On Dec. 30, 2025, Saudi Arabian jets bombed southern Yemeni forces at the port city of Mukalla. Saudi officials said they sought to destroy arms that the United Arab Emirates sent to its allies in southern Yemen. Saudi authorities were upset that the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council recently consolidated its control over the Hadramawt, never mind that it did so to close off a smuggling route benefiting the Houthis.
The Emiratis had had enough. They entered Yemen alongside Saudi Arabia as the Houthis and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had overrun the country. The Emiratis and their Yemeni partners defeated al Qaeda and began building a functional state.
What the Saudis lacked in success, they made up for in jealousy. The Emiratis pulled out, allowing the Saudis to take responsibility for everything. Within days, al Qaeda returned to areas the Emiratis evacuated, the power went out, and the most secure regions of Yemen teetered on a return to chaos they had not seen in a decade.
In Washington, diplomats, analysts, and journalists framed the Yemen fiasco as the latest manifestation of the Saudi-Emirati rivalry. While true, stating the obvious misses the point. Lots of countries have rivalries: Australia and New Zealand, France and the United Kingdom, Brazil and Argentina, Japan and Taiwan. None of these rivalries endangers regional security or U.S. national interests.
The Saudi-Emirati rivalry does for one reason. As Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman competes with Emirati leader Muhammad bin Zayed, bin Salman remains unconstrained by any principle.
Take Yemen. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood domestically, for the same reason President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated many Muslim Brotherhood affiliates as a terrorist entity: The group is intolerant toward competitors and sanctions terrorist violence against both non-Muslims and Muslims who do not subscribe to its narrow, extremist, and cultish views. Yet, to undermine the Emiratis in Yemen, bin Salman partnered with Islah, the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate in Yemen, despite that group’s links to both al Qaeda and the Houthis.
The same holds true in Sudan. There are no angels in that country’s civil war, a conflict far bloodier than the wars in Gaza or Ukraine. Both Gen. Abdel Fattah al Burhan’s Sudanese Armed Forces and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti)’s Rapid Support Forces care little about collateral civilian casualties. The Emiratis support Hemedti, reportedly because he can better guarantee their commercial interests in Sudan and the routes the country opens into the interior of Africa. The Saudis join with Iran, Russia, Qatar, and Turkey to support al Burhan. Allying with the Islamic Republic of Iran should be a red line for any U.S. ally, but bin Salman does not care so long as he can play spoiler to the Emirates.
The same Saudi-Emirati rivalry plays out in Somalia, Libya, and Syria. In each case, Riyadh backs Islamist extremists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al Qaeda affiliates, while Abu Dhabi supports more moderate, pro-Western leaders.
In Somalia, Saudi Arabia sides with Qatar and Turkey to prop up a corrupt, terrorist-riddled regime in Somalia instead of democratic Somaliland. In Libya, Saudi Arabia undermines Emirati support for secularists and instead empowers Islamist groups that cheered the murder of the U.S. ambassador in 2012. In Syria, the Saudi crown prince supports the thinly veiled al Qaeda groups at the heart of President Ahmed al Sharaa’s regime, while the Emiratis seek to limit the influence of these extremists.
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Middle East analysts may pour forth rivalries to explain Saudi actions. They may also spread calumnies about the UAE supporting an “Axis of Secession” because of its support for Somaliland and southern Yemen. This misses the point.
The problem is not that the rivalry exists, but that Saudi Arabia supports the wrong side. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union had a rivalry, but Washington was right, and Moscow was wrong. There is no moral equivalence today between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. If Muhammad bin Salman does not grow up, Rubio and Congress should consider sanctions or even a terrorist designation.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential. He is the director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
