There is discernible anxiety in the UAE, or “a general apprehension towards Washington going the extra mile in empowering the Islamists and treating them as new political allies”, as a prominent article this week in Gulf News, a leading daily here, puts it.
The concern with the rise of Islamists through the process that has come to be known as Arab Spring is voiced in official quarters as well.
Speaking to a group of international journalists in UAE’s capital Abu Dhabi last Wednesday, Dr Anwar Gargash, the minister of state for foreign affairs, said that young people seeking freedom and opportunity — “realising that the regimes they live under are stagnant” — brought the old order down, but they were “marginalised” in the “political test” (free elections).
The “more organised parties” that took control did not share the values of the youth, resulting in the “push and pull” between civil society and the Islamist view.
The top official said such political groupings were trying to “manipulate the system”, that they were “not necessarily democrats” though the “façade” of democracy was kept up.
Perhaps more than anyone else, it is Washington that is sought to be addressed through these remarks, as the writing in Gulf News of the political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdullah makes amply clear.
Dr Abdullah calls the Obama administration’s belief naïve that the Islamists who have taken control through the ballot box, as in Egypt or Tunisia, are a “moderate force” capable of offering political stability. As such, engaging them in serious strategic dialogue makes little sense.
What’s “alarming” is that Washington made the policy shift (especially in Egypt) in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood with great “suddenness”, exposing its stance as “pathetically opportunistic”.
The Arab Gulf states, which include Saudi Arabia, wonder if Washington could be moved with equal ease to strike a “grand bargain” with Iran, says the writer. For the Gulf Arabs, such a deal with Tehran would be “crossing an unforgivable red line”.
According to Dr Gargash, an Israeli attack on Iran “would adversely affect us”. As such, a wider US deal (to head off a possible Israeli attack) with Iran is not deemed unthinkable by many here. Dr Abdullah urges upgrading Gulf-US relations in order to hedge the Iran factor.