Absolutely not is bluster, not foreign policy

Searching online for t-shirts, I came across one with a profile sketch of Imran Khan and the words “Absolutely Not”. “Clever,” I thought to myself, “given how many PTI supporters would buy it.”

Good marketing for sure. Good foreign policy? No.

But let me recap the context of “Absolutely not”. In late June 2021, in an interview to Jonathan Swan of Axios HBO, Khan had said that he would “absolutely not” allow the US to have bases in Pakistan to conduct cross-border counter-terrorism missions.

Khan’s statement came nearly two months before the fall of Kabul when US President Joe Biden was seeking Pakistan’s cooperation in the run-up to US withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was an opportune moment for Pakistan and the US to work out some post-withdrawal arrangement. That was not to be. While Khan’s statement was hailed by his supporters, there was one major — and factual — problem with it: the US had never asked for any bases from Pakistan. This was made clear subsequently by both the US and Khan’s own government.

In other words, Khan jumped the gun on an ask that never was. Not a very smart statement from the leader of a country trying to walk a fine line between competing interests and seeking an International Monetary Fund bail-out.

There are moments and there are issues when one does say no. Saying no per se is, therefore, not the problem. But sensitive issues are rarely spoken about publicly. And a no on one issue is often balanced with cooperation in other areas. In the cited case, a simple “This is not under discussion,” would have been the smart statement.

In fact, it would be instructive to do case studies of how smaller and other middle-size powers have conducted foreign policy and how they manage competing challenges and gain from opportunities.

Let’s look at the UAE. I choose it for four reasons: most Pakistanis know the UAE, with thousands living and working there; oil-rich but vulnerable, the UAE is caught in the cross-hairs of two bigger powers — the US, a global power and Iran, a regional power and threat. It also has another bigger power, Saudi Arabia, to the south and west; the UAE continues to face the challenge of balancing a security-driven approach with an economic/commercial approach; finally, it is the only Middle Eastern federation of seven tribally-based emirates which have sometimes followed different trajectories in response to crises and their neighbours.

Ideally, given its geographical scale and military capabilities — modern US- and French-supplied weapons system and platforms, notwithstanding — the UAE would want the region around it peaceful and commercially-driven.

But that is not to be. Just across from the Gulf is Iran, a power that considered itself the regional gendarme before the revolution and that has, since the revolution, sought to project power through a broad range of proxies. Iran is also, since the time of the Shah, in occupation of two islands the UAE claims belong to it.

During the Iran-Iraq War, the federation was split with Abu Dhabi supporting Saddam Hussein and Dubai supporting Iran, allowing its ports to be used for transportation of war and other materials to Iran. UAE also has a large Iranian diaspora, which include some prominent UAE families that migrated in the 19th century and are among some of the wealthiest in the Emirates. Anwar Gargash, senior diplomatic advisor to the UAE President, is one example.

Then there’s the US which, since Iran’s Revolution, has tried to checkmate Tehran. It is also the guarantor of security in the region. The US is also the closest ally of Israel which is locked in a decades-long covert war with Iran.

There’s Riyadh with which the UAE has multiple friction points (oil production quotas, diverging interests in Yemen, economic imbalances that favour the UAE, travel bans etc). Despite a convergence of interests in many areas, analysts describe Saudi Arabia and the UAE as economic frenemies.

With Oman the UAE had serious border clashes in 1978 and 1992. While relations have improved and citizens can travel visa-free, the border remains unsettled and has the potential for a flare-up.

So, how does the UAE balance its desire for peace with the structural bind that keeps its neighbourhood unsettled?

Traditionally, it has sought to — not always successfully — focus more on commerce while having a loose security arrangement with the US. This has meant getting foreign investment, creating a business-friendly environment and attracting white- and blue-collar workforce from around the world. However, the UAE, after integrating its defence forces and spending, has also spent top dollars on acquiring modern weapons systems and platforms, becoming the second-largest spender in the Gulf, after Saudi Arabia. Its dilemma: threat from Iran, which necessitates a security arrangement with the US, which in turn increases the threat from Iran.

Even so, until 2011 and the Arab Spring, the UAE, especially Dubai, shied away from policy approaches that could ruffle Iran’s feathers. As noted earlier, during the Iran-Iraq War, Dubai’s ports, especially Jebel Ali, continued to trade with Iran. Even when the US subjected Iran to sanctions and leaned on Abu Dhabi to pressure Dubai to cut down on trade volumes and re-exporting of Iranian goods, the trade volumes kept increasing.

Many foreign companies access the Iranian market by first exporting to the UAE from where the goods are re-exported to Iran. This works in the reverse too with Iranians exporting first to the UAE from where the goods are re-exported to other destinations. There are also smuggling flows which are estimated to be close to 40% of official imports.

In 2011, the UAE began to put more emphasis on a muscular, security-driven approach, getting involved in Yemen, Libya and Sudan, taking a more aggressive approach to Iran, in conjunction with Riyadh, and blockading Qatar. That policy, driven primarily by the UAE President, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, seems to be undergoing a shift back to the original balancing act.

By all accounts it began when Iran downed a US drone in June 2019. Then, on 14 September 2019, drones were used to attack oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia. Donald Trump was reported to have said that “that was an attack on Saudi Arabia, [not]… on us.” The situation became alarming with attacks on tankers. Earlier, in August, Turkiye’s Anadolu Agency reported on an internal UAE meeting where Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, UAE’s vice-president, “slammed the existing foreign policy.”

“We should completely review our foreign policy. What is our benefit in a regime change in Sudan or Libya?” Al-Maktoum also indicated that if there were more Houthi rocket and drone attacks, all foreign investors and workforce would leave the UAE.

That’s now the central theme, as voiced by Gargash at Brookings and elsewhere: “other than diplomacy, we [the UAE] see no option at all” with Iran. The UAE is now planning to send its ambassador back to Tehran. That seems to be the logical outcome of a spate of diplomatic activities between Iran and the UAE since the fall of 2021.

A July 25 report in Wall Street Journal says: “In the year ended March 31, Iranian customs data show that the UAE… surpassed China as the biggest exporter to [Iran], shipping $16.5 billion in goods, or 68% of Iran’s non-oil imports.” The same report quotes a Harvard-based analyst, Adel Hamaizia, as telling WSJ that “The Emiratis are playing a smart balancing act between the US and Iran. They have to manage economic and geographic realities along with their security concerns.”

None of this means that security threats have dissipated. But UAE’s policy swing back to keeping the peace through diplomacy shows the limits of the earlier muscular approach. There’s a realisation that despite the security arrangement with the US and relations with Israel, the UAE needs to get out of a zero-sum approach to Iran and also Qatar. The best way to keep the balance is to stay close to the US, but not allow that relationship to impact on relations and dialogue with Iran.

That is the complexity foreign policy is made of, not “absolutely not”.

The writer is a journalist with interest in foreign and security policies