ABSTRACT
The first half of 1979 saw perhaps the most critical phase yet in the short history of the federation of the United Arab Emirates. International and domestic factors combined to raise basic questions regarding the future of the federation. The effects of developments at the international level could have been much less significant had they not come at a critical moment in the evolution of the UAE's own federal institutions. The supreme council of the federation was already split by differences over the relative powers of the federal and emirate governments, with Shaikh Rashid of Dubai taking a strong stand against what he saw as the tendency of the federal authorities to expand their powers. These differences made it impossible for a meeting of the supreme council to be convened in the early part of 1979 and the subordinate cabinet and federal national council also retreated into a state of suspended animation.
