Some advice is right, some wrong
Emirati academic Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a well-known figure in Washington, has offered some advice to President Biden (I used Googletranslate into English and apologize for any confusion that may cause):
- Confronting Iran should be top priority.
- Stronger and more confident in the 21st century, the Gulf Arab states have their own interests with China and Russia that the US should respect.
- Oil and gas are more important than ever.
- Forget about democracy and human rights.
- Don’t serve Israeli interests.
Iran, Russia, and China
The first two items I can agree with. Iran’s nuclear threshold status and its regional activities are serious problems for the Arab Gulf states and for the United States. The former makes the latter even more perilous. Yet somehow Abdulkhaleq concludes that Washington is wrong to want to re-enter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA aka Iran nuclear deal). Does he really think the push-back in the region will be easier once Tehran has nuclear weapons? Is he willing to risk a missile attack on Abu Dhabi or Dubai if the US and/or Israel attacks Iranian nuclear facilities?
The Gulf Arab states certainly have their own interests to pursue with Russia and China. OPEC+, that is the traditional oil cartel plus Moscow, is taking advantage of the Ukraine war to maintain high oil prices. Gulf oil and gas flow predominantly to the Far East, where China is a major consumer. That is bound to affect thinking in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh as well as Doha. Beijing is for now enjoying the benefits of sanctioned and discounted Russian oil but will no doubt have more to say about oil and gas prices than Washington, which may not always sound like it but is enjoying America’s role as an oil and gas exporter.
Energy
Oil and gas are not more important than ever to the world’s economy, even if they remain crucial to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Russia. We are in the last decades of oil dominance of energy markets. Gas is a different question. Europe and the U.S. may be suffering from high prices for the moment due to the Ukraine war, but that won’t last forever. In their latest rise, oil prices have not reached their previous peak in real terms and are now declining. Saudi Arabia and Russia both need more than $100/barrel to make their budgets balance. They are at about that mark today.
Democracy and human rights
Abdulkhaleq is frank in asking us to forget about democracy and human rights. Mostly we do, but the Arab Gulf states make it difficult. I might hope a professor who was once arrested for an errant tweet would be more supportive of Western concern about human rights. I might even suppose this paragraph is intended as personal protection. But it ill-behooves someone willing to harshly criticize American democracy, which he does, to suggest that Americans not speak up about state-sanctioned murder of a Saudi journalist and mistreatment of women that even the Kingdom is now reforming.
Israel
I imagine that fifth point is also about self-protection, though more from the Arab intellectual milieu than from the UAE government. Abu Dhabi is second to no other Gulf Arab state in seeking to improve relations with Israel, with which the UAE shares its position on the JCPOA. I don’t object to the former, even if I dislike the latter. The real question is whether the UAE will use the influence it has gained from the Ibrahimic accords to benefit the Palestinians, who have so far found themselves marginalized by the newfound friendship between Israel and the Arab Gulf.
My score
So I give the Professor a score of 2 out of 5, with extra credit for being frank and communicating clearly and concisely. Some of his advice is right, some wrong. But there is virtue in frankness.
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