February 28, 2020
The New York Times says the United Arab Emirates is seeking to make peace with Iran, as it no longer has confidence that the United States, under President Trump, will lift a finger to save the Arabs if they get embroiled in war with Iran.
But both Iran’s and Oman’s foreign ministers said nothing at all was happening between the Arabs and Iran.
In a report February 13, the Times concluded: “A united front against Iran—carefully built by the Trump Administration over more than two years—seemed to be crumbling.”
It said that the UAE has held secret talks with Iranian officials since late in September. It didn’t say where other Arab countries stood with regard to Iran.
The newspaper said, “The fissures in the American-led anti-Iran coalition, exemplified by the secretive Emirati-Iranian talks, have dimmed a vision of a realignment in the Middle East long advocated by Mr. Trump, but also by leaders of the Arab states in the Persian Gulf and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel.”
It said the UAE decided to approach Iran after the Trump Administration failed to launch any response after Iran attacked four tankers last June, or after it then attacked another pair in July, or when it shot down a US drone or especially when it was silent after an Iranian missile attack on a major Saudi oil installation in September.
The Times granted that the January assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleymani at Trump’s orders might prompt a re-assessment in the Arab world.
The Times said, “The Emirates began their secret talks with Iran after concluding that they could play a unique role lowering temperatures and that they had little confidence in the Trump Administration’s approach to Iran, according to American and other Western officials. They were also dismayed by the firing of [National Security Advisor John] Bolton, a longtime Iran hawk.”
But the Times did not report any examples of improving relations between the UAE and Iran since the talks assembled in September. It thus remained unclear if anything has happened to improve Iran’s ties with the Arabs.
However, two days after the Times story was published, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif said the UAE and Saudi Arabia were unwilling to reduce tensions with Iran because the United States had warned them against dialogue with Iran.
Zarif told the Munich Security Conference in Germany the Islamic Republic had contacted its neighbors months ago about President Rohani’s proposal for HOPE (his Hormuz Peace Initiative) and that Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman had all responded positively. But he said Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain had not even acknowledged the contact.
He said the Saudis wrote Iran after the January 3 assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleymani. “We followed it up. But they didn’t,” Zarif said.
Asked if he thought the United States had cautioned the Saudis against dialogue, he said, I think they did.”
Oman also indicated that nothing was happening. “The reality is there are no messages,” Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah said after meeting with Zarif. “I’m not anticipating anything [will happen] in the next six months,” he said, referring to the time before the US presidential elections.
In Iran, state broadcasting picked up The New York Times story and reported that the newspaper had said Trump ordered the assassination of Soleymani “to sabotage de-escalation talks between Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”
But the Times said nothing of the sort. State broadcasting was just making things up.