Biden to get tough with ‘difficult friends’
It’s back to a balancing act for the US in the Middle East, says Richard Spencer of The Times.
One accused Turkey of sheltering Islamic State. Two angered Saudi Arabia by talking to Iran behind the backs of America’s Gulf allies. A fourth was vilified over the resulting deal by the American cheerleaders of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.
But now Barack Obama’s chief Middle East negotiators are back. Joe Biden’s choice of advisers suggests he is going to take on America’s ‘‘difficult friends’’, after four years in which they were nurtured by President Trump.
‘‘A policy of threatening friends and placating terrorists is now back on the cards,’’ is among the reactions, this one from Turkish state media.
Trump became notorious for friendships with the Middle East’s ‘‘strongman’’ leaders, marking a change from the balancing act of his predecessor. Obama said he wanted to promote democracy and human rights, but the result offended most of America’s traditional security partners, who witnessed pro-Western leaders being overthrown by prodemocracy movements.
Israel and the Gulf states loathed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and that Obama officials held secret preliminary talks with Tehran. The talks, in Oman, were led by William Burns, then the deputy secretary of state, and Jake Sullivan, a young State Department official. Burns has been named as Biden’s CIA director; Sullivan is to be his national security adviser.
The face of the talks when they began in the open was Wendy Sherman, a State Department undersecretary. She later described the pain, being Jewish herself, of attacks by right-wing, pro-Netanyahu Jewish activists in the US. She will become deputy secretary of state in Biden’s administration.
Biden’s stated intention of rejoining the deal is a challenge to Netanyahu and the Gulf states. That he is also threatening to stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia will alienate Riyadh.
‘‘If Netanyahu stood alone railing against the deal five years ago, he’s likely to have company this time, particularly from US partners in the Gulf,’’ says John Hannah, of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, a pro-Israel think tank in Washington. ‘‘Things could get ugly quickly.’’
The man Biden has put in charge of Middle East policy at the National Security Council is seen by Turkey as particularly incendiary. Brett McGurk was an Iraq point man for the George W Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. As Trump’s ‘‘anti-Isis czar’’, he became disillusioned with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he accused of actively assisting the group.
Having helped to forge the alliance against Isis in eastern Syria between US forces and the Kurdish YPG, he quit in 2018 when Trump ordered a pullout of troops. That was seen as a favour to Erdogan, who then launched an attack on Kurdish guerrilla forces.
A month later, when Abu Bakr alBaghdadi, the Isis leader, was killed by US forces near Turkey’s border, McGurk suggested that Erdogan be asked: ‘‘How was Baghdadi living in a safe house with well-prepared tunnels less than 5km from your border?’’
Trump saw his role as about making ‘‘deals’’ with leaders he ‘‘liked’’. None of those leaders is the potential adversary he once was. Netanyahu is on trial for corruption, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia has been disgraced by the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Turkey is fighting battles with the EU, Russia and others.
Biden’s focus is on coronavirus and rebuilding after the Trump presidency. Only Iran is a core issue, says Aaron David Miller, a Middle East negotiator under President Bill Clinton.
‘‘These people have been chosen because they can hit the ground running on troublesome issues,’’ he says, ‘‘leaving Biden to focus on what he must focus on at home.’’