UAE Claims it Exited US Led Force Targeting Iran; Expresses Disappointment with American Deterrent Efforts 

Edited by: TJVNews.com

The United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday it was no longer taking part in operations by a U.S.-led task force protecting Gulf shipping, which has been subjected to renewed tanker seizures by Iranian naval forces in recent weeks, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The UAE was responding to a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday which, citing U.S. and Gulf sources, said the Gulf state was frustrated by the lack of U.S. response to recent tanker seizures by Iran.

In a release on its state news service, the UAE said that it withdrew from the American-led coalition two months ago as part of its assessment of “effective security cooperation” in the Middle East. The statement didn’t explain why, the WSJ reported.

Led by the top U.S. admiral in Bahrain, the coalition—known as the Combined Maritime Forces, or CMF—brings together 38 nations that work together to combat Iranian attacks on commercial ships, weapons smuggling and piracy, the WSJ reported.  The coalition, which includes the U.K., France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Germany, is the largest such maritime security force in the world.

This was a “mischaracterization” of conversations between the two countries, a UAE statement said, as was reported by Reuters.

The WSJ also reported that Commander Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, which oversees the military coalition, said Wednesday that the UAE is still a member of the group and that participation ebbs and flows, depending on various needs.

“CMF remains a multinational partnership of 38 nations, of which the U.A.E. is one,” he said, as was reported by the WSJ. “Participation is typically rotational for many of our partners.”

The CMF regularly reports intercepting drug smuggling in Gulf waters. Reuters reported that last week it established a new task force to train partner navies to enhance maritime security in the Middle East.

Five weeks ago, Iran seized two tankers within a week in Gulf waters near the Strait of Hormuz, as was reported by Reuters.  The second tanker, the Niovi, had been travelling from Dubai in the Gulf toward the UAE’s Arabian Sea port of Fujairah.

In particular, the seizure of the second ship—which had left Dubai—incensed UAE officials because it fueled the impression that the US and its allies couldn’t protect commercial traffic in the Persian Gulf, the officials said, as was reported by the WSJ.

One American official compared the UAE’s response to its angry reaction in January 2022, when the US was slow to come to the Gulf nation’s aid after Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen launched a deadly drone attack at the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi that killed three people, the report in the WSJ said.

The WSJ also reported that the Houthi strike, which Emirati officials called their 9/11, led to months of increased political tensions between Abu Dhabi and Washington.

The region contains some of the world’s most important shipping routes where, since 2019, when suspected Iranian attacks intensified against oil tankers amid tensions with the United States, according to a recently published report on the iranintl.com web site.  The Obama, Trump and Biden administrations chose not to retaliate against Iranian naval provocations over the years or show a convincing military deterrent response, the report stated.

Former President Donald Trump was said to have blinked when suspected Iranian drones and missiles hit Saudi oil facilities in September 2019, inflicting heavy damage. Reports at the time said that Trump changed his mind about a military response at the last minute, as was reported by the iranintl.com web site.

The statement said the UAE was committed to dialogue and diplomatic engagement to advance regional security and stability, and that it was committed to ensuring navigation safety in its seas in accordance with international law.