Four top foreign minster level diplomats from Qatar, Iran, Turkey and the UAE travelled to Moscow this week, in as many days, in an impressive display of strategic realignment by regional states against the backdrop of the US-Russia conflict unfolding over Ukraine.

The arrival in Moscow of the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan on Thursday is the most striking. This is happening within a fortnight of the country’s inclusion on 4 March in the Grey List of the global financial crime watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), due to alleged financial crimes. The FATF recommendations for the UAE include:

• Implementing a more robust system to collect case studies and statistics used in money laundering (ML) investigations;

• Demonstrating a sustained increase in effective investigations and prosecutions of different types of ML cases;

• Probing increase in the number and quality of suspicious transaction reports filed by financial institutions and other entities; and,

• Monitoring high-risk ML threats, such as proceeds of foreign predicate offences, trade-based ML, and third-party laundering.

The FATF is one of those tools of torture that the west has finessed in the international system to humiliate and punish developing countries whom it wants to teach a lesson or two. A cursory look at the countries figuring in the 22-member Grey List would reveal that the UAE shouldn’t really belong there — Albania, Burkina Faso, Haiti, South Sudan, Uganda, Yemen and so on.

But the west’s calculation is that the economy of a country gets affected in a negative manner when it figures on the Grey List — with international financial institutions starting to look at it as a risky nation for investment, which in UAE’s case also renders a lethal blow to its flourishing tourism industry.

Indeed, this happened under the watch of an American, Vincent Schmoll, who is holding interim charge as the acting FATF executive secretary since January. Schmoll used to be a functionary at the US Treasury. Conceivably, Washington’s writ runs large in this episode.

US-UAE relations have been experiencing some tumult during the past year. The trouble began soon after President Donald Trump’s departure from the White House. In January 2021, on Trump’s last full day in office, Abu Dhabi had signed a $23 billion agreement to buy 50 F-35 fighter jets, 18 Reaper drones, and other advanced munitions, but incoming President Joe Biden froze the deal as soon as he entered the Oval Office.

A number of factors might have influenced the Biden administration’s calculations, apart from the fact that the lucrative F-35 deal was a Trump legacy. As it transpired, in a delaying tactic, Washington began voicing serious concerns about the UAE-China relationship and the particularly strong economic ties developing between Abu Dhabi and Beijing. Notably, Washington wanted the UAE to put an end to a 5G contract with Chinese tech giant Huawei, which is the undisputed global leader in next-generation 5G technology.

Meanwhile, in addition to the Huawei issue, US intelligence agencies claimed to have discovered that Beijing was building what they thought to be a secret military facility at the Khalifa port in the UAE.

Emirati officials denied the allegation, but under pressure from Washington, were forced to halt the project, although the Persian Gulf states in general, and the UAE in particular, do not like being pushed to take sides between Washington and Beijing. They consider that their best interest lies in maintaining neutrality and balancing relations.

The end result, as everyone knows, was that much to the annoyance of Washington, Abu Dhabi finally hit back by opting for 80 Rafale combat aircraft from France in a deal worth over $20 billion last December.

Then came the bombshell in February with the sensational disclosure that the UAE has plans to order 12 L-15 light attack planes from China, with the option of purchasing 36 more. A UAE defence ministry statement said the purchase is part of the country’s efforts to diversify weapon suppliers. As an aside, the UAE air force operates mainly American-made F-16 and French-made Mirage fighters.

Only a week later, all hell broke loose when the UAE resisted American pressure and abstained (twice) on US-led Ukraine-related UN Security Council resolutions condemning Russia. Subsequent reports said that the Biden administration conveyed its displeasure to Abu Dhabi.

Soon after that, according to a Wall Street Journal report last week, Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan failed to take a call from Biden who apparently wanted to discuss the US expectation that the UAE would pump more oil into the market to bring down skyrocketing prices.

Yet another complicating factor is that the Biden administration blundered into the intra-Gulf rivalries by designating Qatar as a ‘Major Non-NATO Ally’ (MNNA). On 31 January, Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani became the first Persian Gulf leader to meet with Biden in the White House and media accounts of the visit highlighted a $20 billion deal for Boeing 777X freighter aircraft. Additionally, the emir met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and discussed weapons sales.

Given this backdrop, Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Nahyan’s arrival in Moscow couldn’t have been any less dramatic. The Russian side has divulged few details about the visit. The big question is whether any arms deal was been discussed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a statement that the talks covered “a wide range of issues related to our bilateral relations and international agenda. For obvious reasons, we paid a great deal of attention to the Ukrainian developments. We spoke in detail about the goals and objectives of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine to protect people from the Kiev regime, and to demilitarize and de-Nazify this country.”

The UAE foreign minister reportedly told Lavrov that his country aimed at further systematic development of relations with Russia and diversification of the areas of bilateral cooperation. In what was possibly an indirect swipe at the US sanctions aimed at isolating Russia from the world economy, Al-Nahyan said:

“It is always important for us to keep our finger on the pulse and make sure that relations between Russia and the UAE move forward. There is no doubt that we are aimed at the systematic development of these relations and the diversification of the areas of bilateral cooperation so that it meets the interests of both our citizens and state institutions and other structures.”

He stressed that the parties should strengthen cooperation on energy and food security. Clearly, the US cannot count on the support of the Persian Gulf region in its campaign to isolate Russia or to dismantle OPEC+ – an increasingly influential body consisting of the 13 OPEC members plus ten non-OPEC oil exporters, which is chaired by the largest producers Russia and Saudi Arabia. The Gulf countries are, one by one, seeking out Russia to signal their solidarity and register their own desire to shake off US hegemony.

Interestingly, last Tuesday, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa had called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss “topical issues of Russia‒Bahrain cooperation in politics, trade and the economy… (and) expressed the shared intention to further develop the friendly ties between Russia and Bahrain.” This, despite the fact that the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and the US Naval Forces Central Command are based in Bahrain.

