes or expanding the scope of the conflict.

Reading between the lines, the UAE has made its refusal to enter a regionalised conflict clear – selfishly prioritising its economic interests over regional collectivity and solidarity with its Arab neighbours.

This isn’t just a message to Iran, author Shanaka Anslem Perera has insisted. Perera argues that:

The question the UAE is now asking itself, and that every Gulf capital is asking alongside it, is whether the grand bargain still holds. Whether hosting American bases provides net security or net risk. Whether the umbrella protects you or paints a target on you…

Dubai did not build itself into the crossroads of global commerce by taking sides. It built itself by being the place where all sides could do business. That positioning is now incompatible with hosting the infrastructure of someone else’s war.

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Iran has insisted that it sees all US assets in Western Asia as legitimate military targets for retaliation, and will:

continue ⁠to exercise its right of ⁠self-defence decisively and without ⁠hesitation until ⁠the aggression ceases fully and unequivocally.

The UAE ministry of defence, cited by Gulf news, confirmed the death of three civilians as a result of Iran’s counter strikes which have placed the country on red alert.

It’s about oil, but also Israeli colonialism

Iran holds massive oil reserves and is surrounded by a terrain littered with least 19 US military facilities. As the USA’s Energy Information Administration has explained, Iran has:

some of the world’s largest deposits of proven oil and natural gas reserves, ranking as the world’s third-largest oil and second-largest natural gas reserve holder in 2023

The problem is that Iranian people got sick of foreign meddling as far back as 1979, when they toppled the Western-endorsed Pahlavi dynasty. This resulted in the exit of Western oil companies. And while an ultra-conservative theocratic regime eventually took control in Iran, it wasn’t the kind that would submit to Western interests in the region – especially Israel.

Through either punishments or rewards, the US empire has sought to ensure submission in Western Asia, which is “home to almost half the world’s oil reserves“.

In exchange for Western backing and protection, authoritarian states in the Gulf like the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait have long hosted US military facilities. Iran, meanwhile, has consistently been slapped with crippling sanctions and – amid the ongoing US-Israeli decimation of international law – military attacks too.

Considering the US’s recent illegal actions to control Venezuela’s oil exports, it’s impossible to argue that oil is not a factor in its latest assault on Iran.

Neither controlling Iran’s oil nor overthrowing Iran’s clerical class seem like realistic prospects.

A risky US gamble in service of Israel

For decades, Israel has demonised Iran and yearned to topple its leadership. And with the US enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza since 2023, it has felt untouchable enough to push for regime change in Iran. But experts agree that the aimless war is unlikely to succeed in that endeavour, and, if it does, it will unleash more chaos and conflict.

If the US and Israel do keep pushing for full regime change, Gulf dictatorships will find themselves in an impossible bind. I

f they continue to stand by idly in the face of US-Israeli terror, they will:

As Al Jazeera asserts:

The Gulf states did not want this confrontation.

Oman had been mediating talks and Iran had shown it was prepared to make a number of concessions. It is the only Gulf state that doesn’t host US military assets and materiel. But war criminals Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu chose terror instead, in a region considered to be one of the world’s most critical geopolitical energy hub.

Iran may not be able to hit the US itself. But through these counter-strikes, it could shut down US-backed Gulf regimes with “strikes on power grids, water desalination plants and energy infrastructure,” according to Middle East politics professor Monica Marks. With this in mind, these states will do their best to stay out of the conflict as much as possible.

Petro-dictators might not be kicking US bases out of the region any time soon. But US-Israeli recklessness and lawlessness in the region won’t exactly be convincing them that these facilities are worth having, either.

Featured image via the Canary