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From Kissinger to Carter, Clinton to Kushner, the desire to broker a peace deal in the Middle East has been the norm in American diplomacy. Now it is the turn of the Biden administration to go down this old road.
The White House is working on a “big sale” In the Middle East, this would lead to the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. To help achieve that goal, the U.S. is reportedly prepared to provide Saudi Arabia with security assurances and assistance for its civilian nuclear program. Part of the Israeli deal is that it will make some concessions to the Palestinians.
For its promoters, Joe Biden’s big deal has delivered several tempting-sounding “victories.” It will promote peace, prosperity and stability in the Middle East. It will support the United States in its struggle with China for global influence. That would give Biden a diplomatic achievement to boast about ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Unfortunately, the actual appeal of this deal may be much less. The United States may finally pledge to defend Saudi Arabia’s unstable authoritarian regime while supporting Israel’s government, which is rapidly eroding its democracy. At the same time, the outcomes that were hoped for — pushback against China and progress for the Palestinians — may never materialize. That way, the big deal becomes a big fantasy.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States have been rocky during the Biden administration. Saudi de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman is furious over a report released by the U.S. government that accuses him of direct involvement in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The red-carpet treatment Xi Jinping received during his visit to Saudi Arabia was decidedly warmer than that of Biden.
Last March, China, not the US, helped broker peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has just announced that it will join the BRICs, which increasingly resembles Beijing’s answer to the G7.
All of this has created unease in Washington — and that’s certainly part of the problem. The Biden administration had hoped to break away from the Middle East and focus on China’s rise. But flirting between Riyadh and Beijing has helped the White House believe that re-engagement in the Middle East is necessary as part of a struggle with China for global influence.
The U.S.-China struggle to shape the global order takes place on many fronts, including finance, trade, security, and regulation. As a large economy, a member of the G20, and the world’s second-largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia inevitably plays a major role in all of these areas. Therefore, pulling Saudi Arabia back to the US camp has become Washington’s goal.
However, while the appeal of a US-Saudi-Israeli deal is clear, so are the risks.
Unlike other countries that the US has pledged to defend, such as Japan or Germany, Saudi Arabia is not exactly what anyone would think of as a democracy. The country’s human rights record remains grim.Human Rights Watch recently released Reportaccusing the kingdom of shooting hundreds of Ethiopian refugees.
Even close allies of Biden in Washington, such as Senator Chris Murphy, are uneasy. As Murphy explained to me recently, he has big doubts about “ensuring the protection of a Middle Eastern power that is often in conflict with its neighbors.” The senator believes the fight with China for global influence is ultimately “about what form of government the world will live under.” “Getting closer to a brutal dictatorship, things are getting more difficult . . . trying to sell democracy.”
Because Murphy chairs the Middle East subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his views matter. If the Biden administration were to forge a new treaty only to find it unable to get it through Congress, that would be its true goal.
Negotiations on the Israeli side have also been problematic. The current government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, is widely accused of undermining Israeli democracy. Netanyahu’s coalition contains “terrible racist parties” – in the words of Tamir Pardo, the former head of Israeli intelligence appointed by Netanyahu himself. These parties are accelerating the expansion of Israeli settlements at the expense of the Palestinians, while violence in the occupied territories has surged.
Netanyahu is on trial for corruption — which should set off a wake-up call or two for the Biden White House. But one thing that might salvage the Israeli prime minister’s domestic political standing is playing the statesman’s hand by presiding over a historic peace deal with Saudi Arabia.
Supporters of the grand deal responded that Israel would have to make concessions to the Palestinians as part of the deal. These could restore the two-state solution while forcing Netanyahu to align with more moderate parties. But Netanyahu has many ways to get away with any theoretical concessions to the Palestinians. It is very doubtful whether Saudi Arabia or the United States will be able or willing to push for real progress on a two-state solution.
The Biden administration’s grand Middle East bargain sounds enticing. But it has the potential to reward the wrong people for the wrong reasons at the wrong time.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
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