The UAE’s interventionist foreign policy, backing Assad in Syria and the RSF in Sudan, has backfired, damaging its global reputation, alienating allies, and undermining US interests.
The foreign policy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has faced numerous challenges in recent years. From the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, after Abu Dhabi had invested immense political capital to normalize relations with his regime, to the recent military setbacks suffered by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which the UAE has been supporting despite credible accusations of genocide, Abu Dhabi’s recent gambles in the region have not borne fruit.
On the contrary, they have worsened the UAE’s global image, put it at odds with its Gulf allies, and placed it on a collision course with US foreign policy goals.
Why Has the Middle East Turned Its Back on the UAE?
Before Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) blitzkrieg offensive against the Assad regime, which led to its ousting, normalization between Syria and Gulf countries was moving at pace, with Abu Dhabi leading the charge. In 2018, the UAE became the first Gulf country to reopen its embassy in Syria, seven years after it had closed it following the outbreak of the civil war.
Speaking at a ceremony commemorating the UAE’s National Day held in Damascus, Abu Dhabi’s chargé d’affaires to Syria, Abdul-Hakim Naimi, left no ambiguity regarding whose side the UAE was taking in the conflict, “I hope that safety, security, and stability in the Syrian Arab Republic will prevail under the shadow of the wise leadership of Dr. Bashar al-Assad.”
In a further sign of warming ties, in 2021, the UAE’s Foreign Minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, met with Assad in Damascus to discuss boosting economic ties between the two countries.
The meeting attracted condemnation from the Biden administration.
“We are concerned by reports of this meeting and the signal it sends,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price noted in a press briefing. “As we’ve said before, this administration will not express any support for efforts to normalize or to rehabilitate Bashar al-Assad, who is a brutal dictator.”
Assad would later visit the UAE in 2022, his first diplomatic trip to an Arab country since the outbreak of the civil war. The visit was a direct rebuke to the Biden administration, whose attempts to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin, a key ally of Assad, have failed to garner sufficient support from Gulf countries.
The UAE Allied Closer with Syria Before the Fall of Assad
In January 2024, Abu Dhabi completed the process of restoring ties with Damascus by designating Hassan Ahmad al-Shihi as ambassador to Syria, marking the first time the UAE had appointed an ambassador to the embattled country in nearly thirteen years.
Eleven months after the UAE fully normalized relations with Syria, HTS launched its offensive against the Assad regime. As city after city fell into rebel hands, and recognizing that the cavalry wasn’t coming, with Iran’s proxies devastated and Russia bogged down in its war in Ukraine, Assad fled the country. The fall of his regime squandered years of political capital the UAE had invested in rehabilitating a brutal dictator and complicated relations with the new Islamist government, which now looks at Abu Dhabi with suspicion.
Notwithstanding the surprising nature of HTS’s offensive, which caught many regional actors by surprise, the political capital invested by the UAE to normalize relations with Assad was not paying dividends even before the downfall of his regime. Abu Dhabi’s motivation in leading the way with restoring ties with Damascus was driven by two objectives: to reduce Iran’s influence in Syria by offering Assad an alternative and to stop the captagon drug trade from flowing into the UAE.
Friendly overtures to Assad failed to achieve both goals.
The UAE Gained Little from Its Relationship with Assad
Captagon, a highly addictive synthetic drug produced in Syria and smuggled into the Gulf under the watchful eye of the Assad family, has provided a lifeline for the heavily sanctioned regime by bringing in an estimated $7.3 billion in revenue. The regime has used the coca trade as leverage in negotiations with Arab countries.
By normalizing relations with the Assad government, Abu Dhabi hoped the regime would take steps to curb the illegal drug trade. However, the drugs continued to flow into the UAE uninhibited, as Assad refused to give up such a lucrative source of revenue. In February 2023, officials at Abu Dhabi Airport arrested a man with 4.5 million tablets of Captagon hidden in food cans as he attempted to smuggle them through customs.
Later that year, authorities at Jebel Port seized 86 million tablets of Captagon hidden inside five shipping containers, with an estimated street value of over $1 billion.
The UAE’s efforts to draw Assad away from Iran have also faltered, as Damascus has shown no signs of downgrading its relationship with Tehran. Iran has championed the restoration of ties between Assad and neighboring countries, viewing the cost-free normalization of one of its key allies in the region as beneficial to its security.
During a visit to Damascus in 2022, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Amir-Abdollahian, commented on the Arab-Syrian normalization effort, “We welcome the fact that some Arab countries are trying to normalize relations with the Syrian Arab Republic by adopting a new approach. We are happy with it.”
Betting on Assad to remain in power was not the only bad gamble the UAE has made in the region; the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group Abu Dhabi has been backing to win the civil war in Sudan, are on the back foot after making lightning advances at the start of the conflict.
How Did the UAE Respond to the Sudanese Civil War?
The Sudanese civil war erupted due to a leadership dispute between General Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, commander of the RSF, and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the country’s de facto president. The two generals disagreed over national policy and how Hemedti’s 100,000-strong militia should be integrated into the army.
Shots rang out on April 15, 2023, when the Sudanese Armed Forces responded to what it perceived as a hostile troop deployment by the RSF. As with most civil wars, civilians have been caught in the crossfire, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands, widespread famine, and a refugee crisis that saw more than 12 million Sudanese abandon their homes.
Abu Dhabi has thrown its weight behind Hemedti’s RSF after the strongman won the Emirates’ trust, deploying his men to fight the UAE’s wars in Yemen and Libya. The UAE views Hemedti as the custodian of its gold holdings in Sudan, as well as its other investments in the country, such as its multibillion-dollar port development plans. By supporting Hemedti, Abu Dhabi seeks to ensure that once the conflict subsides, it will have a say in Sudan’s future.
