Latest news with #AbdulkhaleqAbdulla
Newsweek
13-08-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Key US Ally Eyes Alternative to America's F-35 Jet
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The United Arab Emirates is eyeing South Korea's most advanced fighter jet, the KF-21 Boramae, after canceling plans to acquire U.S. F-35 stealth fighters. Newsweek has reached out to the Emirati Defense Ministry and South Korea's Air Force for comment. Why It Matters South Korea is emerging as a major defense exporter. The UAE, another key U.S. ally, is weighing alternatives to American weapons, highlighting a shift among Arab nations toward suppliers such as South Korea, China, and Turkey, fueled by curbs on the F-35 program and mounting frustration over Washington's failure to broker a Gaza ceasefire while continuing to offer Israel unwavering support. A model of a KF-21 Boramae multi-role fighter aircraft is displayed during the Farnborough International Airshow on July 23, 2024 in Farnborough, England. A model of a KF-21 Boramae multi-role fighter aircraft is displayed during the Farnborough International Airshow on July 23, 2024 in Farnborough, To Know During talks on security and defense-industry cooperation, the UAE's defense undersecretary inspected a prototype version of South Korea's KF-21 at Sacheon Air Base and flew as a passenger in the rear seat of one of the aircraft, officials said. In April, the two countries signed a letter of intent to pursue comprehensive cooperation on the KF-21 fighter jet program. The KF-21 Boramae, set to replace aging F-4 and F-5 jets, is being developed by Korea Aerospace Industries and the Korean Agency for Defense Development with partners including Lockheed Martin. It has a 1,000 km combat range, carries air-to-air, air-to-surface, and anti-ship missiles plus guided and cluster bombs, as well as featuring semi-stealth characteristics, according to the National Security Journal, a defense platform. The UAE announced plans to purchase 50 F-35 jets soon after normalizing ties with Israel under the 2020 Abraham Accords but canceled the deal because of U.S. security conditions, operational restrictions, and tensions over Emirati relations with China, prompting the Gulf nation to pursue a broader strategy of weapons diversification. The UAE pledged to invest over $1 trillion in the U.S. economy over the next decade during President Donald Trump's visit to the country as part of a Gulf tour in May 2025. South Korea accelerates plans for KF-21 Block 2 and maritime helicopter procurement. — International Defence Analysis (@Defence_IDA) August 13, 2025 What People Are Saying Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, UAE professor of political science and non-resident senior fellow at Harvard University, told Newsweek: "From now on the UAE is no longer bound by one source for modernizing its Armed Forces. This has come as a result of America being too demanding and being very political. I believe the F-35 deal triggered it massively. France is there, with little conditions, definitely less than the American ones, and now we also find out that in the east there's a strong partner called South Korea." The Army Recognition Group defense news website says: "Compared to the F-35 Lightning II, the KF-21 offers less stealth and lacks full fifth-generation networking capability but compensates with significantly lower acquisition and operating costs, simplified maintenance and fewer export restrictions, which could be appealing to countries seeking operational independence." South Korea's Air Force Chief of Staff General Lee Young-su said in February after a flight test, according to The Korean Times: "In terms of power, maneuverability, avionics and weapon capabilities, I am confident that the KF-21 will stand shoulder to shoulder with world-class fighter jets." What Happens Next South Korea plans to roll out an upgraded KF-21EX variant with internal weapons bays and enhanced stealth features.
