Who Has the Power
Mossad chief David Barnea visited the United Arab Emirates at least twice during Operation Roaring Lion to coordinate regarding the war, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Arab officials and a source familiar with the matter. Barnea reportedly flew to the UAE in March and April. According to KAN News, Shin Bet chief David Zini also visited the UAE, and the two countries were coordinated on security issues during the war.
That coordination did not happen in a vacuum. The report came after the Wall Street Journal published that the UAE was behind some of the recent strikes against Iranian assets, including attacks on Lavan Island's refinery at the beginning of April. According to the report, which cited sources informed in the matter, the UAE carried out the strikes secretly as a response to Iran targeting Emirati civilian and energy infrastructures. Iran later sent another barrage of drones and missiles against both the UAE and Kuwait in response to this attack, even if there was no official confirmation of who was behind it at that time.
The Regional Security Machine
Israel and the UAE have continued to grow their partnership in the shadow of the Iran war, with United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee saying Israel sent Iron Dome batteries to the United Arab Emirates to use in defense against Iranian attacks during an interview at a Thursday Tel Aviv University conference. Huckabee said, "Can I say a word of appreciation for the United Arab Emirates... they were the first Abraham Accords member." He added, "Look at the benefits. Israel just sent them Iron Dome batteries and personnel to help operate them. How come? Because there’s an extraordinary relationship between the UAE and Israel."
The language of partnership sits neatly atop a war economy of secret strikes, military coordination, and retaliatory fire. The people living under these arrangements are not the ones making the deals. They are the ones absorbing the consequences when states and security agencies trade blows and call it stability.
Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia launched numerous, unpublicized strikes on Iran in retaliation for attacks carried out in the kingdom during the Middle East war, marking the first time the kingdom is known to have directly carried out military action on Iranian soil. The attacks, launched by the Saudi Air Force, were assessed to have been carried out in late March, the two Western officials said. One said only that they were "tit-for-tat strikes in retaliation for when Saudi [Arabia] was hit." Reuters was unable to confirm what the specific targets were. In response to a request for comment, a senior Saudi foreign ministry official did not directly address whether strikes had been carried out.
What the Peace Process Runs Into
Turkey’s peace process with Kurdish militants stalled as the Iran war deepened instability in the region. Just two weeks after Turkey's parliament made recommendations on how to advance the country's peace process with Kurdish militants, the Iran war broke out, plunging the Middle East into fresh instability and bringing new doubts on both sides. Turkey has warned of the risk of new Kurdish mobilizations in Iran and Iraq and, according to a government official, played a key role in quashing a short-lived US-Israeli idea to back a Kurdish militant ground invasion of Iran from Iraq.
Since then, Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers' Party have dug in to watch the fallout of the war, each refusing to move next and stalling efforts to end the four-decade conflict, according to interviews with Turkish officials, lawmakers, and representatives of the northern Iraq-based PKK. For now, both President Tayyip Erdogan's government and the militant group are unwilling to take bold steps, especially with the region destabilized, the interviews show. The government appears reluctant to enact legislative reforms, including a potential amnesty for former PKK fighters, and to give the group's jailed leader an official role in the peace process. Ankara says the PKK must fully disarm first.
The PKK, which announced its dissolution last year, says doing so would leave it exposed, so legislation must come first. Senior PKK officer Murat Karayilan was quoted as telling the PKK-linked Firat News Agency that it would be "irrational" to lay down arms without Turkish legal guarantees at a time that war "drones and missiles are flying overhead." Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, a senior lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, said, "It is unequivocal that there is a pause, but not a complete halt." She said the government's demand for a full disarmament now is "unrealistic," and added, "I believe that they are, to some extent, waiting for developments in Iran and the broader Middle East."
Failure to achieve peace would prolong one of the world's longest-running conflicts, which has killed more than 40,000 people since 1984 and spilled into Syria. In late April, pro-government newspaper Turkiye Gazetesi reported that Turkey's spy chief made a presentation to ruling AKP party members showing that the PKK had taken no further disarmament steps beyond a symbolic weapons-burning ceremony last summer, delaying the peace process. Asked about delays, Zagros Hiwa, PKK political wing spokesperson, told Reuters that Turkey had "unilaterally frozen" the peace process in part to boost the ruling party's political prospects.
A Turkish presidency spokesperson referred to Erdogan's recent speeches on the matter, in which he repeated that the peace process is disconnected from domestic politics and has good momentum as it reaches a key crossroads, and dismissed "pessimists." Erdogan says the peace process will carry on. Some opinion polls show Turks, including ethnic minority Kurds, are growing less convinced that peace will ultimately be achieved. A Konda Barometer survey in December found 79% of respondents believe the state was wrong to engage with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, including 62% of Erdogan's ruling AKP party voters. Erdogan's nationalist ally, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, said last week Ocalan should be granted an official role to get things back on track. The government has yet to respond.