Despite repeatedly proclaiming its neutrality, the UAE has been an active participant in the conflict, prolonging the war by supplying the RSF with weapons and bolstering the militia’s ranks with mercenaries.
An investigative report by the Wall Street Journal has found that Global Security Services Group (GSSG), an Abu Dhabi-based private security company, has recruited Colombian mercenaries to fight in Sudan. GSSG, which publicizes on its website that it is the sole private security provider for the Emirati government and boasts a client list that includes multiple UAE government ministries, has facilitated the deployment of Colombian mercenaries in the conflict by smuggling them across the Libyan border and into the RSF-controlled Darfur region.
In addition to reinforcing the RSF’s ranks, Abu Dhabi has also used the guise of humanitarian aid to deliver weapons to the militia. As was the case in Uganda, when officials at Entebbe Airport inspected a cargo plane sent by the UAE, instead of finding humanitarian aid as the flight manifest indicated, officials found crates full of ammunition and weapons destined for the RSF.
By not publicizing its support for the RSF, Abu Dhabi seeks to use the militia to advance its interests in Sudan while distancing itself from a paramilitary group known for its human rights abuses.
A report by Amnesty International titled They Raped All of Us: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Sudan has shed light on the systematic practice of rape by the RSF. The report documents 36 cases of rape committed by the militia against women and girls as young as 15. One of the cases includes the harrowing story of a nurse from the Khartoum province who was abducted from her home by RSF militiamen and driven to the Al-Amal hospital, where she was forced to treat wounded RSF fighters. On the second day of her captivity, eight RSF soldiers entered her detention room and proceeded to beat and rape her, causing her unhealed C-section wound to open up.
Amnesty International has also documented cases of sexual slavery committed by the rebel group in Khartoum, where RSF soldiers abducted women and, in some cases, detained them for more than 30 days. The women were held in houses close to RSF checkpoints and were tortured and raped repeatedly.
The UAE’s Relationship with the RSF Made Them Guilty By Association
Abu Dhabi’s continued support for the RSF, despite the militia’s track record of horrendous human rights abuses, has negatively impacted its global image. UAE officials have found themselves before the International Court of Justice, defending against accusations of complicity in genocide levied by the government of Sudan, which has accused the Gulf nation of supporting the RSF as the militia massacred thousands in West Darfur.
While the court would eventually dismiss Sudan’s case on jurisdictional grounds, rather than on merit, the decision did not erase the reputational damage inflicted on the UAE.
In contrast to the International Court of Justice’s indecision, on January 7, 2025, the US State Department concluded that the RSF had committed genocide in Sudan and levied sanctions against seven UAE-based firms with ties to the militia.
Not only has Abu Dhabi’s support for the RSF worsened its global image, but it has also provided an opening for Saudi Arabia, the UAE’s strategic competitor in the region, to paint itself as a stabilizing force by supporting the Sudanese government against the UAE-backed rebel group.
While both Gulf countries have previously found common ground over issues such as their concern about increased Iranian influence in the region and the need to rein in Qatar for its unconventional foreign policy during the Arab Spring, a recent divergence has emerged.
The UAE has maintained its interventionist foreign policy, utilizing its vast wealth to shape the region to its advantage by backing strongmen such as Khalifa Haftar in Libya and Hemedti’s RSF in Sudan.
In contrast, Saudi Arabia has recently adopted a more humanitarian and peacemaking role, investing heavily in humanitarian relief programs in Sudan and advertising its refugee assistance operations, where Saudi soldiers are seen greeting Sudanese refugees with flowers as they disembark from ships.
Abu Dhabi’s interventionist meddling in Sudanese affairs has allowed Riyadh to partially rehabilitate its global image after a string of blunders in the region, including its devastating war in Yemen and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Turkey.
The UAE Disregards America’s Foreign Policy Interests
In addition to locking horns with Saudi Arabia, the UAE’s foreign policy in Sudan has also clashed with Washington’s maximum pressure campaign on Russia. An investigation by SourceMaterial found that the UAE has used Wagner mercenaries stationed in the Central African Republic (CAR) to transport weapons to the RSF.
According to the spokesman for the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), a paramilitary group that has been fighting against Wagner mercenaries in CAR, CPC soldiers have intercepted many weapon shipments from the UAE destined for the RSF since the war in Sudan started. At a time when its greatest ally was rallying allies to isolate Russia, Abu Dhabi chose to extend a helping hand to the Putin regime, thereby undermining US efforts to pressure the Kremlin.
Despite the UAE’s immense support for the RSF, the militia now finds itself on the defensive after being caught off guard by the Sudanese government at the start of the conflict. On May 20, 2025, the Sudanese Armed Forces announced that they had entirely driven RSF forces out of the capital city of Khartoum after a series of victories, including the capture of the presidential palace and Khartoum’s airport.
While the UAE had hoped that backing Hemedti would give it a stake in Sudan’s politics, the horrific human rights abuses committed by the RSF, along with its lack of governance acumen, mean the likelihood of the rebel group having a say in Sudan’s future is slim without an unforeseen reversal of fortune on the battlefield.
From Bashar al-Assad in Syria to Hemedti in Sudan, Abu Dhabi has not backed winners. Instead of cementing its power in the region, the Emirates’ recent bets have worsened its global image, partially rehabilitated its strategic competitor, and undermined the foreign policy of its greatest ally. As the UAE continues pursuing its hegemonic aspirations, Washington must rein in its ally to ensure that its interventionist policies don’t undermine US interests.
About the Author: Omar Abdelrahman
Omar Abdelrahman is a former Marcellus Policy Fellow at the John Quincy Adams Society. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on Gulf security issues and the governance models employed by Islamist militant groups.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/Ali A Suliman.
