Deep fractures in the Gulf over Iran have implications for everyone, including Australia

Amid the renewed rumblings of a return to direct hostilities between the United States and Iran, and fervent attempts by analysts to make sense of what either countries' leadership is actually doing, you may have heard a sharp cracking sound this week.

That sound emanated from the Persian Gulf, where long-simmering tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates finally broke into the open with the declaration that the UAE would be leaving the oil cartel, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). 

If oil markets were operating normally, there would have been a lot more market reaction to this decision's direct impact on oil prices.

But in the absence of those conditions, the much broader geo-strategic significance of what the move represented was left for all to ponder.

UAE at odds with Gulf neighbours

The indications are that the UAE, OPEC's third largest producer, is also in conflict with most of its Gulf neighbours, and specifically with Saudi Arabia — which regards itself as the leader of the region — on strategy over Iran, as well more everyday issues such as economic development.

If anyone was in any doubt, Anwar Gargash, the powerful diplomatic adviser to the UAE's president, said this week that tensions with Iran had reached a "watershed moment" for Gulf security and urged a fundamental reassessment of longstanding policies towards Tehran.

"A defining station in the modern history of the Gulf" had been reached, he said. "This is not a passing crisis."

Gargash also delivered a blunt assessment of Gulf policy towards Tehran, saying efforts to contain tensions through diplomacy, trade and regional engagement had "failed miserably". 

"For years, each Gulf state pursued its own model of containment," he said, citing mediation initiatives, shared energy projects and economic ties. "None delivered lasting security."

The Gargash interventions were a significant escalation in the UAE's rhetoric from that seen earlier in the conflict, when it kept emphasising the injustice of being under attack by Iran when Gulf states had urged both Israel and the US to not attack Iran.

For example, in mid-March, UAE Minister for International Cooperation Reem Al Hashimy said: "It's been pretty unprecedented, what's happened, and almost unhinged, I would say, to have Iran lash out at the very people who've been calling for de-escalation, who've been calling for this war to never actually even start, which has really taken us by surprise." 

Al Hashimy dismissed any suggestion that the UAE might also harbour anger against the US and Israel for starting the conflict.

"Independent of how this began, the retaliatory measures that Iran has taken to attack the Gulf states are really where the issue we have is," she told the ABC.

"I have to highlight here that Iran isn't simply attacking military bases that have not launched a single missile from them, because we've made it clear that our territory would not be used to launch an attack against Iran.

"They are actually targeting civilian infrastructure as well, whether it's an airport or it's oil tankers."

Asked if the attacks would make the UAE reconsider hosting US bases, Al Hashimy said: "Quite the contrary. Our relationship with the US is a long-standing strategic partnership.

"It's a partnership that doesn't falter in moments of crisis, but has been built on decades of trust and mutual respect.

"We've been long-standing partners of the US, long-standing partners of Australia as well. And this doesn't deter us, because we're also a resilient bunch, and we don't take to being bullied around, either."

But the diplomatic repercussions of this criticism have now crystallised in the Gargash remarks.

'I expected such a weak position'

The failure of the approaches of Gulf states to Iran, Gargash said this week, required a comprehensive review of Gulf strategy, including defence coordination, diplomatic engagement and relations with major partners such as the United States.

"It is true that, logistically, the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries supported each other, but politically and militarily, I think their position was the ⁠weakest in history," Reuters reported Gargash telling a conference in the UAE on Monday.

He did not spare the two other major umbrella bodies that have in the past presented a mostly unified Gulf front to the rest of the world: the GCC and the Arab League.

"I expected such a weak position from the Arab League, and I am not surprised by it, but I have not expected it from the GCC, and I am surprised by it."

For its part, the Emirates would "scrutinise" its regional and international relations ⁠to "determine who can be relied upon", pairing that review with measures to strengthen the UAE's economic and financial position.

"Strategic autonomy remains the UAE's enduring choice," Gargash has said.

The UAE has decided to much more conspicuously side with the US — and perhaps more significantly — Israel, than any regional power has in the past.

This is despite the fact that the decision by the US and Israel to go to war against Iran resulted in the UAE facing the biggest onslaught of Iranian missiles and drones of any country in the region, including Israel.

It represents a major win for Israel's ambitions to be the new hegemonic power in the region, and an even more clouded picture of how the conflict between Iran, Israel and the US may be resolved.

And it shows the first profound cleavage in which a Gulf country has left open the possibility of taking Israel's side in a war — something the Gulf states have all been very reluctant to do, no matter how much of a threat they may have felt from Iran.

The significance for Australia

The UAE's position has direct relevance to Australia. Gargash is just the latest senior UAE official to talk of how the current crisis was showing just who the tiny — but massively rich — state could rely on.

And we make the cut, not just because we provided a Wedgetail reconnaissance plane for "purely defensive purposes", but also because we have one of our largest international air bases in the Emirates.

Emirati political analyst Abdulkhaleq Abdulla tweeted through the week that the "40-day Iranian missile and drone assault was a defining moment for the UAE. It made one thing clear: who stood with us when it mattered".

"The shortlist: the USA, France, Britain, South Korea, Australia, Ukraine, Italy. Grateful to you all."

What standing with the UAE means is only now becoming clear.

The Financial Times has just reported that Israel deployed a compact drone-detection system called "Spectro" to the UAE during Iran's missile and drone attacks, as well as Iron Dome batteries and the Iron Beam laser defence system.

These systems reportedly came with a significant number of Israeli "boots on the ground". 

The Wall Street Journal reported that this was also the first time the Iron Dome air defence system had been sent to another country, and that flight-tracking websites show military transports have shuttled between the Israeli air base of Nevatim and the UAE throughout the conflict since February 28.

The fact this is all coming to light right now does leave open the question of how Iran approaches the UAE from now on.

The Iranian state-owned Fars News Agency this week published three so-called "rules of the game", which warned Donald Trump of a possible ground invasion of Dubai and the UAE if American forces attempted a land assault on Iranian territory.

The UAE move also raises questions for the other Gulf states, which have tried to maintain an uncomfortable balancing act between not provoking Iran, cooperating with the US and Israel, and negotiating the fraught world of political Islam and Arab unity.

The shadow tussle between the UAE and Saudi has been going on for some time, with the two Gulf nations backing conflicting sides in the conflict in Yemen.

The talk in Washington and Iran for this week has been of stalemate. But as the week draws to a close the escalation has been starting again with reports of air sirens in Tehran, Trump being advised on military options in Washington, and even a report on Israeli television that Israel is preparing to announce the failure of Iran negotiations, with the US giving Israel immediate authorisation to strike Iran's energy facilities after the announcement.

Trump's earlier signalling that he will neither walk away from the war declaring a victory or escalating it, but will try to starve out the Iranians, all suggests there is no clear sign of how this war could end.

And the possibility of the UAE not just becoming an even bigger target for Iran, but possibly a direct combatant, if provoked, seems to only escalate the risks.

Laura Tingle is the ABC's Global Affairs Editor.