Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan

Born 11 March 1961, the third son of the UAE's founding president, he graduated from Sandhurst in 1979 and rose through the armed forces to general by 2005. He became crown prince of Abu Dhabi in 2004 after his father died and his brother Khalifa took the presidency, but a 2014 stroke left Khalifa incapacitated and Mohamed running the country in all but name for eight years. The Supreme Council formalized his leadership in May 2022, and by March 2023 he'd named his own son crown prince. Under his rule the UAE joined the wars against ISIS and in Yemen, backed the RSF in Sudan's civil war, led the blockade of Qatar over Muslim Brotherhood ties, broke with Obama on the Iran nuclear deal, and signed the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020. The New York Times called him the most powerful Arab ruler in 2019 - a judgment built on military ambition, economic rivalry with Saudi Arabia, and a willingness to move fast while neighbors hesitated.