President Donald Trump’s pressure to sell advanced F-35 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates tests the Arab country’s recent peace deal with Israel, continuing tensions with Iran and concerns over the humanitarian situation in Yemen, where the UAE is involved in an ongoing civil war.
Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustained Ellen Lord posed all F-35-related questions to the State Department during a briefing Thursday with reporters, saying only that she “has spent a lot of time in the region over the years in this roll out active discussions on F-16 upgrades, which has been an ongoing discussion on which DSCA and the Air Force have worked. “
The prospect of selling such a state-of-the-art fighter jet to the UAE has been a controversy, shared by American allies and opponents, even if Abu Dhabi did not see the problem.
“We have legitimate requests that are there,” UAE Secretary of State Anwar Gargash said Thursday during a virtual interview with the Atlantic Council’s think tank. “We should get them.”
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Staff Sergeant Daniel Snider / US Air Forces Central Command Public Affairs
The only Middle Eastern military country serving the F-35 is Israel, a close American ally surrounded by Arab nations, most of whom have never recognized the majority Jewish state since the 1948 war that accompanied its founding. By using its close relationship with the US, Israel has sought to maintain a qualitative edge in the region, with exclusive access to such advanced equipment as the F-35, which has only been sold to a handful of allied nations throughout the world. world.
But with the UAE agreeing to normalize ties with Israel in a historic agreement reached by Trump, the UAE argued that there was no longer a need for Israelis to have air superiority over them – and the F-35 was on the market.
“Now the whole idea of a state of belligerence or war with Israel will no longer exist,” Gargash said, “so I think it should actually be easier.”
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But even on the heels of the UAE-Israel agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu objected to such arms sales.
“The historic peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates did not include Israel’s consent to an armed deal between the United States and the UAE,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement released Tuesday. “From the beginning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has opposed the sale of F-35s and other advanced weapons to any country in the Middle East, including Arab countries that have peace agreements with the state of Israel.”
The White House refused Newsweekhis request for comment. The Pentagon said that, “As a matter of policy, we do not confirm or comment on proposed defense sales or transfers until they are formally notified to Congress.” The State Department referred Newsweek to Trump’s remarks at a news conference Wednesday night.
The president then said that the F-35 sale was “under review”, noting that the UAE “had been a major advance in peace in the Middle East” when making a deal with Israel.
“I see a lot of countries coming in pretty fast,” Trump said. “And if you have them all in, Iran will eventually come in as well. There will be peace in the Middle East. That will be nice. Iran will be completely neutralized. They never thought this could have happened.”
But that has not happened yet.
On Thursday, Iran flexed its military might. Marking the National Day of the Defense Industry, the country’s army unveiled a new ballistic missile and cruise missile named after the Commander of the Revolutionary Guard Quds Force Major General Qassem Soleimani and the paramilitary deputy Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Iraqis Popular Mobilization Forces, both killed in a January US drone strike that sparked tensions in the Middle East.
The F-35 development followed a string of events promoting unrest in the region, including unannounced attacks on oil tankers, two of which belonged to the UAE. Unlike the US, the UAE has not rightly accused Iran of the attacks. The top diplomats from Abu Dhabi and Tehran even spoke earlier this month in what was widely seen as a bid to abuse tensions.
However, the recognition of the UAE by Israel, Iran’s top enemy, encouraged what Iran’s supreme general called a “fundamental change” in the Islamic Republic’s approach to one of the few Arab peninsulas with which it enjoys of working bonds. On Monday, Iran seized a UAE ship, accused of illegally entering Iranian waters, and accused a UAE coastguard of opening fire on Iranian fishermen, in which two were killed, in an incident that Tehran questioned the ambassador of Abu Dhabi on to call.
AHMAD AL-BASHA / AFP / Getty Images
In addition to their differences over the Persian Gulf, Iran and the UAE were also involved in the Yemeni civil war. Since 2015, the UAE has supported a Saudi-led coalition against the Zaidi-Shiite Muslim uprising of Ansar Allah, also known as Houthis. The group is aligned with Tehran, but both parties deny allegations that the Houthi are receiving direct support from the Islamic Republic.
The Yemeni campaign of Abu Dhabi and Riyadh has also been criticized in Washington. U.S. lawmakers first called for the War Powers Act in April 2019 in a bid to stop U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia and the UAE over concerns about civilian casualties and links to militant Islamist groups, but Trump rejected the measure.
A report released earlier this month by the State Department Inspector General’s office found that the department did not assess risks and take mitigation measures to reduce civilian casualties and legal concerns related to last year’s $ 8.1 billion US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
When asked about this past week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called this finding “completely unfounded.”
“We were very thoughtful about how we controlled the risks,” Pompeo said. “We did it well. It was a careful process. All the voices were heard within the State Department. Of course we want to protect civilian life. We want to protect civilian life in Yemen, we want to protect civilian life in Riyadh and in Abu Dhabi, and in Dubai, and the decision we made absolutely did so. “
