Blinken’s tour to reinforce US commitment
WARSAW, Poland – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will try to use his three-nation tour of the Middle East and North Africa this week to reassure wary Israelis and Arabs that the Biden administration is committed to the region’s security at a time when Washington is confronting multiple foreign policy challenges.
U.S. preoccupation with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and bolstering NATO’S presence in Eastern Europe has fueled concerns that America’s attention may be stretched thin.
Blinken’s visit also comes as talks over salvaging a landmark nuclear deal with Iran are winding down amid fears in Israel and among Gulf Arab nations that an agreement may not be tough enough to curb Tehran’s regional aggressiveness.
Israel was strongly opposed to the 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers and welcomed then-president Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal. Israel has warned against reviving the agreement and says it will not be bound by any new one.
Underscoring regional anxieties, Israel’s government has arranged a meeting of top diplomats from Arab countries that have normalized relations with Israel. In addition to Blinken and Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, their counterparts from Bahrain, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates will attend.
Those three countries normalized relations with Israel in 2020 in the socalled Abraham Accords brokered by the Trump administration. Egypt and possibly Jordan, the first two Arab states to recognize Israel, will also send representatives to the gathering to be held at a kibbutz in the Negev Desert where Israel’s founding father, David Ben-gurion, spent his retirement years.
The Biden administration has welcomed the Abraham Accords, one of the few Trump foreign policy initiatives it has praised, and expressed interest in negotiating additional ones despite frosty reaction from the Palestinians. They have watched unhappily as Arab nations recognize Israel while their own status with Israel remains disputed.
The U.S. has repeatedly said it supports a two-state resolution to the Israeli-palestinian conflict and, after seeing Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Jerusalem, Blinken will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, on the West Bank, to reaffirm that position.
While Iran and the uncertain status of the nuclear negotiations in Vienna may be the issue of most immediate concern to Israel and its neighbors, the war in Ukraine and efforts to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the invasion loom large.
That conflict has roiled world energy markets, leading the U.S. and Europe to appeal to Arab and other major oil suppliers to step up production. The war may also soon result in food security challenges, particularly across the Middle East, which imports vast quantities of grain from Ukraine.
Bennett has tried to present himself as a potential mediator between Putin, Ukraine and the West but his discussions with the Russian leader have yet to bear fruit. U.S. officials say Blinken plans to discuss possible roles that Israel, which has concerns about the Russian presence in its northern neighbor Syria, could play.