What Does Bashar Al-Assad’s Recent Visit to the UAE Signify?

Bashar al-Assad, making his first visit to an Arab country since the Syrian civil war began, flew to the United Arab Emirates on March 18, where he met with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the Emirates’ vice president and prime minister, who is also the ruler of Dubai. People are reading the tea leaves, trying to fathom what this trip may mean for the future of Syria, the UAE, Iran, and Israel.

A report on the significance of this meeting can be found here: “Assad in the UAE: A new era for Syria and a shift in Mideast complexity – analysis,” by Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, March 19, 2022:

Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad’s visit to the United Arab Emirates was an important milestone for the Assad regime, isolated during a decade of the Syrian civil war.

Now Assad is coming in from the cold, his only real access to the outside world having been via allies Iran and Russia.

This is symbolic because the UAE has been on the fence over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The UAE abstained from a UN Security Council vote condemning the Russian invasion in early March, appearing to weigh up [sic] the emerging new world order, along with China and India, as Russian tanks sought to crush Ukraine’s independence.

Frantzman is not quite accurate about the UAE being “on the fence” about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is true that the UAE abstained from a UN Security Council Resolution condemning Russia, but a week later, having been persuaded by Israel, the UAE voted for a similar resolution that came before the General Assembly, along with 140 other countries. The UAE has made a small ($5 million) contribution of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but having voted to condemn the invasion itself, it is likely not to comment further on the conduct of the war, as it attempts to keep its relations with Moscow on an even keel.

This past year the UAE has been working to encourage the Syrian regime’s acceptance in the region. Egypt also has opened up to Assad. Their argument is that the Assad regime is a kind of bulwark against the chaos unleashed by the Syrian civil war.

The UAE does not want the Syrian conflict to continue. It causes too many refugees in the region, too much unwelcome instability. Now that Assad is so close to winning, the UAE wants other Arab states to welcome him back into the Arab fold, and to persuade him to downgrade ties to Iran, the country that remains the greatest threat to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain.

For Egypt and the UAE the threat in the region is the Muslim Brotherhood, with ties to Hamas and also to Ankara.

I disagree here with Seth Frantzman. True, the regime of Egyptian general Abdelfattah el-Sisi does see the MB as its greatest threat. But the UAE still seems, correctly, to be most concerned with the threat from Iran which, after all, has given the Houthis in Yemen the drones and the ballistic missiles that they have used in recent months to attack Abu Dhabi.

It’s worth noting therefore that the UAE has also patched up ties with Ankara amid high-level visits to Turkey. Israel’s president also visited Turkey, so this is not about a simple struggle of alliances in the region.

Erdogan’s outreach to the UAE has a simple explanation. Erdogan’s years of mismanagement have sent the Turkish economy into free fall. Investments, and even aid, from the deep-pocketed UAE, would be a great help.

As for Erdogan’s calculated wooing of Israel, signaled by his inviting President Herzog for a state visit, that also has an economic rationale. Erdogan would like Israelis to invest in his country, just as they are now doing in the UAE. Furthermore, he believes that supporters of Israel in Washington might be persuaded to help Turkey, now being given short shrift by the Biden administration, once Erdogan warms up his formerly frigid relations with Jerusalem.

The UAE has also tried to improve ties with Iran. Many things are shifting slowly in the Middle East. This comes amid talk of a new Iran nuclear deal, a cold shoulder for Turkey in Washington and a general sense that the US is withdrawing from the region….

The UAE did not sever ties with Iran even at the height of political tensions. Following the 2016 attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran, the UAE joined its Gulf Cooperation Council partners and condemned Iran, but refused to close its embassy in Tehran. Years earlier, in 1971, following disputes over the Tonbs and Abu Musa islands, the UAE’s leadership was outraged by Iran’s control over the islands, but it never allowed the dispute to jeopardize Abu Dhabi’s trade and diplomatic relations with Tehran. The UAE’s recent gestures to Iran, with an expression of a desire to have warmer with Tehran, have so far not borne fruit, as shown by the Houthi drone and missile attacks on the UAE, which could not have been launched without Iran’s approval. The UAE now appears to have halted the outreach to Iran and, instead, is focusing its efforts on improving relations with Syria, and urging other Arab states to do the same.

