The United Arab Emirates’ decision to quit the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is the latest expression of a strategic shift accelerated by the Iran war. Abu Dhabi has spent years pursuing geopolitical and geoeconomic influence on its own terms, and is now increasingly unbound by Arab and Muslim consensus politics or inherited institutions such as OPEC.
The Iran war has given Abu Dhabi a sharper security justification for this. Iran’s attacks are perceived in Abu Dhabi as existential. They have struck at the UAE’s core state model: a secure global hub for commerce, finance and logistics. While
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