Last week’s drip of diplomatic leaks from United States officials led to streams of speculation that a grand bargain is in the works that will create the biggest Middle East peace breakthrough since the 1978 Israel-Egypt Camp David accord.
Or is this a public relations gambit to shore up the flagging reputations of three protagonists – US President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman – who yearn to catch the glow of peace-making or, at least, of seeming to want to do something about it?
An apparently pending deal is based on Saudi recognition of Israel to be offered in return for US security guarantees – along with shipments of sophisticated weaponry and provision of nuclear technology, the latter supposedly just for peaceful energy technology.
Certainly, the Saudis can only gaze with longing at the billions of dollars worth of US military and economic aid provided to Ukraine, even without a formal security accord, to ward off Russia.
For Israel, the benefits also seems obvious. If Saudi hostility ends, much of the rest of the Muslim world would likely fall into line. And, presumably, Saudi Arabia would be weaned away from its flirtation with Iran, Israel’s current arch-nemesis.
For the US, reduced tensions and solidified Middle East alliances would let Biden enter the ranks of peacemakers and focus on the long-gestating American “pivot to Asia” to confront China and away from the messy Middle East. A White House lawn photo of Biden celebrating the whole thing would be welcome in advance of his 2024 re-election bid.
Yet, there was something unusual about the hoopla surrounding the anonymous American leaks and then endorsements by Netanyahu and bin Salman. Talks on the subject have been going on for only a few months. Future steps are unspecific. Yet US officials let on that peace is at hand.
Possibly, but it took two years of back channel, obscure signaling and a secret trip to Beijing by Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, to begin the arduous steps toward opening relations with China that took another ten years to consummate.
It took eight months of diplomacy by George H W Bush’s secretary of state, James Baker, to set up pan-Middle Middle East peace talks after the US had triumphantly ousted Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Those talks fell apart during the Bill Clinton administration that succeeded Bush.
The Israeli-Saudi-US declarations, made during the United Nations General Assembly meetings last week, specified neither timetables nor modes of diplomatic activity. Possibly those are to be kept secret. Then why the announcements in New York?
Each leader has particular reasons to play up a Peace-in-Our-Time Middle Eastern future. Bin Salman, for example, has been at odds with Biden, who called him a “pariah” during his 2020 presidential campaign. In part, the division between the allies erupted in reaction to the 2018 killing of anti-bin Salman dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul embassy.
Biden has since signaled that he wants to let bygones be bygones, in part because bin Salman has led the way in cutting oil production and therefore raising fuel prices in the US and worldwide. Biden twice urged bin Salman not to reduce oil production, and failed twice.
At early September’s G20 meeting in India, there was no talk of pariah-hood. Biden shook hands with bin Salman; the year before, he had limited himself to a fist-bump. These pleasantries haven’t been enough to get a production increase. Perhaps security guarantees might persuade bin Salman where hand-jiving failed.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, has been seeking ways to get into Biden’s graces, having fallen out largely over the Israeli leader’s public opposition to Barack Obama’s efforts to cut a nuclear weapons deal with Iran. Biden was Obama’s vice president. Netanyahu thought the accord would eventually allow Iran to possess atomic weapons. Donald Trump succeeded Obama and killed the deal.
But to get into Biden’s good graces, Netanyahu would be asked to provide a road to statehood for the Palestinians. Something for Palestinians would make it easier for bin Salman to make peace with the Jewish state and parry accusations of a sellout.
But Netanyahu has spent his career opposing creation of a Palestinian state.
His right-wing nationalist coalition partners are against it. It’s also unclear how providing technology to Riyadh to produce nuclear energy would not be seen as a first step to creating yet another nuclear-armed power.
Biden’s apparent eagerness to cut a deal with bin Salman has upset relatives of victims of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, who note that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. Politicians are already complaining about extending security guarantees to a country taking part in imposing US$4 or more a gallon gasoline prices to a generation of Americans.
Making nice with Netanyahu could appeal to a large segment of Jewish American voters who might bolt to another candidate if relations with Israel should continue to sour.
A peace handshake between Israel and a sworn Arab enemy, overseen by Biden on the White House lawn, is a strong lure for a presidency caught up in a war in Ukraine that seems likely to go on this year and perhaps into next year at least along with ever-churning and dangerous tensions with China over Taiwan.
Who would have thought that, in this context of conflict, a Middle East peace accord might be seen as a path to foreign policy glory? Maybe just talking about it could be enough for a beleaguered US incumbent.