US bases in UAE questioned amid frustration over Trump’s Iran war

The need for US bases in the United Arab Emirates has been questioned amid mounting frustration in the Gulf state about President Trump’s handling of the war against Iran.

Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political scientist, said the UAE’s success in shooting down most Iranian missiles and drones during the war showed it was capable of defending itself, while the US bases it hosts may have been more of a liability than an asset.

Abdulla does not hold a position in the Emirati government but he is a respected commentator whose views often reflect discussions among the leadership.

“It’s time to rethink American bases in light of the war,” he told ‘The Times’. “Apparently they add little if any to help when it comes to defending us. We did most of the defending on our own with American weapons, American missiles and other defence systems.

“The bases really didn’t amount to anything in terms of defending us when it was needed and it turned out it gave Iran the perfect alibi to come after the UAE and the rest of us,” he said.

Publicly, the UAE has said it will strengthen relations with the US after Iran demanded an American withdrawal from the region. But the close US ally has also indicated its frustration with how Trump plunged the region into a war and then abruptly ended it without consulting the Arab states.

Privately, several Gulf countries including the UAE had urged Trump against the war.

“The UAE wasn’t consulted leading up to this war in any real way,” said Jacobs, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute. “And now in terms of how it will end they’re also not being consulted and their views aren’t being taken into account in a way they feel that they should be. These Gulf countries and the UAE in particular feel that it has worked very hard to develop its own ‘special relationship’ with the US.”

While the UAE and other Gulf states would be hard-pressed to replace the US as their main security partner, they have in the past sought to diversify their relations and bought Russian and Chinese weapons. China had planned a secret military base in the UAE, which appears to have been scrapped after American objections.

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