We have always had a powerful Southwest based corporate lobby in this country that sell high tech equipment, services, and weaponry to the Muslim world. Bechtel, Enron, Halliburton, etc. And it is embedded in the GOP. It has over the years assured us that Iran and Saudi Arabia were loyal allies because these were their prime customers. We sold them F14s, Phantoms, AWACs, F15s, and just about every high tech item in our arsenal. They had/have been our military-industrial complexes bread and butter customers.
But we know that their perspective was shallow and mistaken. They had intimate business relationships with corrupt elites. They hadn't a clue about the man in the street. It came crashing down when the Shah fell and on 9/11.
So now we have a procession of the same corporate interests and their assorted hangers on in the bureaucracy praising the UAE just as they praised Iran and Saudi Arabia and for the same reasons, and like sinkspur yelling "racism, racism" when their motives are questioned.