"You can't do this without us, and we can't do this without you,"

October 14, 2015 10:11 AM

"Yousef Al Otaiba is the most charming man in Washington: He's slick, he's savvy and he throws one hell of a party. And if he has his way, our Middle East policy is going to get a lot more aggressive." - Ryan Grim and Akbar Shahid Ahmed

So what does he have to say on the cocktail circuit?

How the US can improve its relationship with the Middle East
The Moderate Middle East Must Act
ISIL Can’t Be Beat on the Battlefield Alone
Ambassador from the United Arab Emirates, Yousef Al Otaiba, has a conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg on World affairs.

Or you could read his blog.

posted by the man of twists and turns (22 comments total)

The huffpo link is pretty good as huffpo pieces go. Otaiba seems charismatic and quite good at his job, but I'm supremely skeptical that he has the best interests of the United States in mind when he advocates policy. The UAE might be an ally of convenience but it remains a reactionary autocracy no matter how much money they spend glitzing the place up.

The tendency for the DC establishment to fawn over people like him is matched only by the speed with which they can abandon them when things go badly. We shall see.
posted by Wretch729 at 10:29 AM on October 14, 2015 [4 favorites]

There was one proponent, however, for wiping Assad off the map entirely.

Russia might have a word to say about that. And I love it when these guys start the gangster talk about 'taking out' the bad guys.
posted by colie at 10:37 AM on October 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Or using the phrase "bad guys."
posted by entropicamericana at 10:43 AM on October 14, 2015 [10 favorites]

'taking out' the bad guys

A nice meal, a few glasses of wine, somewhere quiet enough for them to get to know each other even with some soothing music in the background, maybe they won't seem so bad.
posted by biffa at 10:56 AM on October 14, 2015 [6 favorites]

And he seems to have a hell of a great publicist.
posted by theora55 at 12:04 PM on October 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

We're all gonna die, anyway. But we are allegedly a free, democratic sort of nation. Help me here, is that just some comforting pap I sucked down wholesale, in a high school American Values class?

I really dislike foreign oligarchs buying American policy. As long as every one with a party suit wants to put a hand out, is that how it is going to be? What is it going to take to realize we have no "friends" in the Middle East? What is it going to take for us to quit being the Middle East's muscle on call? They need to put their own cats out at night.
posted by Oyéah at 12:07 PM on October 14, 2015 [3 favorites]

What is it going to take to realize we have no "friends" in the Middle East? What is it going to take for us to quit being the Middle East's muscle on call?

Cold fusion? In all seriousness, nothing short of the discovery of a form of renewable energy that can replace our complete and utter dependency on oil is going to change our current relationship with the ME in this generation or the next.

That said, this doesn't concern me too much as I'm a firm believer in the power of greed on the psyche of the ultra rich. They aren't looking to use US military strength for some political agenda so much as to make sure they're kept safe with their fancy toys in their tiny little corner country. This is all about the protection of vast amounts of wealth.

What's more worrying is how fast the day is approaching when China is the global military superpower to sidle up to when you want the biggest bully as your best friend on the playground.
posted by allkindsoftime at 12:18 PM on October 14, 2015

In all seriousness, nothing short of the discovery of a form of renewable energy that can replace our complete and utter dependency on oil is going to change our current relationship with the ME in this generation or the next.

Or fracking.
posted by Nevin at 12:23 PM on October 14, 2015

Ctrl-F Chalabi
no hits found

we won't get fooled again indeed
posted by kokaku at 12:24 PM on October 14, 2015 [10 favorites]

They aren't looking to use US military strength for some political agenda so much as to make sure they're kept safe with their fancy toys in their tiny little corner country.

Except for the few untouchables that throw a couple million bucks at a terrorist organization as if it were a GoFundMe.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 12:31 PM on October 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

China as superpower? I doubt it. It will be a superpower--now is--but like Russia previously, they will have their sphere of influence and control and we, ours. How can they out superrpower us without making a huge pile of nukes, and, how many do you need? The difference is that our economies intimately tied to each other and so the need to remain antagonists but not at war with each other.
Oil? we have plenty but a global power--U.S.--does not want to see terrorists with a huge territory at their disposal, ie, the middle east. What happens in M.E.does not stay in the M.E.
posted by Postroad at 12:31 PM on October 14, 2015

Or using the phrase "bad guys."

