Former US Vice President Dick Cheney warned Monday that "American disengagement" in the Middle East will benefit only Iran and Russia, indirectly criticizing US President Donald Trump's pledges to pull forces out of the region.
While stressing that he's no longer in government, Cheney's comments in Dubai cut to the core of several policies taken by Trump, including the sudden withdrawal of US forces from Syria.
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The former vice president mentioned Trump by name only once in praising him for pulling out the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. But Cheney's backing of a muscular military response in the Middle East starkly contrasts with Trump's promises to pull America from what he calls the Middle East's "bloodstained sands."
"Russia is always on standby to fill power voids. That is how it happened that Russian troops swept in when the US left northern Syria," Cheney told the Arab Strategy Forum.
"To sum up that still-unfolding story: nobody will remember it as our finest hour."
Cheney said that, as well as other challenges from extremist groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State, show "inaction can carry even greater risk than action."
"There are some deeply malign forces at work in the broader Middle East, as well as disturbing influences from outside," Cheney said. "Disengagement is just another term for leaving all the power to them."
On Iran, Cheney alleged that "the mullahs in Tehran want most of all to acquire nuclear weapons." However, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran stopped any organized nuclear weapons research in 2003 and Tehran insists its program is for peaceful purposes, even as it begins breaking limits of the deal.
Cheney called NATO "the most-formidable alliance in history."
"This post-war system has been so fundamental that it has hardly mattered year to year which political parties were in power," the vice president added, leaving unmentioned Trump's criticism of the alliance.
Cheney's visit marks one of many by former Western officials drawn to the Emirates for speaking fees at any number of panels and events held in this federation of seven sheikdoms home to the skyscraper-studded city of Dubai.
While praised as "Little Sparta" by former US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the UAE also has drawn increased scrutiny in Washington as Abu Dhabi's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan found himself named in the Mueller report. The Emirates' involvement in the yearslong Saudi-led war in Yemen also drew criticism, though Abu Dhabi has begun withdrawing troops from the campaign in recent months.
Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, attended the talk by Cheney. Cheney made a point himself to describe the UAE as "confident, forward-looking influence in the Middle East."
As defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush, Cheney helped form the coalition that forced Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War. He visited the UAE in 1990, becoming at that time the highest-ranking US official to ever visit the country.
The 1991 war gave birth to the wide American military footprint across the region, including in the United Arab Emirates, which hosts some 5,000 US troops at Abu Dhabi's Al Dhafra Air Base and elsewhere. Dubai's Jebel Ali port is the US Navy's busiest foreign port of call.
Cheney also visited the Emirates as vice president as the US relied on the UAE and other Middle East partners amid the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 war in Iraq that ousted Saddam but sparked sectarian warfare that ultimately birthed the Islamic State.