Such display of solidarity by the ‘non-western international community’ brings some vital nuance to the global geopolitical chessboard: for one, it makes a mockery of the western sanctions against Russia. The Gulf countries are avid ‘globalizers’ and trading nations — Dubai, in particular. As time passes, western companies are sure to find ingenious ways to trade with Russia via resourceful intermediaries in the Gulf region.

Abdullah Al-Nahyan’s trip to Moscow is a demonstrative act of defiance, both symbolically and strategically. It is a mark of the Persian Gulf region’s growing alienation from Washington. Reports suggest that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who travelled to both the UAE and Saudi Arabia this week to press for increased oil production to lower oil prices, also came back empty-handed.

Contrary to Washington’s hopes, there is every likelihood that the OPEC+ will continue to strengthen its strategic autonomy vis-a-vis the US. Previously, Russia used to be a voice of moderation within the group. This will have profound implications for the world oil market.

The high attention Russian diplomacy paid to the West Asian region in the recent decade is returning dividends, for sure. Russia offered its Persian Gulf interlocutors something they never experienced before with a great power – an equal partnership based on mutual respect.

thecradle.co

Just how “special” is the so-called special relationship between oil-rich Gulf Arab states and Washington? One could argue, since Joe Biden became President, that relations have hit an all time low with many looking to broker better relations with Russia, China and even Iran. Royal elites in the GCC club know that in the event of a new Arab Spring sweeping across the region, that they cannot rely on Biden for any support whatsoever to cling onto power and so have taken an entirely new look at their foes and are asking themselves “are these people really our enemies?”

This partly explains why the shift in policy to welcoming Assad back into the fold, who will no doubt soon be a fully accepted member of the Arab League. And it also justifies why, since Biden took office, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are more open than ever before towards developing relations with Russia – even as far as, one day, defence procurement. In recent weeks, the lobbying in Washington from GCC states to convince Biden to cut Assad some slack is part of the trade-off, which no doubt the Syrian leader asked for. And to some extent this is happening.

The big thinking from Gulf Arab states is that the ethos behind the Trump move to pull out of the so-called Iran deal (JCPOA) which would have restricted Tehran’s abilities to develop nuclear weapons hasn’t achieved what it set out to do: bring Tehran to its knees begging for a respite to the crippling sanctions.

However, the cruel sanctions which Tehran has had to endure, has made the Gulf Arab leaders themselves beggars and Joe Biden in the awkward position of having to listen to their gripes. Just recently, the GCC made their case to Washington to do something about the Iran deal. And do it as soon as possible.

The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) on November 18^th joined Jordan, Egypt, France, Germany and the UK in calling for a return to the nuclear deal following a meeting with U.S. Iran envoy Robert Malley in Saudi Arabia.

According to reports, the 12 countries issued a joint statement noting that “a return to mutual compliance with the [nuclear deal] would benefit the entire Middle East, allow for more regional partnerships and economic exchange, with long-lasting implications for growth and the well-being of all people there, including in Iran”.

Several GCC states expressed scepticism when the nuclear deal was first negotiated under former president Barack Obama, with Saudi Arabia calling it “flawed”.

Yet, analysts have to wonder now if the Saudis and Emiraties regret the bullish move by Trump and would have the old deal back. The “flaw” now appears that the West has underestimated how Iran’s more recent activities in the region – from hijacking oil tankers to even attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq – are paying off, combined with the foot-dragging which we’ve seen with the Vienna talks.

The GCC call for a return to the deal comes on the eve of indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran scheduled for November 29.

It also follows a similar joint statement that the U.S. and its GCC partners issued in Saudi Arabia which called for an “urgent mutual return to full compliance” with the nuclear deal, while condemning a “range of aggressive and dangerous Iranian policies, including the proliferation and direct use of advanced ballistic missiles” and drones.

So the message is clear for Biden. The Gulf Arab states are now desperate to get the Iran deal back, fearing that Iran’s overtures are left unchecked and will only get worse. They are asking, bluntly, for Biden to drop the Trump sanctions, fearing that a conflict is imminent, if we are to believe the chest-beating statements from Anthony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State. The coming weeks now will put the relationship between the GCC and the Biden administration on tenterhooks if Biden doesn’t take the hint and take Obama’s notion of “soft diplomacy” to a new low.

The New Development Bank (NDB) was created by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) in 2015. The BRICS bank, as it is more commonly known, invests mainly in developing economies in areas such as transportation, water and sanitation, clean energy, digital infrastructure, social infrastructure and urban development. On September 2, NDB President Marcos Troyjo announced that the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Bangladesh were the first members of the bank’s expansion.

“New members will have in NDB a platform to foster their cooperation in infrastructure and sustainable development,” said NDB President Marcos Troyjo in a statement. “We will continue to expand the bank’s membership in a gradual and balanced manner.”

The UAE, Uruguay and Bangladesh will become fully fledged members once internal processes of the NDB is complete. However, the NDB’s ambitions do not end there, and according to Brazilian newspaper Estadão, a fourth partner, likely from Africa, should be announced by the end of the year. In fact, the Shanghai-based bank anticipates three to four new members per year, reaching up to 20 members in the coming years.

Although BRICS is obviously already represented in South America and South Asia by Brazil and India respectively, the accession of Uruguay and Bangladesh into the NDB allows the bank to act on a regional scale. It also opens the possibility for future membership in BRICS. With NDB members neighboring each other in South America and South Asia, the bank has the possibility to finance binational projects that promotes regional economic and transportation integration.

For his part, Emirati Minister of State for Financial Affairs, Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, said: “The United Arab Emirates membership in the New Development Bank represents a new step to enhance the role of the UAE economy on the global stage, especially in light of the great capabilities and expertise that the country possesses in supporting infrastructure projects and sustainable development. This monumental step would not have been achieved without the vision and direction of the UAE leadership, who believe in the importance of supporting development projects around the world, especially in emerging economies.”

