The US should think again about arming Ukraine via Abu Dhabi

Over five thousand civilians have now died in eastern Ukraine, and one and a half million people have been displaced, through no fault of their own. They are the victims of the stand-off between the West and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Though the Kremlin’s accusations of a “Western-backed neo-Nazi coup” in Ukraine are propaganda exaggerations, like all good conspiracy theories they have a kernel of truth.

Since the end of the Cold War there have been increasingly provocative attempts by Brussels and Washington to bring Kiev into the Western fold, often using covert means or economic incentives. While the “Euromaidan” revolution in Ukraine certainly did not end well for Putin, with a new EU-backed government now ruling over “Little Russia”, his subsequent hugely violent reaction was unforgivable.

Russia’s takeover of Crimea was a near bloodless affair, but what has happened in eastern Ukraine is a demonstration of Putin’s ruthlessness, especially that he feels the need to prove his mettle. His invasion has caused civilians to flee as refugees but many, particularly the elderly and the impoverished, are stuck between the opposing factions. Hospitals are running without electricity and water is scarce, as is food. Bullets fly overhead. Little Russia has become “Little Syria”.

Last month President Barack Obama’s national security chief, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, told a Senate Committee that he “supports arming Ukrainian forces against Russian-backed separatists.” Critics say that it is naïve to assume that Putin will cease military operations just because the Ukrainian army is better armed, given that the country is equivalent in strategic importance to Russia as Mexico or Canada is for the US (not to mention Cuba).

Others point to the thirty private armies, operating independently from Kiev but opposing Putin, which have been accused by Human Rights Watch of violations, including kidnappings, torture and extra-judicial executions; or the possibility that arms supplied to the Ukrainian army, in a fluid and confusing combat environment, may end up inadvertently in separatists’ hands.

European leaders are wary of plunging eastern European into more generalised instability. Thankfully, they are attempting to calm Washington down.

Luckily for the Americans, then, that they have a convenient little ally in the United Arab Emirates. Crucially, arming Kiev through Abu Dhabi can be done far quicker than waiting for a political debate to play out in Washington. In fact, it’s practically already happened.

The Pentagon revealed last week that it held a meeting with Ukrainian officials at the International Defence Exposition and Conference (IDEX), the largest arms show in the Middle East, held very conveniently in Abu Dhabi last month. The agenda included an assessment of Kiev’s defence needs, with a view to reporting this back to Washington.

Meanwhile, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and UAE Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoun also met with President Potro Poreshenko, signing a “military and technical co-operation” deal. They insisted, after doing the requisite round of “selfies”, that this would not include arms deals.

However, Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, then wrote on Facebook that this cooperation will include “the supply of certain types of arms and military equipment to Ukraine” by the UAE. “Unlike Europeans and Americans,” he added, “the Arabs aren’t afraid of Putin’s threats of a third world war starting in case of arms and ammunition supplies to Ukraine.”

Confusingly, the UAE then denied that arms were part of the co-operation deal. This was emphasised by Assistant Foreign Minister for Security and Military Affairs Faris Mazrouei in an interview given to the Emarat Al-Youm web portal shortly afterwards: “The agreement does not foresee any deals on weapon deliveries between the companies.”

Though what is really going on between the Emirates and Kiev is currently murky, it would certainly make tactical sense for Washington to get Abu Dhabi and Kiev together. Ukraine can’t really afford American arms, but as Abu Dhabi seeks to boost shares in its growing arms industry, it can offer keener prices for admittedly less sophisticated weapons. The political debate in Washington over whether to give American weapons to Ukraine is still ongoing. As a short-term fix, though, cheap arms from the UAE will probably do the trick.

It is further evidence of the utility that Abu Dhabi increasingly offers Washington on security issues. The UAE has become Washington’s partner of choice for its Global Counterterrorism Forum, a network of nations primed to fight Islamic extremism and terrorist attacks. Announced just after the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the initiative has seen American trainers working with the European Union and 29 other countries, including 11 Muslim nations, to co-ordinate and share resources for fighting Islamic extremism.

That’s the exact kind of Islamic extremism that UAE airstrikes targeted in Libya back in September. Though both sides claim that they didn’t consult each other, it was clear that Abu Dhabi’s decision to strike militarily was doing Washington a favour, without the inconvenient machinery of democracy which hampers US belligerence.

In 2013, the US Congress also approved the sale of an estimated $5 billion worth of Lockheed Martin hardware to Abu Dhabi, in the form of 25 F-16 Block 60 fighters. According to press reports at the time, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates were also in line for “advanced standoff weapons”; that’s gun-speak for high-tech and highly explosive missiles. The munitions, which also included “bunker-busting” bombs, brought the total deal to close to $10 billion. Abu Dhabi, or “Little Sparta” as it is reportedly known in Washington circles, is entrusted with the big guns.

Though arming a country which appears to be stable to act as a regional policeman might sound sensible, the UAE’s proxy relationship with the United States is as dangerous as any. They can have the illusion of power and stability for a short time, but they have entered into a fundamentally fragile alliance, simply because nobody can predict the future.

The CIA thought that it made perfect sense when it armed the religious fighters in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet occupation, but that move has backfired spectacularly. American power has sought to assert Middle Eastern dominance using Israel; that too has backfired, permanently damaging relations not necessarily with regional governments, but certainly their people. Far from the quiet, determined “outpost of Western civilisation” that Israel promised to be, it has in fact turned out to be a hideously aggressive state expanding far beyond its nominal borders. The United States backed a proxy Shah in Iran for over two decades, then the 1979 Islamic Revolution came along and built a brand bigger than Nike or Hersheys, tagline “Death to America”. Washington may soon learn that arming Sunni rebels in Syria, or the Ukrainians, may have its own unintended consequences.

Abu Dhabi and other friends in the Gulf may look and sound like stable partners now, but can Washington guarantee what they will be in ten years, still armed to the teeth? It’s “The United States of Amnesia,” as Gore Vidal put it, playing out with Fox “News” in the background and an unwittingly militarised American public who have never experienced war in their own backyard.

There’s a solution to the Ukraine crisis, just as there is to the Israel-Palestine conflict or the crisis in Iraq and Libya. It’s called a table (preferably round), several chairs, gallons of patience, an all-night pizza delivery service and the world’s news cameras waiting outside for the announcement of a peace deal. Arming third parties might feel like a sensible fix, but it can only ever be a quick fix. In the long term, we need people to talk more, and fight less.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.