UAE abandons close ally and throws itself into the arms of Iran

Despite it being a great danger to the region, the UAE has announced its support of the Iranian deal, along with the great world powers, on its nuclear programme.

The deal also gave a large push to the Iranian policy to dominate over the states of the Arabian Gulf.

Iran occupies three UAE islands, but its foreign minister Abdullah bin-Zayed travelled to Tehran to tell Iran about his country’s support of the nuclear deal.

Bin-Zayed’s remarks, uttered in Tehran, reflect the roots of the “strong relations” between the two countries. He said that the UAE already has “neighbourhood relations with the Islamic Republic and we will work to reinforce them.”

At the same time, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Zareef hailed bilateral relations between the two sister countries. Bin-Zayed commented: “We [UAE] have been Iran’s partner and we plan to be closer than before.”

Observers criticised the UAE’s stance as it previously carried out a large propaganda war against ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi when he attempted to maintain relations between Cairo and Tehran.

The UAE accused Egypt of “swapping” Arab issues in return for maintaining economic relations between Cairo and Tehran.

However, the UAE has full diplomatic relations with Tehran, and rates of yearly commercial exchange between both countries exceed billions of US dollars.

Objective reports have recently revealed that the size of Iran’s investments in Abu-Dhabi is about $200 billion. This is the main source of Iran’s income, and Iran would have collapsed economically without it.

According to the reports, the UAE has been a supporter of Iran’s plans to dominate the Gulf and in its support to the Syrian regime. The UAE is still supporting Iran on this issue. Assessing the deal, strategic experts said that this is the “worst setback” for the Gulf States’ political process, particularly for Saudi Arabia. They argued that this deal would make Iran a great power in the region.

In addition to its domination over Iraq and Syria experts said this would give it the power to be the main policeman in the Gulf waters.

Experts criticised the UAE’s hypocrisy since they believe that it abandoned its main ally, Saudi Arabia – which stood beside it against the freely elected Egyptian president – and threw itself in the arms of Iran, the main rival to Saudi Arabia.