The agreement of March 10, 2023 between the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran to resume diplomatic relations broken in 2016 is considered a turning point in the geopolitics of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Of particular relevance is the fact that the rapprochement between these bitter regional rivals has been engineered by China, a marginal agent until now in the region's political affairs, and that it has been formalized in Beijing. The reestablishment of relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria the following month, facilitated this time by Russia, followed by the formal readmission of Damascus into the Arab League, has only reinforced these assessments. Above all, because the United States, which has exercised almost hegemonic control over the region for decades, has been reduced in both cases to the role of frustrated spectator.
There is no doubt that we are witnessing an important evolution in the geopolitical positioning of MENA. However, at the same time, it is easy to exaggerate its magnitude. The US may be pivoting towards Asia and may also feel chastened by the defeat in Afghanistan and the failure in Iraq, but the truth is that it is still very present in MENA and will continue to be in the near future. For their part, Washington's regional client states have neither the intention nor the ability to sever their strategic relationship with the protective superpower. And neither China nor Russia harbors the illusion of supplanting American power and influence in the region.
What is actually happening is that MENA is experiencing the convergence of several distinct yet related dynamics. Among them, the diversification of strategic relations, the reduction of regional polarization, initiatives to mitigate the multiple conflicts in the region and the restoration of the Arab regional order stand out. This order, crushed under the combined weight of the US invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq in 2003 and the convulsions in which MENA has been mired for more than a decade, is considered vital to counteract the challenges popular to the ruling elites and reduce the influence of non-state actors.
Riyadh has become one of the main drivers of such an evolution. This may seem surprising, given his role and reputation as a surrogate for American hegemony, an instigator of polarization and, more recently, an agent of regional chaos. However, these changes have not materialized overnight nor have they followed a linear trajectory, but rather reflect transformations in the kingdom itself, the broader region and the global economy.
In Saudi Arabia, the key development has been the meteoric rise and consolidation of power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has not only lifted his country from the prolonged lethargy that characterized the final years of King Fahd and his successor, King Abdulah, but has redesigned the Saudi state in his image. Previously, power in the kingdom was distributed among multiple royal power centers and, to some extent, shared with other Saudi elites. Policy was formulated on the basis of consultation and consensus within the kingdom and among its partners; and, as a rule, Riyadh took the initiative after having convinced others to follow it. Under the unpredictable, impulsive and determined leadership of Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has entered the era of the state is me.
Without restraint or restraints, Bin Salman has been able to imprison powerful princes and magnates, confiscate their assets and leave them collectively powerless. He has ordered the dismemberment of a disloyal journalist, kidnapped the prime minister of Lebanon, executed a prominent Shiite cleric and weakened a religious establishment that had been a criminal partner of the Al Saud since the 18th century. Bin Salman's unprecedented personal control over the reins of Saudi political, economic and military power has also allowed him to launch a war against neighboring Yemen, impose and lift a blockade on Qatar, a member country of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). , reverse the policy followed with Iran and Syria, and coordinate oil policy with Moscow instead of with Washington. His power is such that, unlike his predecessors, he has been able to carry out all of the above without worrying about taking into account opposing perspectives or interests.
However, the changes in the Saudi royal court are only part of the story. In recent decades there have also been substantial changes in the region's relations with the US, Russia and China. Beijing, which half a century ago only existed as an ideological inspiration on the political margins of the region, is today its main trading partner and, for most energy producers in MENA, its main export market. Moscow, which for most of the Soviet era did not have diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and maintained strategic relations with its regional adversaries, is today Riyadh's main partner in setting oil policy within the framework of OPEC and aspires to similar cooperation with Qatar and Iran through the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries (GFEC).
Russia and China today maintain bilateral relations with all MENA states, and Moscow has also forged ties with many other important actors in the region, such as the Lebanese Hizbullah, Hamas in Palestine, and General Haftar in Libya. Washington, which has sanctioned or banned numerous MENA states and movements, by contrast, does not maintain diplomatic relations with Iran or Syria, and has been trying to undermine their regimes for decades. For this reason, it has not been in a position to mediate between Riyadh, Tehran and Damascus, and not only that, but it has opposed their recent agreements.
