In an un­prece­dent­ed move in Mid­dle East­ern af­fairs, both Sau­di Ara­bia and the UAE have at­tacked Iran di­rect­ly. The UAE al­so made the de­ci­sion to leave the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Pe­tro­le­um Ex­port­ing Coun­tries (OPEC), which re­flects a sud­den shift in eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy like­ly con­nect­ed to the Iran war and the block­ade of the Strait of Hor­muz.

The Mid­dle East has many fac­tions that are con­stant­ly com­pet­ing for pow­er and in­flu­ence. The re­cent US-Is­rael con­flict with Iran in 2026 re­sult­ed in by­standers like Sau­di Ara­bia and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) be­ing hit by Iran­ian mis­sile and drone strikes. Sau­di Ara­bia and the UAE are mem­bers of the Gulf States Coun­cil, which has a Uni­fied Mil­i­tary Com­mand and mis­sile de­fence in­te­gra­tion.

On Sun­day, May 17, Al Jazeera news re­port­ed that a drone strike start­ed a fire near the UAE’s Barakah Nu­clear En­er­gy Plant. While the plant it­self re­mained un­dam­aged, this has raised fears of dam­age to key in­fra­struc­ture and a risk of ra­dioac­tive con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.

In 2019, Sau­di Ara­bia had to launch mis­sile in­ter­cep­tors to de­fend against at­tacks from Iran­ian-pro­duced drones launched by Houthi Rebels based in Yemen. These so-called Abqaiq–Khu­rais at­tacks tar­get­ed Sau­di Aram­co oil fa­cil­i­ties and re­sult­ed in dam­age and tem­porar­i­ly re­duced oil pro­duc­tion.

In 2022, Houthi Rebels al­so launched Iran­ian drones and mis­siles at the UAE that tar­get­ed the Abu Dhabi air­port and killed 3 civil­ians.

There has been a ri­val­ry with the Gulf states and Iran for con­trol of the re­gion. Part­ly stem­ming from the re­li­gious dif­fer­ence of Iran, which fol­lows Shia Is­lam, while Sau­di Ara­bia and the UAE are Sun­ni. Pri­or to 2026, this ri­val­ry was lim­it­ed to proxy wars in Yemen and the Gulf States, al­low­ing the USA to es­tab­lish bases in the re­gion, but now it has spilt over in­to di­rect con­fronta­tion.

The Sau­di Roy­al Air Force has over 200 Boe­ing F-15s, mak­ing Sau­di Ara­bia the sec­ond largest op­er­a­tor of this fight­er jet in the world af­ter the Unit­ed States. The UAE, by con­trast, has around 55 F-16s, which are small­er but more ag­ile.

On May 12, Tim­o­ur Azhari and Parisa Hafezi, writ­ing for Reuters, re­port­ed:

“Sau­di Ara­bia launched nu­mer­ous, un­pub­li­cized strikes on Iran in re­tal­i­a­tion for at­tacks car­ried out in the king­dom dur­ing the Mid­dle East war, two West­ern of­fi­cials briefed on the mat­ter and two Iran­ian of­fi­cials said. The Sau­di at­tacks, not pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed, mark the first time that the king­dom is known to have di­rect­ly car­ried out mil­i­tary ac­tion on Iran­ian soil and show it is be­com­ing much bold­er in de­fend­ing it­self against its main re­gion­al ri­val.”

While no de­tails are avail­able on the tar­gets that Sau­di Ara­bia at­tacked, the UK Guardian re­port­ed that the UAE bombed Iran’s La­van is­land in a sep­a­rate at­tack.

It must be clar­i­fied that these at­tacks are not a de­c­la­ra­tion of war by Sau­di Ara­bia and the UAE on Iran, but rather a re­sponse to Iran­ian ag­gres­sion. Un­der In­ter­na­tion­al Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Law, lim­it­ed and pro­por­tion­al re­spons­es to an at­tack are al­lowed with the ob­jec­tive of in­duc­ing the at­tack­ing na­tion to cease at­tack­ing and com­ply with In­ter­na­tion­al Law. This is the so-called doc­trine of “bel­liger­ent reprisal”.

How­ev­er, in the event of an es­ca­la­tion that re­sults in more Is­raeli airstrikes or US troops land­ing on Iran­ian ter­ri­to­ry, it is high­ly un­like­ly that Sau­di Ara­bia, the UAE or oth­er Gulf States will risk their troops to as­sist a US ground force.

UAE leaves OPEC

The UAE orig­i­nal­ly joined OPEC in 1967. As of May 1, the UAE has with­drawn from both the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Pe­tro­le­um Ex­port­ing Coun­tries (OPEC) and OPEC+, which are two dis­tinct in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions that com­prise most of the world’s largest oil pro­duc­ers.

The UAE rep­re­sents around 15 per cent of the to­tal oil ca­pac­i­ty of OPEC, mak­ing it a gi­ant loss to the car­tel.

The UAE gov­ern­ment claims that the move was a sov­er­eign strate­gic move to seek its own best in­ter­est and not a po­lit­i­cal move, but the move has clear po­lit­i­cal im­pli­ca­tions.

Kris­t­ian Coates Ul­rich­sen, writ­ing for Arab­cen­ter­dc.org, stat­ed:

“The UAE with­draw­al from OPEC will play well with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion and with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump him­self, even if he has been less vo­cal­ly crit­i­cal of the oil car­tel dur­ing his sec­ond term (so far) than he was dur­ing his first term. The White House is like­ly to wel­come both a weak­ened OPEC and the prospect of low­er oil prices, should the UAE be in a po­si­tion to in­crease pro­duc­tion.”

The UAE pro­duces around four mil­lion bar­rels of oil per day and ranks in the top five oil ex­porters. How­ev­er, the UAE has been in­vest­ing in ex­pand­ing its oil pro­duc­tion to five mil­lion bar­rels per day and has in­vest­ed in ex­pand­ing the Hab­shan–Fu­jairah oil pipeline, which will by­pass the Strait of Hor­muz.

Be­ing a mem­ber of OPEC would have re­strained the UAE’s earn­ing ca­pac­i­ty as OPEC im­pos­es quo­tas to keep oil prices with­in a cer­tain thresh­old.

It is cru­cial for T&T to pay at­ten­tion to these mas­sive geopo­lit­i­cal changes in or­der to chart its own des­tiny in these try­ing times.