The U.S. might enter a defense agreement with UAE, despite human rights issues

President Joe Biden is touring the Middle East to enhance ties with regional leaders. According to prior reports, one of the actions Biden may soon take might put American lives and money at risk for a dubious friend.

In June, current and former U.S. government sources told Axios that the Biden administration and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were “discussing a potential strategic pact that would provide the Gulf nation with certain U.S. security assurances.”

According to reports, these discussions began in November and grew increasingly serious this spring. Late in May, Brett McGurk, the White House’s coordinator for the Middle East, travelled to Abu Dhabi to negotiate what the Biden administration refers to as a “Strategic Framework Agreement.”

It is not yet apparent what the United States will guarantee the UAE. According to a source for Axios, the proposed pact “has a defence and security component, but also addresses economic, trade, scientific, and technological challenges.” However, it is feasible that the pact may include a defence guarantee in which American life and resources would be used to defend the UAE in times of conflict.

If this is the case, it will have “substantial costs for the United States,” says Dan Caldwell, vice president of Stand Together’s global policy division. It will necessitate the permanent deployment of additional U.S. soldiers and military assets to the Middle East at a time when we ought to be withdrawing from the region.

A commitment to the UAE’s security “may potentially increase the possibility that the United States becomes further entangled in the war in Yemen, in which the UAE has been one of the leading combatants, or in a battle with Iran,” observes Caldwell.

Since 1990, the United States has been extensively involved in the UAE’s security, with American military personnel stationed there. From 2015 to 2019, 68 percent of the UAE’s weaponry imports came from the United States. In response to Yemen’s Houthi rebels’ missile and drone attacks on the UAE early this year, the United States sent fighter fighters and moved a guided-missile destroyer. In addition, the two countries have various defence cooperation agreements dating back to 1987.

Despite this support, the UAE has proven to be an unreliable friend. It has declined to boost oil production despite soaring world prices. It abstained in a United Nations vote criticising Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to reports, Emirati authorities have even refused to answer Biden’s calls. None of this even comes close to addressing the United Arab Emirates’ “serious human rights concerns,” as described by the State Department, or the horrors it has committed in Yemen while fighting with Saudi Arabia.

This record may be suggestive of the nature of a security guarantee between the United States and the United Arab Emirates. Similar to the uneasy relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, forming a security arrangement with the United Arab Emirates would further entangle the United States with an authoritarian, unreliable state. There would be no visible incentive for the UAE to behave properly. Rather, with the support of a major power like the United States, the Emiratis may be more ready to take risks, knowing that the U.S. will rescue them if a war erupts.

The Biden administration apparently took these actions without consulting Congress. A senior Democratic Senate aide told Jon Hoffman, a George Mason University political science Ph.D. candidate writing for Foreign Policy, “Offering security guarantees on behalf of the American people is a serious undertaking that requires the engagement of and approval from the people’s representatives in Congress.” “I am unaware of any such engagements at now.”

Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) presented amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act last week that would set restrictions on new Middle East defence agreements. One amendment would qualify as a treaty “any formal United States commitment to provide military security assurances” to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, so necessitating a two-thirds Senate vote. Before American monies could be granted for the defence of the two nations, a second bill would need Congress approval of “any new security pact” with them.

When the executive branch handles foreign policy problems on its own, such checks are essential. Idealistically, however, the Biden administration would analyse the dangers associated with security assurances realistically. A defence commitment is more than just words on paper; it symbolises an expanded U.S. military authority that might one day oblige the nation and its soldiers to assume tremendous and unwarranted risks, with no apparent return.