The UAE has undergone a massive transformation in the past quarter of a century, turning desert wastelands into thriving economic hubs and progressing from reactionary Salafi ideology to one of tolerance and open-mindedness. As recently as the beginning of the Syrian War in 2011, the UAE was backing jihadist groups, but in a matter of only a few years reverted from this policy and became far more moderate and independent in their decision making and pursuit of partnerships.

Originally a major oil exporter, and still is, the UAE has now diversified its economy so that it is in line with the UN 2030 agenda to end poverty and hunger, protect human rights and gender equality, and protect the planet from degradation. The UAE has immense resources that can be directed towards projects that are in line with not only the UN’s vision, but also the NDB’s.

BRICS signed an agreement on Tuesday involving 28 projects in the fields of computer programming, technical services, culture, art, economy, commerce, logistics and transportation – with a total value of more than $2.1 billion. The UAE’s contribution to such projects will be fundamental in deciding whether the mega-rich Arab country should ascend into BRICS and not only the NDB.

The selection of the UAE, Uruguay and Bangladesh as the first three non-founding partners of the NDB indicates the intentions of BRICS – regional expansion with a focus on economic and transportation cooperation. This cooperation, as well as integration, is especially crucial as the world struggles to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic fallout. Because of this, the NDB will likely focus in the short to medium term on the rejuvenation of member countries following the pandemic, particularly in transitioning to a digital economy and green energy.

It was estimated that emerging economies needed about $2 trillion in infrastructure investments per year for the next 20 years to maintain growth rates, however, commercial banks have refused to meet the gap. Essentially, the NDB partly fills the gap that Western financial institutions refuse to do.

By positioning itself to take advantage of a unique opportunity to project a new vision for financing, the NDB is challenging the dominance of Western financial institutions and also progressing the prestige of BRICS in its endeavour to advance a multipolar world order. The accession of the UAE sees one of the Middle East’s most influential countries join the NDB, whilst Uruguay and Bangladesh open the path for regional integration under the context of BRICS, something that has not occurred since the group was established in 2006.

infobrics.org

GCC countries have so much to learn from Assad on how to survive an uprising and how to stay in power. But what he can really teach them is how to handle Moscow

In early June, the world was rocked by news from the Middle East that Gulf Arab leaders are now moving even further to becoming a full-on ally of Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad. Now, all countries have their embassies re-opened in Damascus with Saudi Arabia being the last to jump on the bandwagon and the new position of these GCC states is to go beyond merely bringing him in from the cold but to embrace him. Soon, we will see Syria reinstated in the Arab League, an institution largely known around the world as an Arab elite talk shop which only makes the headlines when its members have a very good lunch and often nod off in the afternoon during the speeches.

On the face of it, the move is pragmatic, even erudite. Assad is the ultimate survivor who has fought and won a counterrevolution against the very people – the Muslim Brotherhood – which most (not all) GCC states hate vehemently.

Yet there is some irony now with those same Gulf Arab countries using their influence in Washington to try and convince Joe Biden’s administration that it is time to lift sanctions against Syria. Indeed, it is the Biden touch which has pushed Saudi Arabia, UAE and others towards this extreme measure of “if you can’t beat them, join them.” America may “be back” for most of the world, but for the Middle East the only thing it is “back” to, is Obama’s “soft power” touch in the region.

And what this translates to for the elite of these wobbly states, is forget about the U.S. ever helping us with another Arab Spring revolution.

With Trump, they may have believed that he would do his best to keep them in power. With Biden, they know this is impossible and that they are truly alone.

And this is where Assad comes in.

While it is absolutely true that the GCC states will want to exchange info and intel with Assad about his own experiences fighting an uprising, which will also extend to the darker side of autocratic governance like new torture techniques, Assad would be very useful as a conduit to deal with a new, stronger threat from Iran, which, again, the GCC states don’t believe the U.S. will help them with.

A stronger Iran, run by a hardliner president, calls for extreme measures and these Gulf Arab countries are hedging their bets that if they can use Assad as a communicator and backchannel negotiator, then this could be useful in calming tensions while appealing to his pan-Arabism. In fact, the idea is nothing new. In 2007, the EU and the U.S. wanted to use Assad to communicate with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranians in exactly the same way.

Yet there is more to it than meets the eye.

The jewel in the crown for GCC countries to restore their relations with Assad is Russia. In September 2015, when Moscow intervened in the Syria war, Assad clung on to power by the Russian air force arriving in Syria. This game changer is the main reason why Assad is still in power today as without Putin’s help, Syria today would be run by Islamic extremists and would almost certainly not be one country.

And so to be close to Assad means being even closer to Russia. In fact, some Gulf Arab leaders had already started talking to Russia about arms deals in what is becoming an increasingly difficult relation to sustain with the U.S. under Joe Biden. It is unclear how far those talks went although they did stir the wrath of Washington which complained the moment the news went out. Biden wants to crack the whip in the Middle East on human rights, reigning in authoritarian leaders like MbS, Sisi and perhaps even MbZ, but also wants those same countries to keep their loyalty to U.S. arms makers.

Perhaps in those talks Putin’s top advisors mentioned that striking huge deals on jets and tanks, for example, would have to come with some guarantees about those weapons not being used on Moscow’s allies. Of course, no GCC state would ever use a jet, wherever it is made, to bomb Iran. That is unthinkable. But they might consider bombing Iran’s allies and proxies in the region.

Most likely the move to get closer to Assad is to appease Russia before a new deal is signed off. If these same GCC countries can agree not to use Russian weapons to arm proxies which fight Assad, Hezbollah, Iranian militias in Iraq or the Houthis, then the new relationship with Assad is a win-win for them. Throw into the bargain that it would also alienate Qatar, who would certainly not sign up to a Russia arms deal and is still very much a supporter of the opposition in Syria, and the Saudis and Emiratis are laughing all the way to the bank. Yet Qatar may prove to be a pivotal player in the endgame. If GCC countries go ahead with arms purchasing – with the tacit agreement from Moscow that its forces will keep them in power come any uprising – it may well be Qatar, which has one of the largest U.S. military bases in the world, will be more warmly welcomed in Washington.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

“Disappointing” was how UN Secretary-General António Guterres described last week’s donor conference for Yemen.  The fifth UN Virtual High-Level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Situation in Yemen resulted in pledges of only $1.7 billion.  That’s just half of the $3.85 billion called for by the secretary-general.  Nor is there any guarantee that donors will make good on their commitments.

