The agreement reached by the UAE to normalise relations with Israel is their sovereign decision, though it has evoked various reactions. Primarily, the UAE has gone into this deal for security and military reasons. It wants to get the approval to buy F-35 aircraft as Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar, said in his tweet last week. “Is it (normalisation of ties with Israel) the price to be paid for approval of the F-35 aircraft deal that the UAE has requested from Washington and which Netanyahu promised to support?,” Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem had asked.
Moreover, according to AP, US President Donald Trump said last Wednesday that “the US is considering selling advanced American F-35 warplanes to the United Arab Emirates over the objections of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”. “They’d like to buy F-35s, we’ll see what happens,” Trump added. “It’s under review, but they made a great advance in peace in the Middle East.”
Jared Kushner, an advisor to Trump and his son-in-law, said last Sunday in an interview with Fareed Zakaria of CNN that the recent peace agreement between Israel and the UAE “should increase the likelihood” of the sale of US F-35s to the UAE.
UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Garqash said all obstacles to his country’s purchase of F-35 fighters from the US should now be removed, thanks to the agreement to normalise relations with Israel.
So, if it’s all about the F-35 deal, an important question arises. Where and when the UAE is going to use its F-35 if it finally lays its hands on this advanced combat aircraft? Of course, possession of this advanced weapon would enhance the country’s military ranking in a tense region, but it would be equally pertinent to think about the potential use of this aircraft.
They can’t use it against Iran because Iran is on the other side of the Gulf and close to all Emirati oil fields and cities. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards had a sent strong message in January this year. “If they move from Al Dhafra towards us, then the UAE must bid farewell to economic recovery,” Tehran had warned. The UAE is unlikely to take a risk in the face of such consequences.
This means the only place where they can use it is Yemen. We know President Trump cares only about boosting economic growth, and not about where the weapons he is selling are used, but there is a humanitarian issue festering now with the continuation of the war in Yemen. There is a global outrage, including in America, against using Western weapons on the impoverished people of Yemen. Yemen is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today and the question is whether the world would want to compound this further by bombing Yemenis with F-35s.
I hope American politicians will not say what Gen. David Petraeus said when he was attending the annual Sulaimani Forum at the American University of Iraq. Petraeus, who had commanded US troops in Iraq in 2007-2008 and who was the director of the CIA from September 2011 to November 2012, had said: “What has happened in Iraq is a tragedy for the Iraqi people, for the region and for the entire world.”
They should not repeat the same words about Yemen. But it seems they will, if they don’t proceed with caution and if they don’t give priority to humanity over economic interests.