Modi under pressure to join broad anti-IS coalition

In that light, Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar’s recent visit to the UAE – delayed by a couple days for unknown reasons – has special significance.

Even more important was the sailing of a naval flotilla of three ships, led by a frigate, INS Tarkash, making a port call, holds a major symbolic value. Coming as it did after the UAE-led coalition force defeating and capturing the Al Muqalla port town in Hadramaut province of Yemen, the visits of the ships and the minister constitute a package of military diplomacySuccess at al Muqalla was achieved by the UAE forces on 24 April, a little more than a month ago, leading the coalition forces that included the armed force of the Yemeni government of Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

The coalition undertook the ground offensive after the US attacked the Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) from air through drones and fighter aircraft.

Having said that, though the UAE savoured the military victory, “They were not happy to be sucked into the conflicts of West Asia, which they believe is the mess created by Saudi Arabia,” says Prof AK Pasha, a senior academic of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

He says in the “short term,” the UAE would like to be emerging out of the shadow of Saudi Arabia for reasons that classically have been exemplified by the Yemen crisis. The country, one should recall, was not so long ago had felt the stirring of what the Western media had very optimistically termed ‘Arab Spring.’ The period of popular revolt, led by the youth of some of these countries that are ruled by various non-democratic potentates for long. And the ‘youth bulge that the US academic, Samuel Huntington had identified to be the main change-agency of the region, just before his death in 2008, seemed be reaching a fruition.

But instead the Saudi attempt at influencing the events of the region of West Asian had seen them siding with the most reactionary forces of chiefs like Hadi, which later transformed into a full-fledged civil war between them and the Shia-dominated Houthi tribals.

The US brought into focus the regional players like the UAE into this mess. Pasha pointed out that the emiratis of the UAE disliked to be seen on the same side of Riyadh for they did not want their areas to be engulfed into a Sunni-Shia battleground. The JNU don points out that the UAE has significant investments in Iran, and the most business friendly (non-oil) regimes of Dubai and Abu Dhabi did not want any of that trouble to be spilling over.

India, in the opinion of the UAE leadership, can be a force of stabilisation as it has the best of relations with Tehran and also a working relationship with Riyadh. Moreover, India has one of the highly-trained largest armed force of the world, in the periphery of these battlegrounds. Plus, 250 million Muslim population do not seem as much restive with Islamist thoughts as even the population of Germany or France or for that matter, Belgium.

In other words, the UAE’s structured defence exchange process – the annual defence dialogue and a Joint Defence Commerce Committee – leaves a leeway for New Delhi to play larger role. Considering that the largest number of Indian expatriate population is in the region, it has a interest to safeguard. Clearly, the Parrikar last month’s visit has opened more avenues for cooperation that go beyond the ten-line press brief the MEA issued.