After Saudi Arabia asked the UAE to leave Yemen within 24 hours, the UAE announced a withdrawal of its forces on its own “volition/will.” It is interesting how this sudden willingness coincided with Saudi airstrikes.
The scale of the strikes may not have been extraordinary, but the act itself certainly was. This raises the question of whether the tussle among Gulf monarchs will now end. The answer is no. Egos are too large and divergences too deep.
The Saudi attacks were not a sudden, reactionary move. Tensions have been simmering since 2019. As reported by the Wall Street Journal in mid-2023, the Saudi Crown Prince told reporters that “the UAE has stabbed us in the back, and what I will do, will be worse than what I did with Qatar.”
It is therefore reasonable to assume that Yemen is not the only arena where MBZ crossed MBS. The rift is rooted in broader regional approaches, from the Abraham Accords to the UAE backed axis of secessionist forces across the region.
It will be worth watching how developments unfold in Somalia and Sudan, in addition to Yemen, over the coming weeks and months. One likely outcome is greater coordination between Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, and to some extent Egypt, particularly in countering moves in Sudan and Somalia. Türkiye may feel emboldened to act more decisively with Saudi backing.
In this context, it will also be revealing to see how Israel steps in to support its favorite breed of Goyims – namely the UAE, or whether its role was simply to engineer another regional rift, as it so often does.
