The United Arab Emirates’ Long-Term Goals in Syria: Managing Militant Proxies and Geopolitical Adversaries Andrew Devereux On March 18, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad landed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a whistle-stop tour involving meetings with numerous high-ranking Emirati government officials (Arab News, March 18). Among others, al-Assad met with UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum before …
Saudi Arabia is looking for a way to end the disastrous, protracted war it has been fighting in Yemen for the last seven years. A surge in fighting has given way to an uneasy two-month truce (from 1 April) brokered by the United Nations. The intervention of a Saudi-led coalition into Yemen’s civil war has devastated a country which, even before the Saudi campaign started in 2015, was one of the world’s poorest. Yemen’s population is about 30 million, and 24mn, or 80%, now need humanitarian aid.
The context and implications for this transfer of power suggest Saudi Arabia’s desire for a political solution to end the seven-year war and the ongoing political crisis raging since the February 2011 revolution