Coups and Cooperation: The Gulf Monarchies and Iran’s Sahel Strategy

On July 6, the military leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger signed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) treaty. The AES positioned itself as overtly anti-Western and opposed to the influence of the Western-friendly Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc. Burkina Faso’s leader, Ibrahim Traore, declared that the era of Western powers exploiting his country was “gone forever,” while his Nigerien counterpart Abdourahamane Tchiani condemned ECOWAS as a “threat to our states.”

While the AES is mostly symbolic, it encapsulates the consolidation of military juntas in West Africa and their increasingly aligned position against the United States and France. These trends have created both risks and opportunities for the Gulf states. With the exception of the UAE, which co-sponsored a failed August 2023 UNSC resolution to extend travel bans and asset freezes for Malian junta officials, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) monarchies have not joined Western efforts to isolate or overthrow these military regimes. This allows them to keep residual ties with the juntas, while still maintaining strong relations with the anti-AES ECOWAS states. This balancing act allows GCC countries to invest in the region’s strategically valuable infrastructure projects, as well as its mineral and energy resource deposits. Across the Gulf, Iran welcomed the wave of coups as a triumph against perceived Western imperialism, assiduously courting closer ties with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

Gulf Monarchies’ Cautious Strategies

Since the beginning of the “coup wave” across the Sahel in mid-2020, the Gulf monarchies have refrained from outright condemnations of the ruling military juntas, instead releasing ambiguous statements of concern. After the August 2020 coup in Mali, the UAE “expressed deep concern over the security conditions in the Republic of Mali,” but did not directly blame the military junta for the takeover or call for a return to civilian rule. Saudi Arabia and Qatar initially expressed similar sentiments towards the July 2023 coup in Niger that propelled General Abdourahamane Tchiani to power. The language used in all three cases was far weaker than that used by the monarchies’ various Western allies. The UAE’s outright condemnation of the Niger coup was an outlier in this regard, although Saudi Arabia’s cabinet followed suit on August 1.

While GCC state officials have responded cautiously to the wave of coups, media outlets in the Gulf region have generally been sympathetic to the juntas, criticizing the French policies that they contend led to the military takeovers. Saudi media coverage of the Niger coup exemplifies this trend. An August 2 article in Okaz, a popular Saudi newspaper, highlighted France’s historical policy of manipulating the aftermath of coups to advance its interests. An August 9 Al-Riyadh article similarly criticized the West’s history of using counterterrorism as a pretext to establish bases in Africa and presented France’s defense of Niger’s democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum as self-interested. These criticisms of French political interference and counterterrorism policy mirrored the rhetoric of military junta leaders. The promotion of these complimentary narratives, coupled with cautious state reactions, might have helped GCC countries consistently engage with military juntas in the Sahel. The UAE’s acceptance of the Malian junta’s medical treatment request for ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita set the tone for future engagement.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have replicated the UAE’s even-handed approach, maintaining bilateral relationships with both pro-coup and anti-coup governments in the Sahel. Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine’s participation in the November 2023 Saudi-Africa summit underscored Riyadh’s willingness to engage openly with the Sahel juntas. Similarly, Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman met with his Burkinabe counterpart, Major General Kassoum Coulibaly, in May 2024. Qatar has probed investment opportunities in Niger, and hosted a Nigerien economic delegation in February 2024 to discuss agricultural sector investments.

As opportunities for large-scale economic and security cooperation with the Sahel juntas are limited, GCC countries have strengthened ties with other West African states in response to the coups. In June 2023, the UAE hosted Chadian President General Mahamat Idriss Deby—himself in office due to an extraconstitutional seizure of power, though not aligned with the AES states—and signed a military cooperation agreement with Chad. Abu Dhabi supplied NIMR MCAV-20 armored vehicles to support Chad’s “anti-terrorism” campaign in August 2023. The UAE’s partnership with Chadian buttresses against instability in Niger and Chad also serves as a clandestine arms transit route to the UAE-aligned Rapid Support Forces (RSF) chief Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo in Sudan. Chad has similarly courted Qatari investment, and Doha played host to national reconciliation talks between the Deby government and northern rebels in 2022.