How things have changed from just three years ago.  There were $2.01 billion in pledges in 2018, “100 per cent of which were fulfilled,” according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.  Pledges the following year rose to $2.6 billion.

Then came 2020.  That year’s pledges of $1.35 billion fell a billion dollars short of the UN goal of $3.4 billion.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates head a coalition that has been at war with Yemen’s Houthi rebels (Ansar Allah) since 2015.  The US criminally assists the coalition with intelligence, targeting assistance, spare airplane parts, arms sales, and (until November 2018) in-flight refueling for coalition warplanes.  The US-supported coalition seeks to restore the government of Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who was ousted by the Houthis in 2015.  Saudi and UAE airstrikes have killed some 20,000 Yemeni civilians since 2015.  Using starvation as a weapon, the coalition deliberately targets water treatment plants and food production facilities—a war crime.  Half of Yemen’s hospitals and medical clinics have been destroyed or forced to close.  Many health care workers go without pay.  The coalition bombs cranes used in Yemeni ports, making it impossible to unload desperately needed food, medicine, and fuel.  A coalition naval blockade prevents ships traveling to Yemen from docking for periods up to 100 days.  This delays urgently needed commercial and humanitarian shipments of food, fuel, and medicine from reaching Yemen’s people.

Bombing and blockade have combined to push Yemen to the brink of famine.  CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir told Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman that food in Yemen has become unaffordable. Elbagir described seeing markets “full of food” being sold by “almost skeletal” vendors.  “The food was rotting,” Elbagir said, “because no one can afford to buy it.”

“Cutting aid is a death sentence”

It is a cruel irony that the US, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, which are destroying Yemen, are the same countries that Yemen most relies on for humanitarian aid.  Over the past two years, the Saudis, UAE, and US have all slashed aid to Yemen.

Following a $1 billion pledge in 2019, Saudi Arabia pledged only $500 million in 2020.  As of February 25, 2021, the Saudis had paid just $200 million.  This year, the Saudis pledged $430 million.  We’ll see how much of that the kingdom actually ponies up.

In 2019, the US provided $746 million, one fifth of all humanitarian aid going to Yemen.  Then in March, 2020, the Trump Administration slashed $73 million in aid for the Houthi-controlled north.  At this year’s donor conference on March 1, the US pledged a mere $191 million.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said afterwards that “cutting aid is a death sentence.”  Even before the war, Yemen was the poorest country in the Arab world.  Today, 80% of Yemenis, some 24 million people, relies on aid.  Two point three million Yemeni children suffer from acute malnutrition.  Food rations have been reduced by half for millions of Yemenis.  The $3.85 billion Guterres called for this year would feed 13-14 million Yemenis each month. Covid-19’s advent has only added to Yemenis’ suffering.

The reason the US, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and other donors give for slashing aid is Houthi obstruction of aid deliveries.  However, it’s hard not to think that Iran’s support for the Houthis is also a factor.  As the Trump Administration was heading out the door in January, it took time to designate the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (“FTO”).  The move alarmed aid organizations.  The FTO designation meant that anyone dealing with the Houthis, as aid organizations cannot avoid doing, would be subject to sanctions and criminal prosecution.

President Joe Biden lifted the FTO designation, but has not restored the Trump cuts to humanitarian aid for Yemen’s north.  The $191 million the US pledged last week does not include the $73 million in aid for the north the Trump Administration cut last March.

Several things need to happen immediately.  President Biden must follow through on his promises to end US support for coalition “offensive operations” and to “reassess” the US-Saudi relationship.  The near-unconditional support the US gives Saudi Arabia must end.  The Trump aid cuts must be restored and enough additional aid provided so that Yemen can avoid famine.

Dr. Aisha Jumaan, president and founder of the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation, which provides humanitarian aid, says that “The Biden Administration has been given a rare chance to right past wrongs.  The Obama Administration, with Biden as vice president, supported the Saudi-led war on Yemen that created the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.  We must act now to save lives.”

counterpunch.org

The U.S. regime condemns and threatens the Governments of Russia, China, and Iran, and pretends to be not a regime itself, though it is one, and so are most of its ‘allies’. (Whether any of those three targeted nations of the U.S. regime — Russia, China, and Iran — is or is not a regime will not be a topic here, but my personal judgment on that would be no, because each one of those three nations is a target of the world’s only super-power; and, therefore, is tragically and authentically compelled to be obsessed about its national security, in order for it to maintain its own independence and national sovereignty and not become yet another vassal-nation of the U.S. empire. All of the international aggression is actually being led by Washington and practiced by the U.S. and its allies. That is my personal view. But it’s actually irrelevant here, because the topic of this article is America, not any its target-nations. The target-nations are not the topic here, and nothing is assumed about any of them.)

To be a regime is to be a dictatorship, which the U.S. itself has already been scientifically studied and established to be — a dictatorship by its aristocracy. At the very least, if the Government of Russia, or of China, or of Iran, is a regime, then America’s accusing it of being one is simply a pot’s calling the kettle black, in which case, all of the U.S. regime’s holier-than-thou pontifications against its targets are laughable, instead of being informative. But the situation, in the present case, is even worse than that if the aggressor-nation — the U.S. — is alleging idealistic reasons for targeting other nations. That claim would then raise the U.S.’s accusation to an even higher level of aggressive hypocrisy.

