Hanging together or separately
Troubled Middle East geopolitics in the Biden era
Now that US President Joe Biden’s administration, in just over a month since the president’s inauguration, has shown an almost reflexive eagerness to reverse former US president Donald Trump’s policies and executive orders, Middle East geopolitics seem set for tough and dangerous readjustments. On the campaign trail, Biden had signaled his intentions to resurrect former US president Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. All early indicators suggest that the Biden presidency will renew Obama’s failed Middle East policy of distancing from the traditional US allies among the Gulf Arab monarchies and Israel while working for a rapprochement with Iran as part of the two-state “solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
All about being ‘Not-Trump’
In a re-assessment of US ties to Saudi Arabia (which Biden had once called a “pariah” state), the administration lost no time is effecting change from the status quo ante. Biden’s State Department halted the previous administration’s proposed sale of US precision guided missiles worth $290 million to Saudi Arabia. It ended US support for offensive operations by the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthi movement in Yemen, underscoring Biden’s intention to make human rights a key issue in US-Saudi relations. Biden pledged to allow the re-opening of the PLO mission in Washington, resume financial aid to, and restore diplomatic relations with, the Palestinian Authority. And Biden is the first US president in 40 years not to contact Israel’s prime minister as one of his first actions in the White House.
In a what seems like a bizarre unilateral concession to Iran, the Biden administration ended Trump’s “foreign terrorist organization” designation of the Iranian-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen on February 5. Just a few days later, Biden’s State Department felt compelled to issue a statement urging the Houthis to “refrain from destabilizing actions” as it emerged that the Houthi insurgents carried out terrorist attacks on Saudi civilian targets in the southern provinces.
Also among his first actions, Biden spiked relations with the United Arab
Emirates by pausing the huge $23 billion deal made in the final days of the Trump administration to supply the Emirates 50 F-35 stealth fighters. This risks undermining one of the UAE’s key motivations in the Abraham Accords: the signing of the normalization agreement in return for US supplies of advanced armaments. Given the UAE’s brokering role in the Sudan-Israel deal, as well as the prospective Mauritania-Israel normalization agreement, the Biden administration also risks undermining the UAE’s active role in promoting rapprochement between Israel and its neighbors in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Abraham Accords as bulwark
The Abraham Accords, which were signed on September 15th at the White House by Israel, the UAE, Bahrain and the US, set in motion a normalization process that was unimaginable even by seasoned observers of the region less than a year ago. Sudan and Morocco quickly signed similar agreements within months. The trope widely purveyed by the Western mainstream media that Trump was “disengaged” from Middle East affairs and uncommitted to regional security does not bear scrutiny.
In a signal achievement of the dramatically-changed regional political order during Trump’s last year in office, the normalization agreements were not accompanied by widespread street demonstrations in the cities of the Arab world – Amman, Beirut, Tunis, Algiers or Rabat. The unquestioned premise of the regional order prior to the diplomatic breakthroughs achieved under Trump – that Arab states would not normalize relations with Israel without a resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict – became irrelevant in a strategic realignment of the Arab Gulf states with Israel (with the exception of maverick Qatar) against Iran.
Obama 2.0 diplomacy
Trump’s upending of the strategic map of the Middle East with the Abraham Accords established facts on the ground that the Biden administration cannot easily overturn. But President Biden seems well on the way to reversing the significant gains in Middle East diplomacy brokered by the Trump administration.
Biden’s foreign policy team, dubbed “Obama 2.0,” includes US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and envoy to Iran Robert Malley – all of whom played a key role in negotiating the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Iran has already adopted its maximalist position, demanding an end to US sanctions prior to negotiations with the US over the resumption of the nuclear deal. Having announced that it had begun increasing its uranium enrichment levels to 20% in late January in its most significant breach of the nuclear deal, Iran then followed up with the production of uranium metal according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN atomic agency.
Iran exhibited its willingness to assert its claims in the region as Biden prepared to take office when its forces seized a South Korean oil tanker in Persian Gulf waters in early January. Emboldened by the change in US presidency, Iran is already pushing more oil onto the market, even as sanctions remain in place, as it tests the Biden administration’s resolve. There is little doubt that Iran will weigh in on Oman – which has long been neutral in its diplomatic relations with Iran and its Arab Gulf neighbors – in the latter’s deliberations to normalize relations with Israel.
Hanging together... or separately
Obama’s visceral distancing from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and its allies in the Gulf while “normalizing” Iran was perceived by the Gulf Arab monarchies as nothing short of betrayal. For them, the likely state of affairs under a Biden presidency would seem a terrible case of déjà vu. In their deliberations of statecraft, the moderate Gulf Arab leaders – along with their key allies in Egypt and Israel – may well ponder the words attributed to Benjamin Franklin on the eve of declaring independence for the Continental Congress in 1776 when he and his colleagues were putting their lives on the line: “we must all hang together, or... we shall all hang separately.”
The writer is visiting senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute and National University of Singapore. He is a regular Forbes contributor and has published op-eds in the ‘South China Morning Post,’ ‘Asia Times,’ ‘Straits Times’ (Singapore), ‘Business Times’ (Singapore), ‘Business Standard’ (India), ‘Far Eastern Economic Review’ and elsewhere.
