Political history of UAE

United Arab Emirates was a group of small sheikhdoms on the coastline of the Persian Gulf that became the backbone of Islamic civilization prospering in the Middle East from the seventh century onwards.

In the 1820s, it was quite a common thing that the British ships were being often attacked by the local pirates of the Arab region.  But everything was brought under control after the local Arab rulers signed a treaty with the British in 1853, under which they accepted British military protection and in turn promised to refrain from piracy.

In the 1950s, the British sought to weld the seven distinct regimes of the Trucial States into a single administrative bloc. The discovery of oil that gave a sudden and rapid boost to the economy of the region, and withdrawal of British military forces from the Gulf area, set the future course of the territory.

The United Arab Emirates came into being as an independent state on 2 December 1971. Internal politics were prone to instability, but the ruling families in the two main emirates, Dubai (the Al-Makhtoums) and Abu Dhabi (the Al Nahyans whose ruler, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, is the current president of the UAE) have managed to stabilize the federation.

After a quiet start on the international stage, the UAE have taken an active role in Middle Eastern politics both as a member of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), of which they were a founder, and in offering itself, successfully on several occasions, as a mediator in disputes between Israel and the Palestinians, Morocco and Algeria, Iran and Iraq, and between Oman and Yemen. It also developed links further afield, in anticipation of the East-West thaw and before other countries in the region, by establishing diplomatic relations with China and the former USSR. The prospects of peace offered by the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988 were briefly threatened when the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, once again put the Emirates close to the center of a major regional dispute.

In common with other members of the Gulf Co-operation Council, the UAE gave their firm backing to the US-led anti-Iraqi coalition. In the years after the war, the Emirates participated in augmenting the Peninsular Shield deterrent force set up under the auspices of the GCC, and based in Saudi Arabia. It also signed security agreements with both the USA and the UK. In 1992, a territorial dispute with Iran over ownership of three small Gulf islands – Greater and Lesser Tunbs, and Abu Musa – flared up again. The islands occupy a strategic position close to Gulf shipping lanes; moreover, the discovery of large offshore gas fields gives them economic significance. The American-sponsored strategy of ‘dual containment’ (of Iran and Iraq) required that the Iranian claims be resisted. But in the case of Iraq, the UAE has been leading Arab calls for an end to sanctions against Iraq and has made several moves (such as re-opening its Baghdad embassy) to improve ties with the Iraqis.

By: Lamiya Sami

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