For examples of this hyper-hypocrisy: Just as Russia, China, and Israel are three of the U.S. regime’s targets, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel, are three of the U.S. regime’s ‘allies’, and those three ‘allies’ are, very clearly, regimes, not democracies. Of course, Americans are lied-to and deceived to think that the racist-supremacist theocratic apartheid nation of Israel is instead ‘the only democracy in the region’ — and how stupid is that to believe? But that’s what the U.S. Government and its media tell them to believe, and only few Americans are outraged against their rulers for perpetrating such blatant lies upon them — manipulating the public in such a way, which assumes them to be mere fools. However, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are widely recognized to be “regimes,” and they will therefore be the focus here, because they blatantly display the U.S. Government’s hypocrisy to ‘justify’ its aggressions against Russia, China, Iran, and other targeted nations.

Recently, after twenty years of the billionaire monarch of Dubai in the UAE threatening, drugging, capturing, and imprisoning, his fleeing daughters, the BBC headlined on February 17th “Princess Latifa: UN to question UAE about Dubai ruler’s daughter” and reported that “The United Nations has said it will raise the detention of Princess Latifa, the daughter of Dubai’s ruler, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE).” The day before that, the BBC bannered “Princess Latifa: ‘Hostage’ ordeal of Dubai ruler’s daughter revealed” and reported: “The daughter of Dubai’s ruler who tried to flee the country in 2018 later sent secret video messages to friends accusing her father of holding her ‘hostage’ as she feared for her life. In footage shared with BBC Panorama, Princess Latifa Al Maktoum says commandos drugged her as she fled by boat and flew her back to detention.” Also on February 16th, the BBC headlined “Princess Latifa timeline: The failed escapes of Sheikh Mohammed’s daughters”, and started with the year 2000, when one of Latifa’s sisters, “Shamsa escapes while on holiday with other members of the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s family at their Surrey estate. The sheikh launches a search for her, but doesn’t inform the police – his men track her down in Cambridge over a month later. In an email to her solicitor, Shamsa says she was bundled into a car by four Arab men and driven to her father’s house in Newmarket, where she was injected and given tablets. The next morning, she is flown back to Dubai on a private plane.”

For all that the world yet knows, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum had her murdered, and her body disappear. On 6 March 2020, the Guardian headlined about Shamsa “Police to review inquiry into 2000 disappearance of Dubai ruler’s daughter” and there has been silence from the press after that. Latifa had made her first escape-attempt only two years after Shamsa, in 2002.

Probably they’ve both been murdered and disposed of. This is the reason why the UN will now be making noises about Latifa’s disappearance, but everything’s for show, because Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is a U.S.-and-UK vassal, a prominent member of the U.S. aristocracy’s gang. “He’s on our side,” in the U.S. empire’s conquests — no target of them (such as the leaders of Russia, China, and Iran, are).

Another of ‘democratic’ America’s vassal leaders, the one who controls Saudi Arabia, had perpetrated the 2 October 2018 luring into Istanbul’s Saudi Consulate of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi (who feared for his life even as he entered there) where he was immediately dismembered and chopped-up by the team of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud, and thus was placed on public display how above-the-law Saudi Arabia’s Government really is. The five execution-team-members, whom the Crown Prince had reason to believe might testify against him if released, were sentenced to death. So, anyone who, from now on, would be hired for such an operation, would be a fool to trust that employer. The only real insiders in such a regime are at the very top. ‘Honor among thieves’ doesn’t exist at that high a level. Finally, on 9 September 2019, Turkey’s Daily Sabah newspaper bannered “Saudi hit squad’s gruesome conversations during Khashoggi’s murder revealed”, and reported that Turkey’s Government had just released recordings of the phone conversations between the head of the team that executed Khashoggi and a top aide to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, reporting on the success of their mission.

These are America’s ‘allies’. What they actually are is aristocracies that are allied with America’s aristocracy. It’s an international gang of billionaires, and they’re all psychopaths.

When someone such as Ukraine’s Yanukovych, or Iraq’s Saddam, or Libya’s Gaddafi — someone ‘we’ want to take down — is accused by anybody, any mere suspicion that’s been raised against such a person is instead a ‘proven’ ‘fact’ in the view of the regime’s media and in the eyes of its public; and the U.S. and allied regimes claim that there’s no need for any international investigation by the UN or any other organization, because ‘our’ ‘free’ press has already indicted and convicted the target (such as was done regarding Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad). But not when the accused is instead ‘an ally’ — such as Benjamin Netanyahu, or Mohammad bin Salman, or Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, or any other major buyer of the products of U.S. firms such as Lockheed Martin. If America’s weapons are to be sold to such a nation, then it’s an ‘ally’ and there is no investigation into any of that leader’s crimes. But if the weapons are instead to be used against a nation, then whatever the person does is condemned-in-advance. This is ‘international justice’, in the view of the U.S. gang. Whether a foreign ruler is good or bad is irrelevant, because the U.S. regime is, itself, a gangster operation, and it adheres only to gangland rules. And anyone who has open eyes and an open mind can recognize this fact, because it has been amply documented (though not in the empire’s press).

Something truly remarkable happened on Feb. 9^th, 2021, which I fear has not been fully comprehended by most of the Western hemisphere in terms of its massive implications as a game-changer in geopolitics for the Middle East.

Here in the West, we have become accustomed to our jaded denigration of space exploration. It appears to many, that space exploration is just a charade or if of real consequence, is understood as an extension of geopolitics, the imperialistic conquest and militarisation of space.

It is for this very reason that the UAE’s story for why they decided to create their Hope (or Amal in Arabic) mission to Mars is so very striking against this politically cynical foreground.

The reason for this is because the Emirates government itself has made it clear that the space-science goals come second for their Hope Mission. What comes first? “A lot of you might ask us, ‘Why space?’” Omran Sharaf, the Hope project manager, said during a news conference. “It’s not about reaching Mars,” like major ports and road ventures before it, the Mars mission is a mega-project designed to cause “a big shift in the mindset [of the Emirati people]…[the driver] is not space, it’s economic.”

