JEWISH WORLD

different tribal families: The Al Nahyan lead Abu Dhabi, the Al Maktoum control Dubai, different branches of the Al Qassimi are the leaders of Sharjah and Ras al- Khaimah (also known as the Qawasim states), the Al Nuiami lead in Ajman, the Al Sharqi are the leaders of Fujairah, and finally the Al Mu’alla are the leaders of Umm al-Qaywayn. A bu Dhabi is the largest of the emirates by far. Its geographic area is 26,000 square miles — accounting for 88 percent of the entire area of the UAE—while that of Dubai, the second largest emi- rate, is only 1,500 square miles. (By comparison, Kuwait has an area of 6,880 square miles.) Among the smallest emirates, Ajman has an area of only 100 square miles. What perhaps explains the con- tinuing cohesion of the UAE is that there is one emirate, Abu Dhabi, which dominates the federal gov- ernment and whose relative size and wealth make it extremely difficult for the lesser emirates to break off, even though historically these lesser emirates were in a perpetual state of war with one another, particularly Abu Dhabi and the Qawasim states. Nevertheless, despite these struc- tural features that contribute to the UAE’s stability, it is imperative to examine other threats the UAE faces and to consider the potential impact of these risk factors in the future. They include: ◆ The external threat of its most dangerous hegemonic neighbor, the Islamic Republic of Iran. ◆ The internal threat posed by Islamist groups, like the Islamic State, or any related jihadist organi- zations. ◆ Tensions that have arisen from time to time with its fellow Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf. I ran is the principal external threat to the security of the UAE by virtue of its self-defined role as the predominant power in the Persian Gulf. Even before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Shah of Iran sent forces in 1971 to seize the Greater and Lesser Tunb Islands from Ras al-Khaimah. Iran also pressed the emirate of Sharjah to share with it control of the island of Abu Musa. All three islands were situated near the Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Control of these territories improved Iran’s ability to exercise its domination of that strategic waterway and the movement of energy resources for the West that flowed through it. With the completion of the forma- tion of the UAE in 1972, the Iranian occupation of the islands of indivi- dual emirates became a direct chal- lenge to the federation as a whole. Iranian motivation to take control of these territories only intensified with the fall of the Shah and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini. The new Iranian constitution, promulgated in 1979, explicitly backed the idea of exporting the Islamic revolution. Practically, that meant Iran began targeting Middle Eastern states with large Shi’ite minorities that felt oppressed by their Sunni rulers. The Iranians were especially active in Bahrain, which had a Shi’ite major- ity under a Sunni king. There was also a Shi’ite majority in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, which is also the location of the large Saudi oil fields. Branches of the Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah were established in both states. Although only 25 percent of Kuwait was Shi’ite, the Iranians recruited Shi’ite operatives who engaged in acts of terrorism with the help of their Lebanese compatriots. D uring the period of the Shah, Iran agreed that the island of Abu Musa should be under the joint administration of the UAE and Iran. But by 1992, Tehran evicted the UAE and kept the island under its exclusive control. While the Shah abandoned his claims to Bahrain, which had been under Persian rule for two centuries beginning in 1602, Iranian claims were renewed by well-connected newspaper co-lumnists who wrote that Bahrain was really the 14th province of Iran. The editor of the religiously con- servative Iranian newspaper Kay- han , which is tied to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote in July 2007 that the govern- ments of all the Gulf states know that they will sooner or later wit- ness “the collapse of their illegal regimes.” An Iranian member of parliament followed this statement with his own observation that most of the Arab states “were once part of Iranian soil, when [Iran] stretched from Egypt to Syria.” Iranian leaders have shown no re-luctance to visit Abu Musa. In April 2012, former Iranian Presi- dent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visit- ed the island and met with its resi- dents. A month later, the com- mander of the Islamic Revolution- ary Guard Corps (IRGC) also vis- ited Abu Musa. A critical factor that will influ- ence the scale of the Iranian threat on the UAE is its defense cooperation with the United States. Both countries signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement in 1994, after which the U.S. military pres- ence in the UAE greatly expanded, particularly around the 2003 Amer- ican invasion of Iraq. Roughly 5,000 U.S. servicemen are deployed in various facilities in the UAE. Near Abu Dhabi, the United States uses the Al Dhafra air base, which has been proven to be critical for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The base continued to be used for major combat operations against ISIS in the last few years. The United States also uses naval facilities at the Jebel Ali port, which is situated between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Fu- jairah provides the U.S. Navy with key facilities outside of the Persian Gulf. These facilities have a dual role as far as Iran is concerned. On the one hand, the presence of such a large American military contingent en- hances the UAE’s deter- rence posture vis-a-vis the Iranian military. In this scenario, the U.S. military presence is like a tripwire: An armed at- tack on Abu Dhabi that led to U.S. fatalities would likely bring about a massive American retaliation against Iran. On the other hand, should Iran decide that its hegemony in the Persian Gulf is dependent upon forcing an eventual American with- drawal from the region, then the U.S. military presence could be a lightning rod attracting Iranian action. This was the Iranian consid- eration when it employed Lebanese Shi’ites to attack the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Iran seeks to utilize Shi’ite minorities across the Middle East in order to advance its strategic interests, whether through acts of terror or larger civilian revolts. The place where this considera- tion might eventually cause Iranian action is Bahrain, which hosts the naval headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Iranian Shi’ite protests regu- larly call for the United States to withdraw its base from Bahrain. As noted, there is a Bahrain branch of Hezbollah which security forces have identified. The situation is different in the UAE, but analogies nonetheless might be drawn. Instead of there being a population of 70 or 80 per- cent Shi’ites, there are estimates that roughly 25 percent of the UAE population are Shi’ites. But the con- cern in the UAE has focused on families of Iranian origin who are represented in large numbers in Dubai (as many as 400,000). It has deported small numbers of foreign Shi’ites and revoked their residency, claiming that these actions were taken for security reasons. In the meantime, relations be- tween the UAE and Iran have dete- riorated further. Acting in solidarity with Saudi Arabia, the UAE with- drew its ambassador from Tehran in January 2016. That same month, Iranian protesters sacked the Saudi embassy and Riyadh broke off diplomatic relations with Tehran. The widening rift with Tehran expressed itself in another way: a harsher policy on Hezbollah. The UAE issued a joint declaration with its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council states determining that Hezbollah was a terrorist organization. While this point was debated in European capitals, in the UAE the policy was clear. Iran’s readiness to challenge the UAE because of these issues or escalate to military confrontation ultimately will be influenced by the UAE’s alliances, particularly with the United States. The UAE leader- ship felt exposed during the Obama era, when the United States was pulling back from the Middle East. Today, given the profile of the Trump team, U.S. deterrence of local aggression by Iran should be enhanced. T he UAE has taken measures to reduce its vulnerability to inter- nal Islamist challenges. In order to understand these measures, it is useful to draw a comparison with the situation in Saudi Arabia, which has experienced attacks from Al- Qaeda and ISIS since 9/11. The Saudi system of governance was founded on the basis of a polit- ical alliance from the 18th century between the Saudi royal family, who were the descendants of Muhammad bin Saud, and the country’s religious leadership, who were descendants of Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, founder of the Wahhabi tradition within Sunni Islam. The Saudis were obligated to defend the promulgators of the Stable continued from page 11 A critical factor that will influence the Iranian threat on the UAE is its defense cooperation with the United States. 18 JEWISH WORLD • OCTOBER 16-22, 2020 Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, head of UAE’s jewel, Abu Dhabi, with Trump after a meeting on the security in the Middle East. Defense cooperation marks the UAE’s stability. continued on page 21