Assad doesn’t want Iranian forces to remain in Syria, where their presence provokes Israeli attacks that have also killed Syrian soldiers. That Iranian presence threatens to drag the country into a war with Israel which he does not want. Assad knows, too, that Iranians in Syria supply money and missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to Shi’a militias in Iraq, contributing to political instability in both countries. After more than a decade of civil war, he craves regional stability so as to begin the arduous task of rebuilding the country he did so much to destroy.

Bashar Al-Assad knows that he no longer needs the military support from Iran as he once did. His regime is solidifying its control over the country; the military help he receives from Russia is quite enough. What he needs now is to rebuild his country; the cost of that rebuilding is, estimated to cost $350-$400 billion. Such sums can only come from the rich Gulf Arab states, especially the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Even if the Iran deal goes through, and Teheran gains $90 billion in unfrozen assets, as well as tens of billions of dollars annually from the sale of oil and gas, it will need that money to repair its own battered economy. Iran will have nothing to spare for Syria for many years.

The warming of Syrian relations with the UAE could lead to a similar thaw with Egypt, which is prepared to recognize Assad’s victory in the civil war and hopes that by bringing Syria closer, it can persuade Damascus to distance itself from Iran, which Egypt rightly regards as the Arabs’ common enemy.

Turkey has pushed the Kurds In Syria far back from the Turkish border. Even if Turkey leaves the Afrin region and pulls out of Syria altogether, the Kurds are likely to remain where they are now, lest Turkish troops are tempted to return and displace them once again. If it wants better ties with Syria, Turkey now needs to remove its troops from the country. Erdogan knows that the reconstruction of Syria will likely mean hundreds of million of dollars in contracts. Turkish contractors have been building successfully all over the Middle East for a half-century; Turkish firms no doubt hope to get a large amount of business from Syria once reconstruction begins. That means Turkey will have to win Syrian support by forcing ISIS, which Erdogan formerly allowed into the country, out of Syria altogether.

For now, the UAE invitation and hosting of Assad is a major statement to the region and the West. The West is involved now in opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russia honed its attacks on civilians in Ukraine by learning from the Syrian war.

Russia largely enjoyed impunity in Syria for its war crimes, as did the Syrian regime. The question is whether western countries will be outraged to see Assad in the UAE, since Assad is a key ally of Russia; or will they see the UAE as a reconciler across the region.

Western countries will be understanding of UAE’s outreach to Syria. They realize that the UAE is trying to bring Syria back into the Arab fold, first with itself, then with Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, and most important of all, if the Crown Prince MBS can be convinced of the benefit of pulling Syria out of its alliance with Iran, with Saudi Arabia.

What can Iran do to prevent Assad from moving back into the Arab orbit? It can’t threaten to withhold military aid from Syria, which no longer needs it. It can’t refuse to leave Syria – the battle-hardened Syrian troops, hundreds of thousands of them, would have no trouble defeating, and expelling, the fewer than one thousand Iranian soldiers still In Syria. Iran can’t threaten to withhold economic aid because it isn’t supplying any; right now Iran is flat broke, and even when sanctions are removed, it will need those tens of billions in unfrozen assets for itself. It won’t be in any condition to help Syria rebuild; only the Gulf Arab states are rich enough to do that.

As for Israel, it will be the unintended beneficiary of Syria’s realignment with the Arabs and its downgrading of its former alliance with Iran. Assad, pressed by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, whose financial help he needs, will no longer tolerate Iranian bases on his soil, which have been used by Iran to prepare precision-guided missiles for delivery to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The IDF already has lots to worry about. Now it will have one thing less.