Sheikh Zayed lacked faith in US protection of allied Arab leaders during difficult times, British documents reveal

Newly unearthed British documents reveal that Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founder and late president of the United Arab Emirates, believed the United States would abandon its Arab allies if they faced popular uprisings.

Sheikh Zayid and his nephew and Chief of Staff, Sheikh Surour, expressed these concerns nearly 40 years ago to British parliamentarian Julian Amery. According to Records of the UK Prime Minister’s Office, which were uncovered by MEMO in the National Archives, the two leaders questioned whether the US truly stood by its friends.

In May 1986, Sheikh Zayed  – who earned the title of ‘the wise man of the Arabs” as he was renowned for his vision and wisdom – invited Amery, a Conservative MP and former minister of state for the FCO (1972–1974), to Abu Dhabi. Amery, known as a Conservative Zionist and staunch supporter of Israel, had strong connections with the Middle East. His father, Leo Amery, was also a member of parliament and a prominent advocate for the British Empire. Like his father, Julian strongly opposed the decolonisation of the British Empire and was the leading member of the backbench Suez Group.

During the meeting which took place as Richard Murphy, then assistant US secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, was visiting the UAE, Zayed and Surour expressed deep skepticism about America’s willingness to protect Gulf States. They criticised President Ronald Reagan’s administration for its “inability” to convince Congress to approve “the sale of arms to friendly Arab countries. According to Amery’s notes, they saw this failure as an “indication of impotence.”

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At the time, the Gulf region was on edge due to the Iran-Iraq War, which had begun in 1980. Gulf States largely supported Iraq out of fear the conflict would spread across the region.

“If the Iran/Iraq war really split over into the Gulf, would the American Administration act to protect  the Gulf state as they say they would, or would the Congress and the American opinion stop them from doing so?” Zayed and Surour asked.

US and Gulf Leaders

Amery assessed that what he heard from the two Sheikhs was evidence that “the slump in regard for the United States” was the “most striking feature” in the UAE at that time. He remarked that the decline in the trust in the US “not due so much to American support for Israel as to a feeling that the [US] Administration seem incapable of seeing through their policies.”

The UAE leaders expressed “strong emotion” springing from “the impression that the Americans don’t stand by their friends,” Amery noted. To prove their point,  Zayed and Surour cited historical examples such as the US abandonment of the Shah of Iran, Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines.

From their perspective, the US allowed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran to fall in the 1979 revolution, despite his close alliance with Washington. Similarly, President Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti, a longtime anti-communist ally, was overthrown in early 1986 following months of popular protests. The regime of  President Ferdinand Emmanuel Marcos , the authoritarian ruler of the Philippines and a key US ally in Asia, was ousted in a peaceful civilian-led uprising in February 1986.

Zayed and Surour argued that while these leaders, practically Duvalier and Marcos, may have had questionable reputations, they had been loyal allies for many years, and the US must have been aware of their conduct. So their reputation was “not regarded as a reason for treating them with less than courtesy.”

The Emirati leaders asked: “If friends of the United States are treated like this, what is the point of being their friends?”

Britain and UK relations

Thatcher Respons to Amery MP

Amery, in his notes to the UK prime minister and foreign secretary, offered a critical assessment of the UAE leadership’s mindset. “This corresponds to a very strong characteristic of Middle Eastern leaders generally,” he wrote, blaming those leaders for attaching “great importance to personal relationships” and tending to “place these relationships higher than we do in the West”.

He referenced the British withdrawal from its colony in Aden (southern Yemen) in 1967 as another example. After the British left, Saudi Arabia took in the former Aden leaders, which Amery viewed as a gesture of loyalty that Middle Eastern leaders valued deeply. “The Saudi hospitality to the Aden leaders whom we sacrificed is a case in point,” he wrote.

Amery also cited the case of Idi Amin, Uganda’s dictator who was ousted in 1979 and later lived in exile in Libya and Saudi Arabia. Despite his grave human rights abuses, including mass killings and torture, Amin was sheltered until his death in 2003.

Margaret Thatcher responded to Amery’s report by calling it “fascinating and very informative.”

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.