With Friends Like This…
Let’s talk about the UAE
Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, an authoritarian, anti-democratic polity that pursues policies that are the exact opposite of the model of democracy that we promote in Iraq and consider the basis of our strategy to transform the Middle East. It allows no political parties, dissent, or freedom of speech, unless it is anti-American or anti-Semitic; censors the Internet; and uses troglodyte sharia tenets to throw people in jail for crimes such as being homosexual. At the very least, our support for such a “stalwart friend” makes our pro-democracy stance look just a bit hypocritical; at worst it contributes to the growing hostility toward America. Virtually all recent opinion polls in the UAE have shown upward of 75 percent responding with a starkly negative opinion of America, even when compared to Osama bin Laden.
Much more serious than the nature of its government, though, is the evidence that the Emirates have for decades been one of the key financiers of radical Islamism and even outright terrorism. Indeed, if they have been a reliable friend and ally to anybody, it is to the House of Saud in its efforts to export the hateful Wahhabi creed worldwide. And it is this massive campaign over the years that has created the huge infrastructure of thousands of radical mosques, madrassas, Islamic centers, and “charities” that is the true breeding ground of hate, fanaticism, and terrorism.
— Alex Alexiev is vice president for research at the Center for Security Policy .
Read the entire National Review story.