Los Angeles Times
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
News Analysis: Arab and Gulf nations fear U.S. attack on Iran will destabilize the region
BEIRUT — Last month, President Trump stood in the palatial ballroom of the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, and rebuked America's misadventures in the Middle East. As Saudi officials and U.S. business leaders looked on, Trump said that too many of his predecessors were 'afflicted with the notion that it's our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins.' 'In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built,' he added. 'And the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand.' A mere five weeks later, Trump appears to be on the cusp of his own Middle Eastern adventure, one with uncomfortable parallels to America's invasion of Iraq in 2003. That conflict — which killed at least 100,000 Iraqis and some 4,400 Americans, lasted almost nine years and destabilized the region for half a generation after. It became the prime example of the 'forever wars' Trump railed against during his election campaign, and a lesson in the folly of intervening with no clear endgame. For Trump's Persian Gulf and Arab allies, the prospect of a repeat performance has left them scrabbling for a diplomatic off-ramp. 'There are no nations on the face of the Earth working harder than the Gulf countries today to calm the situation and stop this crazy war. They are absolutely against any military confrontation,' said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati political scientist and commentator, adding that leaders of the United Arab Emirates have been 'burning the phones' round the clock. 'I've never seen their diplomacy more active and more engaged than it is today to bring an end to this.' Most Arab governments have little love lost on Iran, which they view as an unruly neighbor fomenting unrest in their own backyards. Its nuclear program has long been a concern, but the bigger fear has often been Iran's allies in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, and their loyalties with a Shiite-majority Iran in a Sunni-dominated Arab world. During the Biden administration, U.S. officials hoped to use that antipathy to forge an anti-Iran coalition that would see friendly nations like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE cooperating with Israel to isolate Tehran. Instead, rapprochement with Iran has been the modus operandi in recent years, with Gulf countries normalizing and easing tensions with the Islamic Republic under the calculation that regional stability would bring regional prosperity. All were quick to condemn Israel's attacks last week. Saudi Arabia, which for years engaged in proxy matches with Iran and was often seen as its main competitor for regional influence, denounced what it called 'blatant Israeli aggressions against the brotherly Islamic Republic of Iran.' The UAE said much the same. Despite being an enthusiastic member of the Abraham Accords, the Trump-brokered treaty that established relations between Israel and a raft of Arab nations, the UAE excoriated Israel for attacking Iran. On Tuesday, the Emirati ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, called Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to express his solidarity; the same day, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed emphasized a diplomatic approach was needed to 'prevent the situation from spiraling into grave and far-reaching consequences.' That focus on diplomacy, observers say, reflects pragmatism: If the U.S. were to enter the conflict, it's likely Iran — or one of its allied militias — would lash out at American personnel, bases and other interests in the region, including in the UAE. There are more than 40,000 U.S. soldiers and civilian contractors stationed in the Middle East, according to statements by Pentagon officials (though that number has fluctuated since Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023). The Council on Foreign Relations says the U.S. operates military facilities in 19 locations in countries such as Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the UAE. Eight of the facilities are considered permanent. Pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria have in the past regularly attacked U.S. bases. Last year, a drone launched by an Iranian-backed militia on a U.S. base in Jordan near the Syrian border killed three U.S. soldiers and injured 47 others. Also, there is precedent for Iran's allies attacking economic concerns, such as when the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen sent drones striking oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia in 2019 and the UAE in 2022. Iran may also decide to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway that handles a fifth of the world's energy flows. Meanwhile, Qatar shares ownership of the South Pars/North Dome field in Iran, the largest natural gas field in the world, which was hit last week in Israel's strikes. The UAE and other Gulf countries 'absolutely do not want to be caught in the middle of a broader conflict nor do they want to be targeted by any party, as they have been in the past,' said Elham Fakhro, a Gulf researcher at Harvard's Belfer Center. She added governments also fear fallout from a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities could contaminate natural resources they share with Iran. Others, unsure how far the U.S. and Israel will go — whether they still stop at crippling Iran's nuclear and missile programs or push for regime change — fear the impacts of the Iranian state disintegrating. Foremost in their minds are the aftereffects of America's toppling of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, which unleashed sectarian rage, saw Iraq engulfed in blood-drenched bedlam and empowered terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. 