And finally Saudi Arabia bows down before US mantra

The decision by OPEC plus to cut production can be termed a time-out to avert a tripartite war. Lately, there has been significant deterioration in relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Reportedly, nearly 50 US Republican lawmakers warned Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the eve of this week’s OPEC oil ministers’ video-conference that economic and military cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia was at risk. The congressmen demanded that the kingdom must convince Russia to save oil marker from a collapsed.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) had joined Saudi Arabia in raising production in a move that was sparked by Russia’s initial refusal to extend production cuts agreed early this year but more fundamentally was designed to knock out competition from US shale producers that had turned the United States into the world’s largest oil producer.

It is being portrayed that Saudi Arabia, Russia and the UAE share a desire to render the US shale industry uncompetitive. The prime objective of Russia is to end the US hegemony by stripping it off its status of largest oil producing country.

The threats for Arabian Peninsula monarchs and the US have been raised by the collapse of the oil price as well as demand in the midst of a global economic meltdown.

For Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the stakes were their relationship with the US and significant reputational damage with a move that put at risk tens of millions of American jobs at a time more than 17 million people have been rendered jobless in the United States in the past four weeks.

Oil is but the tip of an iceberg in efforts, particularly in the case of the UAE, to manage a divergence in interests with the United States without tarnishing the country’s carefully groomed image as one of Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East.

Emirati gestures were designed to ensure that it would not be a target in any military confrontation between the United States and Iran.

However, when UAE began reaching out to Iran last year by sending a coast guard delegation to Tehran to discuss maritime security in the wake of alleged Iranian attacks on oil tankers off the coast of the Emirate, the relationship got bitter.

The Trump administration remained silent when the UAE last October released US$700 million in frozen Iranian assets that ran counter to US efforts to strangle Iran economically with harsh sanctions.

While the United States reportedly blocked an Iranian request for US$5 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to fight the virus, the UAE was among the first nations to facilitate aid shipments to the Islamic republic.

The shipments led to a rare March 15 telephonic conversation between UAE foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javid Zarif.

UAE officials stressed that there would be no real breakthrough in Emirati-Iranian relations as long as Iran supported proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Houth rebels in Yemen. The UAE gesture contrasted starkly with a Saudi refusal to capitalize on the pandemic.

A against this, Saudi Arabia appeared to reinforce battle lines by accusing Iran of “direct responsibility” for the spread of the virus. Government-controlled media charged that Iran’s allies, Qatar and Turkey, had deliberately mismanaged the crisis.

Moreover, the kingdom, backing a US refusal to ease sanctioning of Iran, prevented the Non-Aligned Movement from condemning the Trump administration’s hard line.

In a further indication of a divergence of interests, the UAE was alleged for trying to sabotage US support for Turkey’s military intervention in northern Syria as well as a Turkish-Russian engineered ceasefire in the region.

It was also reported that UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed had promised Syrian President Bashar al-Assad US$3 billion, out of this US$250 million were paid upfront to break the ceasefire in Idlib, one of the last rebel strongholds in Syria.

Prince Mohammed had hoped to tie Turkey up in fighting in Syria, which would complicate Turkish military support for the internationally recognized Libyan government in Tripoli. The UAE aids Libyan rebel forces led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

A tweet by Prince Mohammed on 28th March declaring support for Syria in the fight against the coronavirus was designed to keep secret the real reason for the UAE payment.

“I discussed with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by phone the repercussions of the spread of the coronavirus and assured him of the UAE’s support of and assistance for the brotherly Syrian people in these exceptional circumstances. Human solidarity in times of adversity supersedes all else, Sisterly Syria will not be alone in these difficult circumstances,” Prince Mohammed said. It is unlikely that Prince Mohammed’s explanations will convince policymakers in Washington.

Nevertheless, the United States, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are likely to hide cracks in their relations, but it is only a matter of time the cracks will re-appear.