Pick a Side

Nobody asked Abu Dhabi. That is the detail that matters most in yesterday's revelation that Israel has deployed Iron Dome batteries and military personnel to the United Arab Emirates — disclosed not by a whistleblower or a leaked document but by United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee at a public conference in Tel Aviv. It is the first publicly acknowledged deployment of Israeli military forces to the Emirates. It was announced as a compliment.

Huckabee framed it as one of the benefits of the Abraham Accords, the 2020 normalisation agreements under which the UAE and Bahrain established formal diplomatic relations with Israel. 'Look at the benefits,' he said. 'Israel just sent them Iron Dome batteries and personnel to help operate them.' He then added that every country in the region would have to make a choice — whether it was more likely to be attacked by Iran or by Israel. It was a recruitment pitch dressed as a security briefing. The Abraham Accords were sold as a peace deal. They were, it turns out, a down payment on a military alliance.

The UAE's experience of that alliance is worth examining precisely. The UAE has faced Iranian missile and drone fire even after the ceasefire was reached last month. The ceasefire was between Washington and Tehran. The UAE had no seat at that negotiating table. The war that began on February 28 was not declared on the UAE. The UAE did not vote for it, did not choose it and was not consulted about it. It is absorbing the consequences of a conflict decided by others, hosting military forces from a third country on its soil and being told by an American diplomat that it must now pick a side.

Iran had repeatedly warned throughout the war that the UAE was playing an active role in the aggression by hosting US and Israeli military presence on its territory, providing intelligence and making its airbases available for attacks against Iran. Those warnings were dismissed as Iranian propaganda. Huckabee's remarks at the Tel Aviv University conference confirmed their essential accuracy. The UAE was not a neutral bystander who happened to be caught in the crossfire. It was a participant — one that chose its side in 2020 and has been living with that choice ever since, with the difference that the choice has now become visible.

Kuwait's experience adds a further dimension. Kuwait accused Iran of launching a failed attack on Bubiyan Island — home to the Mubarak Al Kabeer Port, which is under construction as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative — on May 1. A Revolutionary Guard team attempted to infiltrate the island, was disrupted by Kuwaiti forces and four men were detained. Kuwait is not a member of the Abraham Accords. It has not normalised relations with Israel. It did not pick a side. Its port was attacked anyway. The war does not ask about your paperwork before it crosses your border.

Huckabee said he was 'very optimistic' that additional countries in the region would soon join the Abraham Accords. The US Ambassador to the United Nations made similar comments around the same time, suggesting the disclosure was coordinated rather than accidental. The message being sent to Gulf states is straightforward: join the Accords and receive Iron Dome. Do not join and receive nothing — except, possibly, the same Iranian missiles, without the Israeli defence system to intercept them.

The Abraham Accords were presented in 2020 as a historic breakthrough for regional peace. What they actually created was a two-tier Gulf security architecture: states that normalised with Israel receive military protection, states that did not are left to manage alone. Iran's willingness to strike UAE soil during and after the ceasefire period has made the implications of that architecture impossible to ignore. The choice Huckabee is describing — pick a side — is not a new choice. It is the choice the Accords always encoded, now made explicit by a war that removed the diplomatic language obscuring it.

The Abraham Accords were presented as a normalisation deal — trade, diplomacy, tourism, technology. Those things are real. What Huckabee's disclosure confirms is that the Accords also contained a security architecture against Iran that was always present and largely unspoken. The Iron Dome deployment is not a betrayal of the Accords' original spirit. It is the logical conclusion of the security logic embedded within them from the beginning. The war did not create this military alliance. It made it impossible to ignore.

The UAE signed the Abraham Accords to secure its future. It has Israeli soldiers on its soil and Iranian missiles in its skies. Abu Dhabi picked its side. The benefits are arriving on schedule.