Examining the achievements and results of Saudi foreign policy since bin Salman came to power shows that the inexperience of the Saudi Crown Prince has led the UAE to pursue its interests in influencing the Middle East.
According to Al-Khaleej Al-Jadeed, the Africa Report website reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman suffers from a lack of experience to the point that his policies have led Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed to influence Saudi policy to reshape the region to his own advantage.
The website wrote in a report that the fact that Saudi Arabia has been drawn to the UAE in many regional cases since 2011 does not mean that relations between them are a permanent ally; rather, the two countries are embroiled in tensions and disputes in many areas, as the two countries have recently shown their differences over oil.
The dispute between Saudi Arabia and the UAE last week over efforts to reach a new agreement to boost production began in early August. While Abu Dhabi is calling for an increase in the oil production ceiling to make it “fair”, Riyadh is refusing to accept its neighbor’s demands. As a result, the OPEC Plus meeting was canceled and postponed to the coming weeks.
The report highlights the fact that the alliance between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi was greatly strengthened with the inauguration of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2015, and one of the results was the start of the Yemeni war as part of a military coalition aimed at defeating Ansarullah and confronting the movement.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cut diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar on June 5, 2017, at the behest of bin Zayed, who believed Qatar was too close to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. But the reality of what happened next gradually showed that the UAE was pursuing a unilateral policy, to the point that it withdrew from the military coalition in Yemen to pursue its own interests.
This showed that bin Salman was inclined to follow the policies of bin Zayed; because this country was afraid of Ansarullah’s power and considered it a threat to the Saudi-Yemeni border, but this was different for the UAE.
The UAE withdrew from the invading Arab coalition in 2019 as a result of successive defeats in Yemen, as well as international criticism, to expand its presence only to strategically important areas such as Socotra, Aden and parts of southern Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has also been criticized internationally as the leader of this aggressive coalition, with Stephen Lacroix, a professor of science in Paris, insisting that Saudi Arabia is fully responsible for the mistakes of the United Arab Emirates in Yemen.
Since then, the two Gulf States have sought to pursue a common policy on many regional issues or not compete with each other.
Thus, Muhammad bin Salman’s decision to end the siege of Qatar and approach Turkey angered Muhammad ibn Zayed. Bin Salman hosted the Gulf Summit on January 5, 2021, at which the Persian Gulf reconciliation was announced, which ended after a three-and-a-half year siege of Qatar. Today, despite the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and its allies with Doha, it seems that the relations between Abu Dhabi and Doha are still cold and have not returned to normal.
After years of Saudi tensions with Turkey, the Saudi foreign minister met with his Turkish counterpart in Riyadh in May; The UAE, meanwhile, is at loggerheads with Turkey over its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
In this regard, Lacroix stated that bin Salman is pursuing policies contrary to the UAE, because he needs to show himself at the regional level, even if it means confronting bin Zayed.
Badr al-Saif, a professor at Kuwait University, wrote that the Saudis feel they have the potential to achieve a much higher economic position and are looking to compete with the United Arab Emirates in this regard.
Al-Saif believes that the OPEC Plus crisis has shown that the UAE is a good strategist, and even if they do not have the quota to reduce oil production, they are sending a message of growing. This is mainly due to the experience of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, who established relations with countries such as China, Russia and some Western countries, including the United States, and thus gained a significant degree of trust in the international arena. But Muhammad bin Salman acted outside this framework, and he is still seeking proof, especially since his face has been tarnished internationally by the assassination of critical Saudi journalist Jamal Khashgeji.
An examination of the achievements of bin Salman‘s foreign policy and the emergence of wars and crises in the region shows his inexperience and tyranny in decision-making along with his belligerent tendencies.