The complex dance of Middle Eastern politics just got even more complicated

With Trump sucking all the oxygen out of the media room, it's easy to forget that there are other things going on around the world, some of them almost as bad as what Trump is bringing.

For instance, did you know that Saudi Arabia is currently bombing the United Arab Emirates. Sounds improbable, right? Saudi and UAE are anti-Iran allies, no? It's not just that UAE and Saudi Arabia are majority Sunni Muslim countries, while Iran is largely Shia. But both countries are strongly opposed to Iran's regional influence, and its support for insurgent groups like the Houthis in Yemen.

So, why would the Saudi Royal Air force be dropping bombs on UAE troops in the Yemeni port city of Mukalla. Well, it turns out that UAE is also supporting, financially and militarily, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), the secessionist group that has effectively carved out a statelet in South Yemen, right on Saudi Arabia's southern border. 

The Saudis have been fighting against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen since 2015 in a kind of Sunni-Shia proxy war. The STC's call for an independent Yemeni state has complicated an already difficult situation

But when Saudi Arabia recently found out that UAE was sending armoured vehicles and heavy weaponry to the STC, it decided to intervene in dramatic fashion. Rightly or wrongly, the Saudi kingdom views the presence of a separatist entity on its southern border as an existential threat. 

The Saudi attack was clearly strong enough to force UAE forces to quit Mukalla completely, and its personnel were seen in a rather chaotic retreat out of the area. The Riyadh-backed National Shield Forces (Daraa al-Watan) has moved into the vacuum created. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is also somewhere in the mix, looking to capitalize on any confusion and dissent. Man, Middle Eastern politics is complicated!

Surprisingly, the Trump administration has had nothing to say about all this. It's not clear if they are even aware of it. Israel is of course worried that the once monumental Arabic anti-Iran front now appears fractured and fighting among themselves. The complex dance that is the Middle East has just made another pirouette.