As Saudi Arabia prepared to host a summit of Gulf Arab leaders on Tuesday, political commentators in the neighboring United Arab Emirates began furiously dropping hints online that major news was coming.
For weeks, Emirati officials had been openly expressing frustration with their Arab neighbors, complaining about their weak stance toward Iran, which had fired thousands of missiles and drones at Gulf countries in response to U.S. and Israeli bombing. Analysts wondered if the Emirates would demonstrate that displeasure at the summit.
Then, just as the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, commenced the meeting, the Emirati government dropped a bombshell from hundreds of miles away: it announced that it was leaving OPEC, a cartel of oil-producing countries that wields sway over global energy prices.
Emirati officials said they were doing so in order to unilaterally increase their oil production and meet the market’s long-term needs, but the fact that OPEC’s de facto leader is Saudi Arabia was lost on no one in the region.
Whether the timing of the announcement was intentional or coincidental, it was a potent symbol of the recent, tectonic shifts reshaping the Middle East, which have only accelerated during the war. By pulling away from OPEC, the Emirati government demonstrated that is willing to make dramatic moves in its own interests, and will not be constrained by traditional alliances and conventions.
“It is an Emirati declaration of independence,” said Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a research organization. “They no longer feel beholden to institutions that don’t align with their interests.”
The advent of an unbound Emirates has implications for markets, economies and conflicts around the world. With more than $2 trillion in sovereign wealth, the tiny country has cultivated influence far beyond its borders.
In an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, the Emirati energy minister, Suhail Al Mazrouei, suggested that the decision to withdraw from OPEC had “nothing to do with any specific producer.” Saudi Arabia and the Emirates are “brothers,” standing together during the crisis caused by the war, he added.
“What we’re seeing today is like a new U.A.E.,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent Emirati political scientist. “This is how the U.A.E. will be behaving, and will be conducting itself regionally, globally.”
In recent years, Emirati officials have spoken of the importance of pursuing their own economic interests, chafing at quotas set by OPEC that curtailed their oil production.
They have deepened their alliance with Israel, while other Arab governments keep their distance or pull further away from it.
In Yemen, the Emirates has supported an armed insurgency, angering Saudi leaders, who back the government there.