'It's not in the interest of the Gulf states to see their large neighbor Iran collapse,' wrote former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Jaber Al Thani in a post on X, adding that the region saw the consequences of what happened in Iraq. He urged Gulf decision-makers to 'immediately halt this madness initiated by Israel.' 'This war will also have profound repercussions for our region and perhaps the world,' he wrote. 'Ultimately, the victor will not always be victorious and the vanquished will never be defeated.' Behind that rhetoric is a growing conviction that Israel, rather than Iran, is the biggest threat to instability in the region, said Abdulla, the Emirati political scientist. Iran, after all, is diminished. In the past, it could rely on the so-called 'Axis of Resistance' — a constellation of pro-Tehran militias and governments in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan — to frustrate adversaries' plans. But the last 20 months of fighting have seen Israel cripple militant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah while the U.S. has subdued Iraqi militias. Israel, on the other hand, he said, continues to wreak havoc in Gaza and is planning to annex the West Bank. It has also occupied areas in Syria. 'Imperial Iran is probably no longer. OK, that's an opportunity. But imperial Israel is not necessarily good for the stability of the region either,' Abdulla said. U.S. intelligence officials say Iran is not pursuing a nuclear bomb — contradicting Trump, who has said the opposite — and intelligence assessment experts quoted by CNN this week said Tehran was at least three years away from building a bomb and delivering it in a strike. (For all his complaints about American interventions in the Middle East — and claims that he had opposed the Iraq war two decades ago — when Trump was asked by radio personality Howard Stern in 2002 if he supported invading Iraq, he replied, 'Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly.') If the U.S. were to attack Iran now, it would likely supercharge efforts to bulk up the militaries not just in Iran but elsewhere in the region. This week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said regional threats necessitated a ramping up of his nation's medium- and long-range missiles, saying they were needed for deterrence. 'Soon, we'll reach a defense capacity that no one will dare challenge. … If you're not strong politically, socially, economically and militarily, you lack deterrence, and you're vulnerable,' Erdogan said. 'We will elevate our level of deterrence so high that not only will they not attack us — they won't even dare to think about it.'
The National
09-05-2025
- Politics
- The National
A self-assured UAE is playing a balancing role in a dynamic world
Dr Abdulkhaleq Abdulla is a UAE-based retired professor of political science. He is currently a non-resident senior fellow at Harvard University
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
UAE first country set to use AI to write laws
The United Arab Emirates will be the first country to use artificial intelligence to write and review laws. As part of a wider shift to digitise the Gulf country, its ruler announced federal and local laws will be written by computers, along with judicial rulings, executive procedures and public services. A new cabinet unit named the Regulatory Intelligence Office was approved last week to oversee the move, which will streamline the legislative process, the UAE vice president said. 'This new legislative system, powered by artificial intelligence, will change how we create laws, making the process faster and more precise,' said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is also the ruler of Dubai. Emirati political commentator Abdulkhaleq Abdulla told The Telegraph that AI is a long-term project for the Arab states. 'The UAE is very serious about AI. It wants to be a global AI and digital economy hub just as it is a global financial and logistics hub. 'It is investing massively in digital infrastructure to stay ahead of the crowd in the next 50 years, just as it invested generously in its physical infrastructure over the past 50 years,' said Mr Abdulla. In 2017, the UAE appointed the world's first AI minister, Omar Bin Sultan Al Olama, days after the launch of the UAE Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, a big part of the UAE's decades-long objectives, aiming to improve government performance. The Gulf state estimates that by 2030, AI will have a global market value of $15.7 trillion (£11.8 trillion) boosting the UAE's GDP by 35 per cent and reducing government costs by 50 per cent. Hesham Elrafei, a solicitor and UAE law drafter, told The Telegraph that the UAE is doing more than just using AI to write laws. 'It's introducing a new way of making them. Instead of the traditional parliamentary model – where laws get stuck in endless political debates and take years to pass – this approach is faster, clearer, and based on solving real problems,' he said. 'AI can analyse court judgements, spot problems, and suggest laws that fill the gaps. It can also study the best laws from around the world and help draft better versions suited to the UAE.' For a country where only 10 per cent of the population is local, making laws clear to the nation comprising around 200 nationalities, is important, he said. 'This also means writing laws in clear, plain language, in both Arabic , English and other languages, so people can understand them. That's essential in a country where so many residents aren't native Arabic speakers. 