Saudi Arabia and the UAE Are Leading the Middle East’s Two New Rival Teams

Iran’s recent dominance of Middle East news headlines, amid its violent crackdown on protesters and speculation about possible US military strikes, obscures a more significant regional shift. Tehran is no longer a major player in shaping the region’s strategic path. Instead, the Middle East is entering a new phase characterized by competition between two emerging blocs: the Abrahamic alliance and the Islamic alliance. How this rivalry develops—rather than Iran’s next move—will do more to determine the future of the region and the United States’ role in it.

Although there are no formal alliances between these two blocs, these two blocs are becoming increasingly cohesive. The first aspect centers around Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and extends outward to include Morocco, Greece, and even India. This camp is reactionary and seeks to reshape the region through military power, technological cooperation, and economic integration.

Iran’s recent dominance of Middle East news headlines, amid its violent crackdown on protesters and speculation about possible US military strikes, obscures a more significant regional shift. Tehran is no longer a major player in shaping the region’s strategic path. Instead, the Middle East is entering a new phase characterized by competition between two emerging blocs: the Abrahamic alliance and the Islamic alliance. How this rivalry develops—rather than Iran’s next move—will do more to determine the future of the region and the United States’ role in it.

Although there are no formal alliances between these two blocs, these two blocs are becoming increasingly cohesive. The first aspect centers around Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and extends outward to include Morocco, Greece, and even India. This camp is reactionary and seeks to reshape the region through military power, technological cooperation, and economic integration.

Its core members share the belief that the current regime in the Middle East has failed to stem the tide of radical Islam, whether in its Shiite form supported by Iran or in its Sunni form supported by Turkey and Qatar. They assume that lasting stability can only be achieved by intervening in the various conflicts in the region to support more secular forces. Exploiting US President Donald Trump’s desire to expand the Abraham Accords, these countries prioritize expanding the circle of Arab-Israeli normalization – regardless of progress towards Palestinian self-determination or Israel’s acceptance of the two-state solution.

This Abrahamic alliance is on the rise. The Israeli military campaigns that followed the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 restored lost deterrence and strengthened its ability to project force. Meanwhile, the UAE, dubbed “Little Sparta,” has continued to leverage its economic influence and diplomatic flexibility to expand its presence beyond the Gulf region. UN experts and international NGOs suspect it of providing weapons to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, the Southern Transitional Council in Yemen, and Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Greece has emerged as a key partner in the eastern Mediterranean, cooperating with Israel in military exercises and energy initiatives to confront Türkiye, a common strategic rival. Farther east, India’s expanding engagement with Israel and the UAE – both bilaterally and through multilateral frameworks such as I2U2 and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor – has given this bloc a strategic depth that extends far beyond the Middle East itself.

The Abrahamic axis opposes the Islamic coalition, an attempt at balance led by Saudi Arabia, along with Türkiye, Pakistan, Qatar, and, more cautiously, Egypt. These countries view the Israeli-Emirati axis as highly destabilizing. They believe that the Brahimi Alliance’s support for separatist forces leads to exacerbating the division in conflict areas in the region. They view the narrative of retreat against Islamic forces as a self-serving pretext to project power. They prefer to maintain and work within existing structures, imperfect as they may be. Whether in Yemen, Sudan or elsewhere, they support weak and broken states struggling to exercise their sovereignty and maintain their territorial integrity.

Last year, Saudi Arabia moved to strengthen defense ties with Pakistan, formalizing a joint security agreement after an unprecedented Israeli air strike on neighboring Qatar. Its military cooperation with Türkiye has also expanded significantly, and a more formal defense agreement appears to be on the horizon. Egypt, which feels uncomfortable with Emirati and Israeli activity in the Horn of Africa, is in discussions with Riyadh about closer coordination in Sudan and Somalia. These countries now form a loose but growing counterweight extending across the region’s east-west axis.

At the heart of this realignment lies the most important dual rift in the Middle East today: the growing rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. After it was difficult to distinguish between the two Gulf powers, the two Gulf powers have now become strategic competitors. Their difference was recently underscored in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia struck the port of Mukalla to halt Emirati arms transfers. Riyadh prevailed, forcing the UAE to withdraw, but Yemen is only one arena in a broader contest.

If the Saudi and Emirati competition is not managed, it may escalate from proxy wars to direct confrontation. It could turn into airspace restrictions, border closures, and Emirati withdrawal from Saudi-dominated institutions such as OPEC+. In fact, such threats have already been made by senior officials. These previously unthinkable steps would shake energy markets, disrupt regional travel, and significantly impact the ability to do business across borders.

So far, quiet diplomacy between the Gulf states has helped contain the clash, but the fundamental difference is structural, not accidental, and not just personal between the strongmen in both countries. It is an essential part of the new regional construction and also a consequence of it.

The rivalry between the Abrahamic and Islamic alliances also complicates one of Washington’s main foreign policy goals: Saudi-Israeli normalization. Riyadh still sees value in a deal that would provide it with a treaty commitment to its security by the United States in exchange for Israel’s full integration into the regional order. But in the absence of meaningful changes in Israeli policy — especially regarding Gaza and the West Bank — the kingdom is likely to continue to move closer to Turkey and Pakistan, and even move away from Israel.

For the United States, its main strategic challenge is no longer confronting Iran, whose regime appears mortally wounded and whose regional axis is severely deteriorated. It manages harmful competition among its partners in order to prevent further fragmentation. Its mission is complicated by divisions within Washington itself, where senior administration officials are estranged from each other and suspected of having independent business interests in the region. The result was a hands-off approach rather than any serious effort by the US administration to mediate.

To achieve a historic breakthrough in the Middle East, Trump will need to do two things. First, the president will have to more actively manage rivalries among America’s partners as well as among his aides. Appointing a special envoy responsible for implementing a uniquely coordinated approach to the region would achieve both goals. Second, he will need to maintain a viable path toward Saudi-Israeli normalization by shaping political outcomes in Jerusalem after legislative elections later this year. It is essential for the next Israeli government not to be hostage to an extremist group determined to prevent the Palestinians’ right to self-determination in the service of their Christian beliefs.

Saudi Arabia is the major swing state in the Middle East. Saudi policy, as one of its senior officials described it to me, is pragmatic rather than ideological – guided by “maximum flexibility at a time of maximum uncertainty.”

If Trump succeeds in achieving Saudi-Israeli normalization before leaving office, he could still move Riyadh and the region off its current competitive path. He is capable of folding the Abrahamic and Islamic alliances under America’s huge Middle Eastern tent, and achieving the stability of the post-Iran order in the region in light of the American priority for decades.