Where the US goes, much
of the Western world follows – willingly or reluctantly, depending on
circumstances.
From the first days of
his presidency Joe Biden started implying that the Middle East did not feature
among his top concerns. As a consequence
the region has been sinking down the policy agenda of major players like the EU
and its member nations. To other
interested parties, however, this shift in Western priorities must seem like an
opportunity too good to miss – parties like Russia, Turkey, Iran, even
China. With the US no longer fully
engaged, all are feeling less constrained in pursuing their particular
interests in the region – a recipe for intensifying the current chaos.
A close Biden adviser
told the on-line journal Politico recently: “If you are going to list
the regions Biden sees as a priority, the Middle East is not in the top three…That
reflects a bipartisan consensus that the issues demanding our attention have
changed as great power competition is resurgent.” He meant an upcoming struggle for power
between the US and China, and also possibly Russia.
Biden’s chaotic
withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, regardless of consequences, is taken
by friend and foe alike as evidence of his comparative lack of interest in the future
of the region. This perception was
reinforced when Biden recently informed Iraq’s prime minister, Mustafa
al-Kadhimi, that he intended to end the US’s combat mission in that country too,
and withdraw all American forces by December 31.
The Cato Institute, a
leading global think tank, recently produced what it called a blueprint for the
US disengaging altogether from the Middle East. “If Biden can end America’s 20‐year‐participation
in an unnecessary war,” it posited, “why not also end America’s 40‐year
occupation of a region of ever decreasing importance?”
The author could find
no reason in terms of America’s self interest for it to engage with the Middle
East by any but diplomatic means. And
indeed there would seem few political advantages to be gained from direct
involvement in the conflicts and economic disasters rocking the region. The only benefits might lie in the moral
field.
The situation in Yemen
has been described as a humanitarian crisis for at least two years, with the
nation on the brink of famine. Widespread poverty and internal economic turmoil
have brought Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Libya to within a hand’s-breadth of catastrophe.
The future of each rests in the balance.
Lebanon, with the
highest per capita proportion of refugees in the world, has been in freefall
since a financial crisis began in late 2019.
About three quarters of the population now struggle to feed themselves,
while electricity, fuel and medicines are in short supply.
Libya has been torn
apart by a hodge-podge of rival militias ever since 2015, and the country
remains a battlefield. Iraq, gripped by
poverty, has fallen prey to a determined effort by the Iranian regime to
establish an unshakable grip on the nation’s institutions. Prime Minister Kadhimi struggles to hold a
balance between competing interests within the body politic. And however smoothly Biden manages the exit of
US forces on this occasion, the fact is that he will leave Iran as the dominant
external power in the country.
In his first address to the
UN General Assembly on September 21, Biden entirely ignored the chaos gripping
so much of the Middle East. He devoted
his address to matters that loom much larger in his mind. They could be dubbed “the three Cs” – coronavirus,
climate change, and China. He did refer
to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, perhaps to indicate his intention of abandoning
the sort of direct involvement in the Middle East that has marked US foreign
policy for decades.
The change in US policy
priorities is reflected down the administrative line. National security adviser
Jake Sullivan has downsized his team devoted to the Middle East and expanded the
unit that coordinates US policy toward the Indo-Pacific region. Biden’s new defense
secretary, Lloyd Austin, has appointed three special advisers on the new key
issues: Covid, climate change and China.
Whether Biden will be
able to stick to his intention of downgrading America’s involvement in the
Middle East depends crucially on how he handles his standoff with Iran. It does not seem to be his intention to stick
with former President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. Re-entry into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action, its official title, has been described by Sullivan as a “critical early
priority”.
Following a long period of posturing by both Iran and the US, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters on September 24 that Iran will return to talks on resuming compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal "very soon."
There was nothing conciliatory about his
message, which he presented in a belligerent wrapping. He accused the Biden
administration of sending contradictory messages — saying it wants to rejoin
the 2015 nuclear deal while imposing new sanctions on Tehran. He said his government believed that Bidem “keeps
carrying close to his heart the thick file of the Trump sanctions against Iran,
even while seemingly pursuing negotiations.”
Biden’s reassessment of US strategic priorities has not gone unnoticed by Arab states. None are enamored with the prospect of a newly empowered Iran moving ever closer to a nuclear arsenal. One result of a perceived reduction in the US’s commitment to the region may well be an increase in Israel’s stature as a leading regional power – a stalwart ally against Iran’s ambitions to dominate the region. Israel would also become a useful portal to Washington. This readjustment in the power balance in favour of Israel could well be the factor that pushes Saudi Arabia – and with it perhaps other Arab states – into joining the Abraham Accords.
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