The Emiratis understand that their economy, which is primarily based in oil revenue, though presently lucrative, is a short-term prosperity. A future that is dependent on oil is unstable and unkind, it is not a reliable resource for an advancing economy. It is also understood that the environmental challenges (the country is built on a desert), issues of water and food availability, are very real and pressing concerns.

It is from this recognition that the UAE government tasked a group to be formed, pretty much from scratch, with the goal to send an orbiter spacecraft into the Mars orbit with a 6 year deadline (the usual course is ten years for established experts in the field), so that the Emiratis orbiter could arrive on the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the UAE.

On Feb. 9^th, 2021, after a seven month journey, Hope successfully executed a perilous 27 minute thruster burn to slip into orbit around Mars, making the UAE the fifth nation to visit the Red Planet (the other four are: the U.S., Russia, the European Union, and India).

China’s Tianwen-1 (translated as Questions to Heaven) joined Hope a day after into Mars’ orbit and became the sixth nation to visit Mars. China is the first nation to have sent both an orbiter and rover in one shot, the rover is scheduled to land on Mars May 2021, if successful, China will be the second nation to operate a rover on Mars. The U.S.’ Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars on Feb. 18^th.

The reason why all three countries are entering Mars in the same month is because the orbital dynamics of Earth and Mars line up properly for interplanetary missions for just a few weeks once every 26 months.

The Hope mission success promises to pull the UAE into an economic transformation, through further science driver programs whose aim will be to address future water and food shortages and create an alternative energy sector that is not oil dependent (1), which would be a much greater prize than just getting data from Mars. Getting to Mars is important, says Sarah Al Amiri (who is the Deputy Manager of the Emirates Mars Mission), but “how we get there is even more important”.

As the first Arab nation to perform an interplanetary venture, the UAE has been quick to make clear to the international community that they perceive this success as something to be shared with their Arab neighbours and to encourage the development of science driver programs in fellow Arab countries to solve the issues of scarcity in the Middle East.

It is for this reason that as early as March 2019, the UAE helped organise a Global Space Congress meeting and the formation of the first regional team, consisting of eleven Arab states, to cooperate on a space program. The idea behind this is for the UAE to help train scientists from these eleven Arab countries at centers such as the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center located in Dubai, so that these scientists can return to their countries with the knowledge and training to build their own space programs.

The UAE has also announced that the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) will release its data to the international scientific community without an embargo, recognising that the progress of a neighbour is beneficial for all.

What Does Going to Space Have to Do With Solving Scarcity on Earth?

The UAE has come a long way from its beginnings in 1971, when a group of impoverished communities from distinct tribes joined forces in the wake of independence from the United Kingdom. Today, much of the UAE is so new it feels like the future, oil wealth and bold infrastructure projects have helped to turn the nation into one of the richest countries in the world per capita.

But these very business sectors proved vulnerable to a series of economic crashes and the Arab Spring. With the decreasing oil reserves, it was understood by the Emirates government that a population of businessmen was not going to be the solution to this problem. The Emiratis needed a new energy sector and they needed a population of scientists to develop it.

However, Emirati undergraduates tend to study engineering or business, fewer than 5% pursue degrees in basic sciences. Therefore, the Emirates government understood that they would need to create a science driver program, an ambitious program that would inspire its youth and its universities to become leaders in the frontiers of science, which in turn would create the science boom that the UAE required to solve its issues of scarcity and oil dependence.

It is at this point that we come to the story of the maestro behind the Mars project Hope, and how she found herself in the position, at the age of 34 years old today, leading not only the first Arab nation’s interplanetary venture as Deputy Project Manager but also chair of the UAE Space Agency, Chair of the UAE Council of Scientists and Minister of State for Advanced Sciences.

Her story shares in the remarkability of her country’s mission of Hope, and achieving what anyone would have thought was an impossibility.

Sarah Al Amiri describes how as early as the age of twelve she had a passion for learning more about space, however, at the time, not only did the UAE not have a space sector but it also didn’t have programs such as planetary science offered in their universities.

So, she entered computer engineering- her second passion. In 2006, the UAE started developing a space sector but Al Amiri only became aware of job opportunities in this sector in 2009. When she applied, it was still in its start-up phase.

She was put on a team that was developing a second satellite; the team of engineers was comprised of individuals in their early and mid-twenties, who had just graduated from their university programs.

As Al Amiri describes it:

“The job I came into was created for me…[a] job that should have been there but didn’t exist before…So, I had nobody to learn from…The only thing that they had provided to anyone joining there was a goal that they needed to achieve…it was the responsibility of myself and each of every single person within that team to develop that entire area within the organisation and eventually grow people within the organisation in that area…”

Five years later, Nov 21^st, 2013 was the day that Al Amiri was invited to join a feasibility study for a Mars planetary exploration project. However, at the time the UAE did not have a space agency and it did not have planetary scientists, and had only recently launched its first satellite. “The UAE, you see, wanted to celebrate its 50^th anniversary with a contribution to humanity, and a contribution to science,” said Al Amiri. “They needed a spacecraft to be developed to go to Mars, because Mars is of interest to humanity today, to gather data that scientists don’t have access to today, and to answer noble questions that have been posed about Mars but we currently don’t have the necessary information to start answering.”

The Emirati engineering team was able to defy all odds with the support of three American universities, but namely the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Sharaf was told by his superiors to “build it, not buy it”, in order to create skills within the UAE itself.

One of the factors that allowed the UAE to cut ten years down to six years was the converting of some of the space center’s engineers into planetary scientists by offering apprentice-like training with researchers in the United States, this was often done on top of a full-work schedule and from long distance teleconferencing, as in the case for Al Amiri.

For those of you who might be thinking that this outside support reduces the accomplishment of the Emirati people, the reader should be aware that over 50% of all Mars missions have failed. You can check out the details of the success rate here.

