gathering of ministers and senior officials from the Middle East, North Africa, the subcontinent and the Group of Eight (G8) industrial nations” that “threats on the ground create a strong case for making the Middle East a region free of weapons of mass destruction. Any situation to the contrary would open the door for continuous conflicts and threaten regional and international peace and security.”163 The Emirates’ concern about multinational nuclearization in the Middle East soon leads the UAE to endorse a draft resolution at the United Nations establishing the Middle East as a “nuclear weapon free zone.”164 The sheikh’s admonition against the spread of nuclear weapons in the region, however, is a warning that the UAE and its closest ally, Saudi Arabia, will shortly ignore—as soon as they find an American politician willing to help them realize their long-dormant nuclear ambitions.
* * *
In 2009, mercenary company owner Elliott Broidy is convicted of a misdemeanor for paying $1 million in bribes to New York government officials; in exchange for these bribes, Broidy had secured $250 million in pension investments in a company he founded in Israel.165 In Abu Dhabi, an American diplomat sends a cable to Washington observing that MBZ is building up a mercenary army to counter a nuclearized Iran: MBZ “sees the logic of war dominating the [Middle East] region,” the cable says, “and this thinking explains his near-obsessive efforts to build up his armed forces.”166 That the Emirati military is small and “considered inexperienced” is a source of significant worry for MBZ.167
The man in charge of raising MBZ’s mercenary army in 2010, working under the project title “Reflex Responses” or “R2,” is Erik Prince—who is favored by MBZ not least because he is able to quickly congregate mercenary armies of non-Muslims, a critical skill set given that MBZ does not “believe Muslim soldiers could be trusted to kill other Muslims.”168 According to The Intercept, working on R2 gives Prince an opportunity he has long lusted for: “to own a piece of each part of the foreign conflict supply chain: planes, ships, vehicles, weapons, intelligence, men, and logistics. Reflex Responses gave him a blank check to do just that.”169 In running R2, Prince decides, as he has done with many of his prior companies, to create a shell corporation from which he can anonymously run his operation—the better to ensure, as The Intercept observes, that he can’t be connected with any documents related to the project, has more freedom to engage in illicit self-dealing, and if need be can make the case, however implausibly, that his actions were not subject to U.S. laws like the State Department’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).170 Prince names R2’s controlling shell corporation Assurance Management Consultants.171 A former R2 colleague of Prince’s will observe to The Intercept that “everything he [Prince] does, he skims.… He will run a contract through two companies and then dictate that those two companies have to subcontract out to another eight companies. What he doesn’t disclose is that he owns all or part of those eight companies and will take 25 percent from each company. Then, he can use those same eight entities to make the money disappear.”172 Another former R2 employee will add that “there was a way to do it [run R2] legally and make lots of money, but Erik didn’t care. When Erik wakes up in the morning, Erik does whatever he feels like doing. I always assumed that’s how it is when your father is a billionaire.”173
Between May 2009—when another billionaire, Donald Trump, sets up his Twitter account—and Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign against Mitt Romney (R-MA), Trump tweets at least nine times about Saudi Arabia, in each case criticizing either the Saudis’ decisions regarding oil production or President Obama’s alleged “bow” to the Saudi king during a trip to Riyadh; a running theme in his tweets is the false accusation that Obama has entered into a covert conspiracy with the Saudis in order to win reelection to the White House.174 Indeed, Trump is conspicuously focused on the idea of a U.S. president gaining the White House partly through collusion with the Saudis, stating without evidence on April 4, 2012, that “Barack Obama made a deal with Saudi Arabia to pump the hell out of oil until after the election. Watch what happens to oil prices after the election (if he wins)—it won’t be pretty.”175 Ninety days later he repeats the accusation on “I believe Barack Obama made a deal with the Saudis