between Russia and the Iraqi government.”187 Nader is so highly placed in both Russian and key Middle Eastern political circles that he not only acts as “an informal adviser to then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki” but actually “accompanie[s] him to Moscow” in October 2012 for the signing of the arms deal the Iraqis have agreed to with the Kremlin.188 This alone establishes, as Vox will note in 2018, that beginning in 2012—at the very latest—“Nader was a power broker with real influence among Russian elites.”189 The Lebanese American businessman’s close connection to prominent Kremlin agents will be of paramount relevance when he begins meeting regularly, and secretly, with top officials from the Trump campaign in the final months of the 2016 election (see chapter 5).
Nader’s role in negotiating a Russia-Iraq arms deal is so central that it becomes controversial. In Moscow in August 2012, two months before al-Maliki signs the deal with Putin, Nader supersedes the authority of Iraqi defense minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi by—with al-Maliki’s blessing—conducting negotiations with the Kremlin of which the Iraqi Defense Ministry is unaware.190 Al-Maliki is so committed to using Nader as one of his top three negotiators in Moscow, rather than his own defense minister, that when former Russian energy minister Yuri Shafranik travels to Baghdad to ask al-Maliki directly with whom he should be negotiating in Moscow—at one point even offering the Iraqi prime minister “a direct communication line with Russian President Vladimir Putin to avoid confusion and leaks”—al-Maliki “welcome[s]” the entreaty but nevertheless shows up in Moscow two months later with Nader in tow as one of his chief negotiators.191
In 2012 Nader also attends the exclusive, invite-only St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a meeting of the world’s top economic and political power brokers that is “organized by senior officials in Putin’s inner orbit.”192 The next year, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a Kremlin investment vehicle run through state-owned development bank Vnesheconombank and directed by a Putin lieutenant named Kirill Dmitriev, enters into a co-investment agreement with the UAE that will eventually lead to an infusion of $6 billion in Emirati cash to various Russian infrastructure projects; the agreement between the Kremlin and Abu Dhabi comes after a face-to-face meeting between Putin and MBZ.193 By 2014, Nader has left his employ with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and is working as an adviser to MBZ, during which course of employment he becomes, according to the Mueller Report, a “close business associate” of Dmitriev, whom the report deems “closely associated” with Vladimir Putin. Though it is unknown whether Nader’s prior access to top Kremlin officials led to him having direct involvement in the highly lucrative 2013 RDIF-UAE negotiations, what is certain is that once Nader becomes an adviser to the Emirati royal court he “return[s] to Russia frequently,” according to the New York Times, and even “accompanie[s] [MBZ] … to Moscow on a number of those trips.”194 These contacts and trips make it “increasingly possible,” writes Vox, that by the time Nader convenes a secret meeting aboard a yacht in the Red Sea in fall 2015 he has “contacts deep inside Putin’s inner circle and could have acted as a messenger for key information about negotiations over how the U.S.-Russian relationship could be improved.”195 If indeed Nader is both a Kremlin intermediary and an Emirati agent as of fall 2015, the Red Sea Conspiracy must be seen as an agreement not only between the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt but involving Russia as well. Nader’s confirmed ties to Benjamin Netanyahu must also be considered relevant in light of subsequent actions by individuals connected to the Israeli government that seem to import the consent of Netanyahu’s office to any “grand bargain” agreed upon in late 2015 (see chapters 3, 4, and 8).
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As Nader’s star is rising in the Middle East and Russia, so too is that of Erik Prince, who by 2010 has moved to the United Arab Emirates amid widening legal difficulties for his private security company, Blackwater. In the UAE, Prince soon signs his $529 million deal with the Emirati royal family to build a “secret American-led mercenary army,” specifically “an 800-member battalion of foreign troops,” for the wealthy Arab nation.196 R2, Prince’s battalion of non-Emirati mercenaries, is a precursor to the assassination squads the UAE will have developed by 2015 (see chapter 3). In 2011, however, Prince’s remit is to “conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country [UAE], defend oil pipelines