WikiLeaked: Drone Envy
After you read through enough of these WikiLeaks cables, you realize that most of it is fairly mundane. And then you stumble on a line like this: Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to CENTCOM Commander John Abizaid: "The Somalia job was fantastic." The Somalia job? The month is January 2007, ...
After you read through enough of these WikiLeaks cables, you realize that most of it is fairly mundane. And then you stumble on a line like this: Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to CENTCOM Commander John Abizaid: "The Somalia job was fantastic."
After you read through enough of these WikiLeaks cables, you realize that most of it is fairly mundane. And then you stumble on a line like this: Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to CENTCOM Commander John Abizaid: "The Somalia job was fantastic."
The Somalia job?
The month is January 2007, and U.S. airstrikes have just taken out alleged al Qaeda leaders in Somalia. Days earlier, an American-backed Ethiopian invasion of the East African country rolled into Mogadishu and unseated Somalia’s government — the first functioning (if still flawed) one it had had in two decades. The job would later go a bit sour: Today, the central government controls just about a third of the land in the capital. The rest is in the hands of one of several Islamist militant groups that sprang from the extremes of that once-ousted government. Yes, the one ousted by the Somalia job.
But back to the cable: the point here might be more about the weapon than the target. During the conversation, Zayed makes clear that he wants to acquire predator drones as a signal to Iran: "Iran has to know that there is a price to pay for every decision they make. They are expanding day by day — they have to be dealt with before they do something tragic."
I wonder if they’ll finally get what they asked for in the $7 billion U.S. arms deal anticipated to land in the UAE next year?
Elizabeth Dickinson is International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Colombia.
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