Because the U.A.E. does not yet have its own rocket industry, Hope was launched aboard an H-IIA rocket from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on July 19^th, 2020 on schedule, despite the coronavirus outbreak.

For its science goals, the UAE went to the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, a NASA-led international forum that agrees on gaps in knowledge to tackle in future Mars missions. “It was very important for us to fit into an area of science that was relevant not only to the UAE but the global science community,” says Al Amiri.

The Hope Mars mission is to provide scientists with the first holistic view of the Martian atmosphere; providing for the first time a global map of the entire climate of Mars over the course of one Martian year (which is two Earth years). Most importantly, this mission is to try to fill in a missing piece of the puzzle in understanding what happened and what is currently happening to hydrogen and oxygen atoms in Mars, the building blocks of water.

However, as Al Amiri stresses:

“It is called Hope for a reason above and beyond the science that it’s contributing. Today our region, the Middle East, is filled with turmoil, it is the reason it is going through a few of its darkest hours, and what we are doing at the Hope Emirates Mars mission is providing a message, the Middle East is made up of over 50% youth. This project Hope is being run by a team that is under thirty-five [years old], a team that is made up of 34% women [and the Mars mission’s scientists are made up of 80% women], the average age is twenty-seven. An entire nation is putting its Hope in a team of youth and presenting a message to the region. This mission is also called Hope because we are contributing to the global understanding of a planet. We are going above and beyond the turmoil that is now defining our region and becoming positive contributors to science. Science to me, is the most international form of collaboration, it is limitless, it is borderless, and it’s run by passions of individuals for the benefit of human understanding.”

Just as the building of the dome to the Santa Maria del Fiore was the science driver program of 15^th century Florence, Italy, which succeeded in building the largest masonry dome ever to this date, the Hope mission shows equal promise for the future of the Middle East.

At the time, the Florentines were thought mad. Why set their ambitions on building the largest dome ever (beating the Roman Pantheon) during a time of war between its cities (Italy was not a formed country yet) in the midst of the Dark Age and during the pestilence of the plague, which had wiped out 70% of the population in many cities?

Included in the Florentine public records was an official statement describing the aspiration of Florence in setting out to accomplish this incredible endeavour, “as something of the most exalted and prodigal of magnificence, so that the industry and power of man are unable to invent or ever attempt to gain anything that is larger or more beautiful.” It was this project that would come to inspire a Renaissance (for more on this story refer to my paper).

It is only by striving for the impossible that we challenge the boundaries of what is possible.

The solutions are out there but we must become focused on achieving them. The Hope mission is an example of what a country can do, if it sets a goal and strives its hardest at achieving it. It is not a question of money, but a question of will. Every problem is approached with the understanding that there is a solution to that problem, such that, even if the goal is not achieved, the process of working towards that goal, the knowledge and skills that are developed in the process and the inspiration it instills in its people are the true reward, the true treasure. And this return is exponential when multiple countries agree to work towards such a goal. The UAE understands that this is the only solution to the turmoil in the Middle East, the sharing of a common goal for prosperity.

“Today, I would like you all to do something with me, I want everybody to lift up their finger and cover a region of the sky. Look up at your fingertip that is blocking a region of the sky, the Hubble Space Telescope was pointed at a region that small and it came up with this image [see picture]. This image, the dots of light that you see are not stars, they are galaxies. There are hundreds of billions of stars in each one of those dots, in that small region of sky that we look at. Each galaxy contains billions of stars. Each star, imagine how many goldilocks zones exist around them, how many possible planets could exist around those and how many possibilities of life could there possibly exist in this small portion of the sky. And today I would like you to imagine, what is the positive contribution you are doing right here on this unremarkable planet, in this unremarkable solar system , in this unremarkable galaxy that justifies how infinite the possibilities are in this small image and how positive and infinite your contribution is on this infinitesimal planet.”

– Sarah Al Amiri

(1) The UAE has embarked upon a nuclear power programme in close consultation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and has accepted a $20 billion bid from a South Korean consortium to build four commercial nuclear power reactors.

It should not have come as a surprise to the royal elites of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but the decision of Joe Biden to suspend all arms sales to these countries is a thunderbolt none the less, if certainly to the sustainability of their campaigns in Yemen, then certainly to how Gulf Arab countries in general carry out their inept hegemony in the region.

The decision by Biden to suspend arms sales so as a new dialogue and agreement can be honed, using the Abraham Accords as the basis, is not unprecedented as many U.S. presidents have reviewed arms sales signed off by their predecessors, of allies once in office.

But this swift, truculent action, which some might see as almost an act of war in itself due to its impact, will send a very clear signal to the Saudis in particular, that the war in Yemen has to be ended immediately. Biden’s move may be seen by regional analysts as a hint that out of the two allies in Yemen – Saudi Arabia and the UAE – it is the former who he sees as the problem; given that both GCC countries turned on one another in recent years about the Yemen’s future with each backing different sides and the UAE supporting the separatist movement called the Southern Transitional Council (STC) which aims to overthrow the Saudi-backed incumbent leadership, over all peace was made even harder since 2017.

The temporary arms ban appears, according to initial reports, to be harder on the Saudis and will send a clear message to its crown prince Mohamed bin Salman that there’s a new sheriff in town.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a senior administration official said the weapons sales to Saudi Arabia were “being frozen pending the review, but that sales to the Emirates were not frozen while they are being examined”.

Yet the UAE has hardly got off lightly. Biden is also sending a lucid message also to Mohamed Bin Zayed there that Abu Dhabi also needs to be reigned in, over its campaign in Libya.

The $23 billion arms package to the UAE includes long-lead items such as jet fighters and drones that wouldn’t be delivered in some cases for years, but the message from Biden is clear: we need to talk about Libya.

The derailing of the UAE deal was in reality an extension of many in Biden’s own party who failed in Congress to get the deal blocked back in December of last year with many voicing fears of how the weapons would be used both in Yemen and in Libya. There is also real worry by many senators of how close the UAE is with China with some speculating that new laws might be passed during Biden’s term determining new conditions placed on U.S. arms sales to allies in the region.

