President Biden spent almost a week in the Middle East recently, during a period of critical regional importance, and managed to depart having alienated nearly every major player.
Iran is reaching the breakout point on a nuclear weapon. Israeli leaders were eager to speak face to face with their American counterparts about applying more muscle to forcing Iran to back down. The Saudis expected a shift in U.S. policy on both Iran and about the criticism of the Saudi government over the Khashoggi affair. Riyadh was signaling a willingness to turn over a new leaf in the U.S.-Saudi relationship by increasing oil production and moving quickly to establish deeper public relations with Israel.
The Palestinians expected the United States to press Israel into allowing the reopening of the formal U.S. consulate to the Palestinians. The consulate, located on Agron Street (in the pre-1967 western half of Jerusalem), was closed during the Trump administration. Reopening it would signal a shift aligned with American and global progressives and more hostile to Israel. Jordan, in addition to backing the Palestinians, expected the United States to reinforce its demand to erode, or even erase, any Israeli sovereignty over any part of eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.
Virtually nobody was pleased by the outcome of the trip, however.
The Palestinians and Jordanians failed to understand that while the staff of the Biden administration fully agrees with them, the president was in no position to publicly validate those policy shifts. American officials indulged and inflated Palestinian and Jordanian expectations but failed to deliver the goods in public.
The regional countries most critical to the U.S. position in the region—Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—came away the biggest losers.
The Arab states were falling all over themselves in the 24 hours after President Biden left to appease Iran, with the UAE now seeking to establish diplomatic relations with Tehran. Clearly the message they received from the United States was disconcerting. Most likely, they measured up Washington, heard weakness and are now reacting accordingly.
For Israel, this trip was about meeting face to face with its counterparts in an attempt to avert a weak deal with Tehran and unify the Western ranks toward a far tougher policy on Iran. Israel is in an election cycle, so the government is desperate not to show tension with the United States. Even so, Israeli officials are now openly admitting that the United States and Israel are at odds over Iran policy, even as they try to put on a brave face by saying that at least Washington was presented with an unvarnished and blunt message from the top of the Israeli government. But actions speak louder than words. Tellingly, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff said on Sunday that the IDF is kicking its preparations for war with Iran into high gear—alone if necessary.
Iran was not the only issue.
Saudi and the UAE are furious over the attempts by U.S. Secretary of State Blinken to force the PLO and Jordan into the most sensitive Abraham Accords forums in all facets, including defense and investment, which has caused the Saudis walk-back what they were willing to do in terms of normalization with Israel. As Ehud Yaari, the Arab affairs correspondent for Israel’s Channel 12, noted, this U.S. effort is a severe blow because it would allow the PLO, which is committed to undermining the accords, to serve as a spoiler, which this U.S. policy will essentially allow.
By the time the president arrived in Saudi Arabia at the end of the week, the atmosphere had already changed from warm expectations to coldness. Whatever remnant of original expectations the Saudis did deliver on was pro forma. Israeli flights beyond the UAE can now pass through Saudi airspace, but no further normalization, and at best a small increase of oil production only, without a firm public promise from the Saudi side, and no timeline.
Finally, of course, the idea of a regional security alliance, which only a week ago seemed to be already happening, suddenly vaporized the moment the United States said that it was going to put itself in charge of shepherding it to completion. This attempt to insert the United States on top of the security ties in the region was perhaps the most destructive failure, on several levels.
First, it demoted the direct ties between Israel and the Arabs—which were developing nicely without the United States—and devastated the confidence the regional players had in such a structure, since they have measured up the administration and believe it is not serious about regional defense. Trying to force in Qatar—Saudi Arabia’s nemesis—and Jordan, which serves as an agent of the Palestinians—was the death blow to the whole scheme.
Notably, under the table, it seems Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Morocco and Israel are proceeding alone to create such a structure without U.S. involvement. The IDF’s chief of staff, in fact, traveled to Morocco on Monday, and several top military officials have also been moving around among their Arab neighbors as well in recent days.
The final verdict on the trip appears to be that the Saudis, Bahrainis and UAE trust Israel more than the United States.
(David Wurmser, Ph.D. is a senior analyst and director of the Project on Global anti-Semitism and the U.S.-Israel Relationship at the Center for Security Policy, and a senior fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum. He served as Middle East advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney)
{Reposted from the JNS site}
