The hard realities of the modern Middle East requires a more “activist” foreign policy approach to contain hostile forces, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash said Wednesday as he laid out why his small nation has played an outsized role in conflicts in Libya and Yemen and why the UAE intends to be a regional force.
In a wide-ranging online forum hosted by the Middle East Institute, Mr. Gargash mounted a vehement defense of the UAE’s new interventionist outlook, arguing that it’s driven by growing chaos in the theater and by other actors — including Iran and Turkey — who he said appear bent on expanding both their influence and their territory.
He also called for a new international pact with Iran to replace the Obama-era multinational nuclear deal, warned that Turkey’s adventurism could destabilize the region, and said Israel’s possible imminent annexation of lands in the West Bank and Jordan Valley would be a major setback for the peace process.
On those matters and many others, Mr. Gargash made clear the UAE, a country of under 10 million people sitting on one of the world’s large proven reserves of oil, is no longer content to be a passive observer.
“The UAE is not activist because it chooses to be an activist state,” he said. “It is an activist state because the world is changing around us, because the fundamentals that the international system depended on 30 years ago, 20 years ago, are no longer as stable as they were.”
“The old model of a Gulf state where you try and not rock the boat and you try and just get by, I think the international system does not allow us anymore to play that role,” he added.
As one of the richest countries in the Middle East, the UAE long has been an economic powerhouse and an influential player in global finance. A strong ally of the U.S., the UAE also has contributed a small number of troops to the war in Afghanistan and was a key member of the Trump administration’s alliance of Sunni Arab states looking to contain Iran.
But that activist role has led to controversy as well.
Most notably, the UAE has partnered with Saudi Arabia for a years-long campaign in Yemen, where they battled Iran-backed Houthi rebels, a campaign that has fueled a massive humanitarian crisis in Yemen and international condemnation for the brutality of some of its tactics.
Right now, Mr. Gargash said there are fewer than 100 UAE soldiers still on the ground in Yemen. He called on all stakeholders — the anti-Saudi Houthi rebels, the Yemeni government, and others — to adopt a Saudi-backed cease-fire plan.
The UAE is playing a leading and controversial role in Libya, partnering with Egypt in aggressively backing Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s insurgent Libyan National Army (LNA) in its fight against the U.N.-recognized government in Tripoli.
The civil war in Libya has spiraled downward in the decade since the death of strongman Moammar Gadhafi, and today there are numerous actors jockeying for position inside the country.
Turkish-backed fighters have slowed the LNA’s advance in recent weeks despite an influx of Russian mercenaries and military equipment to prop up Gen. Haftar’s army. Egypt and other players now are pushing a cease-fire agreement in Libya.
Top United Nations officials on Wednesday blasted the confusing mix of foreign involvement in the countries.
“Parties to the conflict in Libya and the states supporting them should immediately stop recruiting, funding and deploying mercenaries and related actors to sustain hostilities,” the U.N.’s working group on the use of mercenaries said in a statement. “The deployment of mercenaries to Libya only adds to the multitude and opacity of armed groups and other actors operating in a context of impunity.”
Mr. Gargash argued that the UAE has been involved in trying to bring stability to Libya for the past 10 years and that it simply cannot give up now.
“You can’t press a country on and press a country off,” he said. “You’re involved. There is an issue of legacy.”
On Iran, Mr. Gargash also said the UAE believes Middle Eastern nations can play a pivotal role in any future nuclear negotiations. The Iran nuclear deal struck by former President Barack Obama included major world powers such as Russia and Britain, but was greeted coldly by the leading Sunni Arab states.
“This time around, countries like ours, countries like Saudi Arabia, should be part of this process,” he said.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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