What this decision represents is that Biden is seeking a completely new relationship with Arab countries, which is deeper than before and not based entirely on supporting the U.S. arms industry. It signals that America is back and Biden is seeking to roll back the years when the U.S. stood back and let others fill the gap and extend their hegemony. The Saudis and the Emiratis moved quite quickly since the Obama 2011 “red line” moment which was seen as a starter’s pistol in the region for them both to extend their regional influence. But this move by Biden is a clear indicator that these golden days are to be replaced with a new doctrine which allows these countries their indulgences, only if they play by Washington’s rules. It places of course, new pressure on the normalisation of relations with Israel as the initial deal which Mike Pompeo unveiled in November of last year specifically tied the sales to the Abraham Accords. Biden’s move shows that the premise of the sale – to apparently strengthen the UAE’s might against Iran – is folly, as UAE is not an enemy of the Iranians. And secondly, that he is uncomfortable with the balance of power in the region being tilted towards Abu Dhabi away from Israel. His audacious move has shown that Abraham Accords 2.0 is what is on the agenda now and the sooner the Saudis and the Emirates get their heads around that, the better.

Indeed, countries like Saudi Arabia – which has the most to lose – will place its de facto young leader in a pickle when faced with Iran being reinvigorated by going back to the so-called ‘Iran Deal’ and the lifting of sanctions, in particular on oil sales in a period where GCC countries can’t even get close to the 65 dollar break even figure on a barrel of crude oil, even with the assumption that a vaccine for Covid will be found in 2021. For a young, capricious and insecure Crown Prince, the idea of Iran being allowed to sell oil again in the marketplace is a mother of all nightmares, given that this will put further economic pressure on him and only feed his enemies in Riyadh with more fodder to destabilise him with their effective Chinese Whispers strategy.

The UAE’s de facto leader Mohamed Bin Zayed (otherwise known as MbZ) was smart to distance himself from MbS in Riyadh. But perhaps not too smart to quickly rush into a disingenuous peace deal with Israel – which will be hard to justify to a Biden administration who will ultimately see it as a way of beefing up defences against Iran. In fact, it is nothing of the sort and in reality a quick fix for the UAE to get high technology weapons to serenade in front of its real enemies in the region, namely Qatar and Turkey. But Biden’s people are unlikely to see through the dark art of double-speak and treachery in a region where there is no stigma whatsoever on lying to your allies. At first, they praised the UAE leader for his “brave” move on signing the deal, but when their experts look more closely in the early weeks and months in office, they will take a different tact.

Human rights will play a central role to Biden’s policies in the region. And so, women’s rights in the UAE will be a subject which will get on the radar. Turkey’s Trump-like leader Recep Erdogan is likely to come out as an enemy due to his abysmal record on locking up journalists. Egypt too, whose leader also praised Trump with almost evangelistic reverence once, will be placed in the cooler. And where to start of Saudi Arabia, a country whose elite have a feral contempt of free thinking, where no real newspapers exist and where there is no word for ‘parliament’ in the local dialect? Allowing women to drive and pop concerts isn’t going to cut the mustard with Biden who has regularly chastised the kingdom and questioned whether U.S. should be selling arms there.

In many ways, though, the outcome, it could argued, might be the same, whether Trump gets re-elected or not in that Iran will have an upper hand in the region no matter what. The Trump camp is banking on a deal being struck with Iran whereby Tehran could have oil sanctions lifted in exchange for its own regional hegemony being scaled back in places like Yemen. And perhaps even Lebanon. If such a deal were to be discussed though, Iran would realise quickly how it had a much stronger hand to play by organising a few shenanigans in the straits of Hormuz to accompany such a dialogue. Indeed, its own hard liners have made it clear that it won’t accept four more years of sanctions and that a military option is more viable. This of course will affect Saudi Arabia’s ability to produce and ship out oil from its ports. Unlikely Iran will buckle further and sign a deal with Trump whose tough policies have only strengthened the hardliners who won’t want to look weak.

The Biden approach is to get Iran back and for the U.S. to come back to the Iran deal (with a few caveats). If this were to gain momentum in the first 100 days of Biden being in office, then the financial impact on the Saudis would be more or less the same. They would lose money by having Iran enter the world market again when oil prices are crippling their economy, still in the grips of a Covid crisis which has affected oil sales globally. And this assumes that the Iranians are ready to get in bed again with the U.S. Expect sunset and sunrise clauses to dominate any new deal.

And so you could argue that both scenarios impact Saudi Arabia financially. The difference perhaps is that Biden’s approach might well produce a silver bullet for MbS and his Kingdom and probably doesn’t involve military actions in the region.

So far, the 2030 vision to jump start Saudi Arabia’s economy has been a disaster. There doesn’t seem to be any takers to fill the gap for what some experts are estimating to be a project running into trillions of dollars. Biden’s hardline policies towards the country to install real human rights reform – which at some point would probably mean ushering in the auspices at least of a pluralistic political model – would at least have a positive effect on attracting investors. MbS appears to be entirely tone deaf to the link between Saudi Arabia locking up women protestors for their campaign to improve their rights or the horrific treatment of the Shia minorities – and the lack of foreign direct investment (FDI) which in real terms is currently zero. The good ‘ol days of Trump which gave MbS a free reign on egregious human rights abuses – including the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi – would be over if Biden would take office. The problem for MbS is that he has no policies, no ideas, no solutions to pull himself out of this hole of the economy continuing to fail, post January’s result. He also has no time. The young leader is so paranoid about a coup d’état which would follow yet another confidence crisis among his enemies, that time is the real issue. Not signing up to the Israel-UAE “peace deal” was probably seen as petulant as relations with Trump even fell to an all-time low. But a new era of human rights opprobrium from a U.S. president will be just what the doctor ordered for the investors to look at Saudi Arabia through a new prism. Many will ask though, will MbS be around when it happens?