Still, the Gulf states have shown a continued willingness to engage militarily with the AES countries as well. The UAE has maintained pre-coup security agreements with Sahel countries; following the signing of a military cooperation pact with the pre-junta government of Mali in 2019, it delivered 30 Typhoon armored vehicles and 30 UAE-made Cougar light armored vehicles to the military junta. Similarly, in August 2023, Abu Dhabi supplied the Burkinabe junta with a shipment of Isotrex Phantom mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPs)—illustrating its continued willingness to do business with any Sahel customer, regardless of political affiliations.

The Gulf monarchies have also sharpened their focus on coastal West Africa. Saudi Arabia agreed to strengthen political consultations with Cote d’Ivoire at the Saudi-Africa Summit, while the UAE almost simultaneously signed agreements to expand trade with Cote d’Ivoire. Large-scale investments have been more difficult to secure. Senegal canceled an $800 million water desalination deal with Saudi Arabia due to its prohibitive costs, and it is unclear whether Saudi pledges to repair four broken Nigerian oil refineries will come to fruition.

Iran Welcomes Coups

In stark contrast to the GCC’s caution, Iran openly welcomed the military takeovers in the Sahel, praising them as a strike against neocolonialism. During his September 2023 meeting with Burkinabe Foreign Minister Olivia Rouamba in Tehran, then-President Ebrahim Raisi lauded the “resistance of African countries in the face of colonialism and terrorism.” After General Tchiani seized power in Niger, Mehr News declared that the coup “once again proved that anti-colonial movements in Africa are not weakened but continue with more strength.” In an allusion to claims by Sahel juntas that Western countries foment terrorism in West Africa, Raisi told Burkina Faso’s new ambassador in January 2024 that the West is the “main source of terror and terrorist groups.”

Iran’s rhetoric has translated into diplomatic and military engagement with the Sahel juntas. Following the Malian junta’s expulsion of French troops from the country, it courted Iranian security assistance to help plug the gap. In May 2023, Malian Defence Minister Sadio Camara met with Iranian Brigadier General Mohammed Reza Ashtiani to discuss counterterrorism. Ashtiani offered to provide training for Malian forces and proposed sharing facilities. While these offers have produced few substantive results so far, educational cooperation between Iran and Mali has increased markedly since the military takeover.

Iran’s strengthening of relations with Mali provided a prototype for subsequent closer ties with Burkina Faso and Niger. In September 2023, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji announced plans to export oil to, and ultimately construct a refinery in, Burkina Faso. In October 2023, an Iranian delegation visited Ouagadougou and offered cooperation in the mining and pharmaceutical sectors, as well as offering security assistance to help combat insecurity in the country’s north and east. The two sides signed eight agreements during this trip, and further Iran-Burkina Faso economic cooperation talks March 2024.

Iran and the AES countries have a natural attraction to one another, given that both are the subject of highly restrictive Western sanctions and face difficulty engaging in international commerce. During Nigerien Prime Minister Zeine’s January 2024 visit to Tehran, Iranian First Vice President Mohammed Mokhber condemned the “cruel sanctions that are imposed by the domination system” and vowed to help Niger counter sanctions by providing lessons from Iran’s experience. In tandem with Mokhber’s statement, Niger reportedly agreed to sell Iran 300 tons of yellowcake uranium in exchange for drones and surface-to-air missiles. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee’s warning to the Nigerien junta over its ties with Iran hastened the departure of U.S. counterterrorism forces from the country. In the months since, prospective U.S. sanctions have not deterred Niger from keeping the yellowcake deal on the table.

While Iran has been more successful than the Gulf monarchies in strengthening ties with the Sahel juntas, it has been less effective in deepening its presence in the comparatively Western-friendly ECOWAS states along the West African coast. Despite conciliatory rhetoric, Nigeria’s Central Bank placed Iran on a money laundering list in July 2023, and non-oil trade amounted to just $46.5 million from March until October 2023. Iran and Senegal have signed a series of MOUs, including a pledge to expand technological cooperation, but have achieved few substantive breakthroughs. Iran partially relies on Hezbollah’s illicit finance networks in Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire to exert influence in coastal West Africa—earning it no favors from the governments there, which have sought to crack down on money laundering within their borders.

Ultimately, even as Iran’s relationships with the GCC monarchies thaw, the two sides will face competing pressures to back opposite sides in the Sahel schism. The GCC states, though ostensibly neutral, will gravitate towards the greater opportunities posed by Chad and coastal West Africa; Iran, constricted by sanctions and in search of anti-Western allies, has found a natural kinship among the AES juntas. It appears likely that these relationships will endure in the years to come.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gulf International Forum.