On November 9, United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister (FM) Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. It was the first time a top Emirati official had visited Syria in over a decade. The visit also signalled a major change in Abu Dhabi’s policy towards Damascus, especially since it has previously allied with Washington to support the Syrian rebels, who have been trying unsuccessfully for a decade now to overthrow the Assad regime.
While the Emirati FM’s visit was hailed as a landmark moment for the region by both Syria and the UAE, the United States (US) was not so welcoming. Washington expressed concerns about the meeting and said that the Biden administration “will not express any support for efforts to normalise” ties with the Assad government. The State Department called Assad a “brutal dictator” responsible for many “atrocities […] perpetrated on the Syrian people” and urged the UAE to reconsider its efforts.
Initially, the US demanded that Assad step down or face consequences following the country’s descent into civil war in 2011. It cited human rights concerns and the regime’s abuse of democracy to justify its demand and supported the opposition and rebels with money and weapons.
Even though the US changed its position in 2017 and no longer demanded Assad’s removal (in order to focus more on the fight against the Islamic State), it still continued to take military and economic action against the Syrian government. The previous Trump administration in 2017 launched missile strikes against Syria in response to the regime’s use of chemical weapons against civilians. The US has also imposed sanctions on Syrian government officials involved in perpetuating the war and committing human rights abuses.
Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that the US opposed the UAE FM’s meeting with Assad. However, there is very little the US can do to halt the momentum that has already been established between the UAE and Syria.
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A major reason why Washington has little choice in limiting Abu Dhabi’s engagement with Damascus is the emergence of Iran as a major regional power and Tehran’s rivalry with Gulf countries. The UAE, for example, has been part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen since 2015 and has supplied local fighters with arms and financial backing to fight the Houthis.
In the case of Syria, the UAE and Iran have been supporting opposing factions. While Tehran has been providing the Syrian regime with military and economic support, Abu Dhabi has supplied Syrian rebel forces, including the Free Syrian Army, with weapons to fight the military. However, with the help of Russia and Iran, the Assad regime has managed to overturn initial rebel gains and reduce rebel-held territories to small, scattered pockets.
Consequently, Iran now wields more influence in Syria and has expanded its regional influence. For instance, the presence of Iranian proxy militias—including Hezbollah and other Shia groups from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan—in Syria has grown since the start of the civil war. Hezbollah has even won several crucial battles for the Syrian regime against the rebels. Moreover, Iran has used Syria as a supply route to transfer weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This creeping influence of Iran in Syria has led the UAE to seek better relations with the Assad regime. In fact, according to Emirati analyst Amjad Taha, bringing Syria back into the Arab fold could reduce Iranian influence in the country. Taha says that Syria is “one of the most significant and important countries” in the Middle East that the UAE should seek peace with Syria in order to counter Iran’s presence.
In this regard, Sheikh Abdullah’s visit to Damascus could be seen as a successful first step, as both sides agreed to enhance economic ties and explore new sectors of cooperation in the near future. One of the key outcomes of the visit was the signing of a deal to allow the UAE’s electricity ministry to construct a 300-megawatt solar power plant in Syria, which has been suffering from widespread power grid failures and fuel shortages as a result of the war.
The UAE would also most likely build on this foundation and provide much needed economic and humanitarian aid to Syria, which is on the brink of economic collapse due to US sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic. The Gulf country could also play a major role in the Syrian peace process and efforts to draft a new constitution, especially as the UAE has been very vocal about seeking a political solution to end the Syrian crisis. Therefore, the more the UAE engages with Syria, the more it is likely to diminish Iranian influence and entrench its own power in the war-torn country.
Taha’s argument about the UAE seeking peace with Syria also holds true in the case of Turkey’s rising influence in the region and the Abu Dhabi-Ankara rivalry. The UAE views Turkey’s rising role in the Middle East as a threat to its influence in the Islamic world. Furthermore, Turkey and the UAE have clashed over several regional conflicts in the region, including in the Libyan civil war and the 2017 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) crisis with Qatar.
Both sides have also locked horns in Syria. While Turkey has occupied northern Syria since 2016 in a bid to eliminate Kurdish presence and prevent the region from being declared as a Kurdish autonomous state, the UAE has supported Kurdish militias in the region, including the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Hence, the UAE’s rapprochement of Syria could be seen as an effort to limit Turkey’s meddling in the country.
Lastly, the US will find it tough to halt the UAE’s engagement with the Assad regime as a result of its own declining influence in the region. Experts have argued that the US withdrawing from the region, albeit slowly, has made its allies in the Arab world wary. Former Jordanian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher has argued that a disastrous war in Iraq, failure to make peace between Israel and Palestine, and Washington’s preference for a nuclear deal with Iran over Arab interests, “have left the United States and its Arab partners further apart than ever.” The US’ hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan and President Joe Biden’s announcement that America will concentrate more on its rivalry with China has only further increased anxieties among Arab countries
With regards to Syria, US policy has shifted continuously with different presidencies. While the Obama administration took a tough stance on the Assad regime, Donald Trump adopted a more relaxed approach to Damascus to pour more resources into its fight against ISIS. To this end, Zvi Bar’el of Haaretz notes that the US has “no clear Syria policy” and that it has not been able to replace Russia as the leader of the peace process. In this situation, the US is unlikely to wield any influence over the UAE’s decision to seek better ties with Syria, as it clearly lacks sufficient bargaining power with regard to Syria.
Besides, the UAE is not alone in re-engaging with Assad. Several other key US allies in the region, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, have also taken steps to re-establish relations with Syria. The Arab League has also expressed its willingness to restore Syria’s membership after it was expelled a decade ago. Therefore, given that the US has now taken a back seat in the Middle East, and that Iran and Turkey have expanded their influence in Syria and the wider region, the UAE and other Arab allies of the US are only likely to further improve ties with Syria, despite Washington’s opposition.