'In contrast, in many Western democracies, laws are often so complex that ordinary people can't understand them without hiring a lawyer. That creates distance between people and the law. The UAE is closing that gap.' He said it is a move which could redefine how modern governments create laws. 'In many democracies, lawmaking is about compromise and politics. Here, we're seeing a shift to data, logic, and results,' he said. 'Brazil tested AI to draft a law, and it worked. But the UAE is going further, turning lawmaking into a fast, practical, and people-focused process. It's a move away from outdated systems built on political compromise, towards one built on technology.' However, in the Financial Times, experts warned of the possible pitfalls. Vincent Straub, a researcher at Oxford university said: 'We can't trust them … they continue to hallucinate [and] have reliability issues and robustness issues.' Keegan McBride, a lecturer at the Oxford Internet Institute, said the UAE has had an 'easier time' embracing sweeping government digitalisation than many democratic nations have. 'They're able to move fast. They can sort of experiment with things,' he told the FT. 'In terms of ambition, [the UAE are] right there near the top.' A safety net must be in place to safeguard the system, warned Marina De Vos, a computer scientist at Bath university. The AI could propose something 'really, really weird' that 'makes sense to a machine', she told the FT, but 'may absolutely make no sense to really implement it out there for real in a human society'. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
21-04-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
UAE first country set to use AI to write laws
The United Arab Emirates will be the first country to use artificial intelligence to write and review laws. As part of a wider shift to digitise the Gulf country, its ruler announced federal and local laws will be written by computers, along with judicial rulings, executive procedures and public services. A new cabinet unit named the Regulatory Intelligence Office was approved last week to oversee the move, which will streamline the legislative process, the UAE vice president said. 'This new legislative system, powered by artificial intelligence, will change how we create laws, making the process faster and more precise,' said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is also the ruler of Dubai. Emirati political commentator Abdulkhaleq Abdulla told The Telegraph that AI is a long-term project for the Arab states. 'The UAE is very serious about AI. It wants to be a global AI and digital economy hub just as it is a global financial and logistics hub. Ahead of the crowd 'It is investing massively in digital infrastructure to stay ahead of the crowd in the next 50 years, just as it invested generously in its physical infrastructure over the past 50 years,' said Mr Abdulla. In 2017, the UAE appointed the world's first AI minister, Omar Bin Sultan Al Olama, days after the launch of the UAE Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, a big part of the UAE's decades-long objectives, aiming to improve government performance. The Gulf state estimates that by 2030, AI will have a global market value of $15.7 trillion (£11.8 trillion) boosting the UAE's GDP by 35 per cent and reducing government costs by 50 per cent. Hesham Elrafei, a solicitor and UAE law drafter, told The Telegraph that the UAE is doing more than just using AI to write laws. 'It's introducing a new way of making them. Instead of the traditional parliamentary model – where laws get stuck in endless political debates and take years to pass – this approach is faster, clearer, and based on solving real problems,' he said. 'AI can analyse court judgements, spot problems, and suggest laws that fill the gaps. It can also study the best laws from around the world and help draft better versions suited to the UAE.' For a country where only 10 per cent of the population is local, making laws clear to the nation comprising around 200 nationalities, is important, he said. 'This also means writing laws in clear, plain language, in both Arabic , English and other languages, so people can understand them. That's essential in a country where so many residents aren't native Arabic speakers. 'In contrast, in many Western democracies, laws are often so complex that ordinary people can't understand them without hiring a lawyer. That creates distance between people and the law. The UAE is closing that gap.' Shift to data to logic He said it is a move which could redefine how modern governments create laws. 'In many democracies, lawmaking is about compromise and politics. Here, we're seeing a shift to data, logic, and results,' he said. 'Brazil tested AI to draft a law, and it worked. But the UAE is going further, turning lawmaking into a fast, practical, and people-focused process. It's a move away from outdated systems built on political compromise, towards one built on technology.' However, in the Financial Times, experts warned of the possible pitfalls. Vincent Straub, a researcher at Oxford university said: 'We can't trust them … they continue to hallucinate [and] have reliability issues and robustness issues.' Keegan McBride, a lecturer at the Oxford Internet Institute, said the UAE has had an 'easier time' embracing sweeping government digitalisation than many democratic nations have. 'They're able to move fast. They can sort of experiment with things,' he told the FT. 'In terms of ambition, [the UAE are] right there near the top.' A safety net must be in place to safeguard the system, warned Marina De Vos, a computer scientist at Bath university. The AI could propose something 'really, really weird' that 'makes sense to a machine', she told the FT, but 'may absolutely make no sense to really implement it out there for real in a human society'.
