The Saudi-Iran Shocker

It wasn’t that long ago that our biggest concern about China was their surveillance balloon over Montana.

Nor was it so long ago that the most important news out of Iran was the uprising against the government in the wake of the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, or possibly their decision to ship military drones to Russia.

And it seems like just yesterday that the most prominent headlines from Saudi Arabia were about the challenge of the West balancing between oil prices and human rights.

It seems like just yesterday that the most prominent headlines from Saudi Arabia were about the challenge of the West balancing between oil prices and human rights.

But last Friday, these three countries blew a gaping hole in the conventional thinking of Middle Eastern geopolitics when Iran and Saudi Arabia announced a historic agreement that had been brokered by China to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries. For years, the Saudis and Iranians had been fierce rivals, skirmishing through military proxies and dividing up the region into two equally determined coalitions. But the animosity between the two regional heavyweights had fundamentally altered the power dynamic in this critical part of the world, shifting the overriding priority away from Arab hostility toward Israel and toward a Saudi-led enmity against Iran.

Israel had realized significant benefits from this altered landscape, most notably through the establishment of the Abraham Accords with four Gulf states but also through unofficial relations with Saudi Arabia. Because most of the countries in the region had decided that their dislike for Israel was not as great a priority as their fear for Iran, Israel was able to form unlikely partnerships with a number of its former adversaries – and diminish the importance of the Palestine conflict in the process.

Although the Saudi-Iran deal is not yet finalized (and may never be, given the mullahs’ unpredictable history in such matters), the anti-Iran coalitions on which Israel has been relying are now at great risk. It’s not yet clear what concessions Saudi Arabia may receive as part of this nascent agreement, but if the acrimony between the two countries is lessened, there will also be a diminished incentive for the Saudis to strengthen their connection with Israel or to make it official. It is no coincidence that only hours before this agreement was announced that The Wall Street Journal ran an exclusive story outlining an offer that Saudi officials had made to the United States regarding potentially joining the Abraham Accords.

According to the Journal report, Saudi Arabia told the White House they would be willing to join the Accords in exchange for a range of security guarantees, arms agreements and civilian nuclear capability from the U.S. These conditions have been non-starters with American presidents of both parties for many years and would normally be dismissed out of hand this time too. But on a dramatically transformed Middle East landscape, President Biden will be forced to consider this offer much more seriously.

The prospect of a newly-empowered Iran presents a dire threat to both Israel and the United States. So an official partnership with Riyadh becomes even more important for the Israelis. Meanwhile, the U.S. had already lost influence in the region to Russia during the war in Syria, and China’s enhanced presence in the Middle East would create even more difficult challenges for American interests.  The increased tension in relationships between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that has developed in recent years has been a problem for Biden, but a manageable one. Watching both of the region’s strongest powers move into China’s orbit would be a full-on crisis.

All of which will make it harder for Biden to reject the new Saudi proposal. His advisors already see the Ukraine war as something of a test case for a similar conflict in Taiwan in the not-too-distant future, and they are already scrambling to match China’s relationships in Africa, Latin America and the Pacific Rim. A Chinese foothold in the Middle East is something to be avoided at all costs.

Just last week, it looked like the most important matter in Israeli politics was the domestic battle over Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial overhaul. That now seems like a long time ago.

Dan Schnur is a Professor at the University of California – Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. Join Dan for his weekly webinar “Politics in the Time of Coronavirus” (www.lawac.org) on Tuesdays at 5 PM.