I remember cringing when I watched this video of Mikhail Kasyanov (Former PM of Russia) speaking, and a retired US diplomat prefaced his question to Kasyanov with: "I believe in good guys and bad guys in diplomacy, not nuances."
posted by Kabanos at 12:52 PM on October 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

The UAE has a ton of money. They have an air force and an army. Why don't they intervene?
The US has no constructive role to play in Syria, except for humanitarian relief. Sure Assad is evil, but if his regime falls, every non Sunni Arab in Syria will be massacred. And have we still not learned the lesson of Iraq and Libya: removing the local strongman makes everything ten times worse?
posted by Bee'sWing at 1:01 PM on October 14, 2015 [3 favorites]

Started 3-4 posts, not even snarky posts, can't even think where to go with this. The diplomatic world seems simultaneously in a single image so vital and utterly shallow and vile. No matter how many children are starving in wretched conditions at the same time there's a diplomatic cocktail party celebrating the magnanimity of some random donor.
posted by sammyo at 2:50 PM on October 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think Vogue's puff piece on the Asma Assad - at a time when her husband had killed at least tens of thousands - is the high-water mark of sucking up to dictators. Vogue tried to purge it from the 'net, which you can read about here: The Only Remaining Online Copy of Vogue's Asma al-Assad Profile. That copy has gone, but Gawker kindly preserved a copy for the rest of us: Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert.

posted by Joe in Australia at 3:07 PM on October 14, 2015 [4 favorites]

You know, Russia and Iran taking up the mantle of bombing Daesh and other Islamists in Syria should be America's way out of that conflict, tactical retreat with honour and all that, if it wasn't for the fact that drumbeaters like the guy in the OP cajoled us to getting involved and funding those Islamists in the first place.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:25 PM on October 14, 2015

...[Otaiba] has a little bit more of a bro-ish, frat-boy vibe to him,” says one person who has dined at his mansion. He often schedules meetings at the café inside his gym (the Equinox at the Ritz Carlton). On the lower floors of the State Department, among some, he's known simply as "Brotaiba."

He sounds charming.
posted by xqwzts at 4:58 PM on October 14, 2015

“They have freedom of the press, to a point. The only rule is you can’t criticize the monarchy,” says one. “But why would you want to? I met the sultan, or what do you call him—the emir. He was a totally great guy.”

... says Republican Sen. John McCain. “It’s not just a normal representative of a nation. This is a nation that is literally conducting warfare against [the Islamic State].”

Has anyone told him about Putin yet? [and Bashar, and the Ayatollah...]
posted by xqwzts at 5:16 PM on October 14, 2015

In all seriousness, nothing short of the discovery of a form of renewable energy that can replace our complete and utter dependency on oil is going to change our current relationship with the ME in this generation or the next.

A policy based on oil would look like this: Sell us the oil, do what you want in your country, and don't fuck with us.

Anybody can do that. "ISIL", if you believe it exists, can do that. There's no need to intervene. And that's what we (USA) did do, up until late 2001.

Now the USA seems dead set on destabilizing the ME. Does isil sell oil too anyone? Not us. So what's the game plan behind swatting this hornets nest over And over? I honestly don't get it.
posted by mrbigmuscles at 6:26 PM on October 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

So his plan is for the USA to destabilize the region even more through military force and create more anti-US sentiment among the people we bomb accidentally? Call me stupid but that seems to be quite a good way to drive up oil prices. Oh and doesn't the UAE exclusively rely on oil cash to keep them from falling back into the stone age?
posted by Muncle at 7:55 PM on October 14, 2015

Or using the phrase "bad guys."

Or "evildoers".
posted by panama joe at 8:11 PM on October 14, 2015

Whenever I hear people discussing the Middle East, I always seem to imagine the insanely wealthy talking about surplus population. I'm seeing a therapist for it, I'm sure it's nothing
posted by Redhush at 4:13 PM on October 15, 2015