Irecently attended the extraordinary combat anti-semitism movement annual summit organized by cam (combat anti-semitism movement), a global interfaith coalition of grassroots activists, thinkers and diplomats working to create a more inclusive future and to eradicate jew-hatred. cam honored former us secretary of state mike pompeo with its first Global leadership award.
cam’s breadth and diversity in culture, religious participation, generational inclusion, and its honoring of people working for this cause was a grateful breath of fresh air amid the present political polarization and growing incidents of antisemitic attacks.
the event’s clear overall outcome was a well-established understanding of Israel’s importance as an indispensable security ally and partner for the us, and vice-versa. the innovation was in acknowledging the extraordinary beneficial potential of the abraham accords to the peace process.
In these times of exploding antisemitism, including anti-Zionism, the abraham accords are a strong additional branch to the framework addressing the region’s overall security needs.
When he received the award, pompeo showed what happens when people really committed to see results, allow themselves to bring creativity to an old unfruitful process. lasting for more than 70 years, despite multiple attempts and independent of the composition of both Israeli and american governments, this on-going immovableness has cost many lives, pitted countries, religions and whole regions against each other. It has left the youth of so many countries hopeless and vulnerable to be recruited for violence.
additional optimism, which exuded from the words of ambassador omar hilale, morocco’s permanent representative to the un and from several other presenters such as Fiyaz mughal oBe, founder and director of the interfaith organization Faith matters and ambassador dennis ross must become contagious. all countries searching for peace in the region and the world must open themselves up to this extraordinary change that brings long-term enmities to an end. It is important to let fresh air come in.
For the first time, there is a major movement of muslims not only ready to stop being antisemitic but to combat antisemitism. let us marvel at the willingness of the ministry of education in morocco to introduce hebrew classes in its primary schools and universities. It is a completely ironic that some muslim and arab countries are taking these incredible initiatives while the educational system in california is struggling to ensure that its diversity program does not teach antisemitic myths.
omar hilale spoke of King mohammad VI’s desire to create a “house of memory,” by restoring the original jewish names of streets in order to recognize that the 2500-year-old jewish moroccan community was and remains part of the moroccan legacy and history and that it contributed to moroccan culture.
he believes that this is not a reconciliation, but a reconnecting/relinking, a recognition of the place of the jewish people in the middle east for thousands of years. such statements put to rest the concept that the Israelis are a european import in the middle east.
pompeo spoKe of the resistance his team encountered in its efforts to realize the abraham accords. this indicates the need to be open intellectually to optimism; to let go of the stubborn strategies that show no progress and that continue to alienate and separate the people involved.
Whether american state department officials or the european union worried about the so-called arab street or carrying a monolithic concept of muslim countries, it is crucial for them to leave behind the old paradigm that only the resolution of the Israeli/palestinian conflict could help the rapprochement between jews and arabs. We must let go of the assumptions that kept the Islamic world hostage to a resolution of the Israeli/palestinian conflict. While it is a just cause, it was laden with unrealistic expectations and demands, unworkable conditions and unrealistic assessments.
this does not require that we abandon the need to resolve the Israeli/palestinian conflict. on the contrary, it adds another dimension to its resolution: it shows that relationships do not have to be based on anger and hatred or the arbitrary goodwill of one party. they can be based on “more open relationships, diplomatic relations, economic partnerships and security alliances.”
most ground-breaking, it calls not only for coexistence, but for recognizing the rightful place of the jewish people in their ancestral lands. this can facilitate a peaceful resolution that has so far eluded the palestinian public and left it with decades of underdevelopment.
the possibility of progress is huge. It can bring significant change to peace in the area.
there is now a crop of outstanding, bold and courageous leadership, who “came together to change the face of the globe,” and they need to be supported and encouraged by all people who support peace. this will encourage many more muslim countries, including populous Indonesia, to join the accords.
It will also strengthen the back of leaders like egyptian president abdel al-sisi to continue making strides to change the radicalism of Islamic teachings in support of nonviolence. jordan could follow suit. everyone with good intentions should pray and work towards “the abraham accords (to) stand the test of time.”
the other resistant groups are Iran, the far right and the far left everywhere, especially in europe and now even in the us, the Islamists, Bds sponsors and pakistan, etc. the rise of antisemitism everywhere is deeply troubling. We need to do our best to stamp it out.
ahmed shaheed, a maldivian diplomat who was the un special rapporteur on human rights in Iran and chairman of the universal rights Group, a Geneva-based human rights think tank, spoke of the importance of supporting the International holocaust remembrance alliance (Ihra) definition of antisemitism. he recognized the need to focus on this issue as an international issue that affects the world’s well-being.
Indeed, a specific way in which this issue affects world well-being is to look at the rise of antisemitism as a sign of societies in trouble. It is the failure of a society to benefit its population that gives rise to antisemitism.
this understanding can help each community, country and the international community give the proper attention to the needs of these groups and bring healing. this will help us combat antisemitism while also alerting us to that society or group’s needs and help us plan the right interventions.
of course, education is also essential. Katharina Von schnurbein, the first european commission coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering jewish life, and others, spoke of the need to adopt the Ihra definition as an educational tool, to be used by law enforcement agencies and teachers, and to be made more widely known in schools, universities, municipalities, cities, sports organizations, etc.
shaheed, pompeo and others in the summit coined what – in my view – should become new slogans:
“no action [on antisemitism] is not an option.”
[Fighting antisemitism is] “the morally appropriate thing to do.”
“don’t let hatred become normalized.” I would add, “leave no social wound ignored or group devalued and despised.”