Still, the most interesting changes have occurred in relations between the MENA governments and the US. As protector, Washington had ensured the survival of its client regimes in the face of internal and external threats, an important commitment during the Cold War. These regimes, for their part, aligned their policies with those of the US; especially in the case of American adversaries such as the Soviet Union, post-1979 Iran, and post-1990 Iraq. In the case of Saudi Arabia and other energy producers, the strategic partnership also meant guaranteeing a stable supply of oil. to world markets. This supply fluctuated depending on the needs of Western economies and was complemented by the purchase of Western weapons at inflated prices and the investment of surplus income in Western markets, known as petrodollar recycling.
Doubts about American power began to appear after the occupation of Iraq in 2003. The most powerful army in the history of humanity proved incapable of stabilizing a country totally weakened by a decade of exhaustive sanctions; or to prevent (being under its control) from going from being a bulwark against Iran's regional ambitions to being a zone of Iranian influence. A few thousand military casualties were enough for the US to capitulate and withdraw.
The overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 dealt another blow. There is no evidence that the US supported the uprising of the Egyptian people, and plenty that it supported Mubarak until he could no longer do so. However, Washington's failure to use its power to support it - an admittedly unrealistic expectation - raised doubts among other MENA allies about the strength of the US commitment to their own security and survival should they face challenges. Similar. The Obama administration's subsequent decision to bleed the Syrian Baathist regime rather than kill it and to ignore its self-proclaimed “red lines” regarding events in Syria only increased frustration. While the US has been able to support and benefit from the regional counterrevolution, it has been most tellingly led by an increasingly autonomous Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
Even more worrying for Washington's allies in MENA was the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Their main interest in the matter was not the Iranian nuclear program, but the perpetuation of Tehran's regional and international isolation. However, from his point of view, the agreement was closed without his participation or any reference to his priorities; and they felt betrayed by what they perceived as a US violation of their national security concerns for the benefit of American women.
In such a context, Donald Trump's presidency was celebrated as a moment of salvation. His transactional disposition and an entourage dotted with pro-Israel and anti-Iran extremists promised better days. In fact, American aid to the Saudi-led war against Yemen reached unprecedented levels. Trump backed the Saudi-Emirati-led blockade against Qatar. The cities of Raqqa, in Syria, and Mosul, in Iraq, were reduced to rubble during the campaign to eradicate the self-proclaimed caliphate of the Islamic State. And a month after assuming leadership of the US National Security Council, hawk John Bolton engineered the US's renunciation of the 2015 international agreement with Iran and replaced it with a policy of "maximum pressure."
However, when things did not develop as planned and took the form of an escalation of missile attacks by the Yemeni Houthis against Saudi (and later Emirati) territory and, in particular, when in 2019 the vital Saudi oil facilities of Abqaiq and Jurais were put out of commission after a sophisticated drone and missile attack whose responsibility was correctly attributed to Iran, the orange knight in shining armor did not mount his steed. The Carter Doctrine was conveniently sidestepped. The only sign of shock and awe came in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, whose rulers came to the painful conclusion that they would serve as unprotected cannon fodder in any confrontation with Iran.
Things, to put it mildly, hardly improved with the arrival of Joe Biden to the White House and his abandonment of Afghanistan under an agreement concluded by Trump. What, in the regional capitals concerned, had been assumed to be the product of George W. Bush's stupidity or Obama's perfidy, was revealed to be a more fundamental problem: the reliability and security offered by the United States in the 21st century and the wisdom of putting the entire MENA egg carton into the American basket.
The geopolitical response to these events has been diversification. Washington continues to be perceived as the ultimate guarantor of regime security in times of existential crisis and, together with Europe, as a key partner also in the economic field and in other areas. Now, that has not prevented a strengthening of relations, based on mutual interests, with Russia and China. Rather than engage in the rivalry between the American plutocracy, the Russian oligarchy and Chinese state capitalism, MENA governments have chosen to develop relationships with each of them. So, for example, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have partnered with Russia to advance Khalifa Haftar's leadership ambitions in Libya; and Saudi Arabia has established its oil policy in close coordination with Russia, completely ignoring the US and European energy agenda arising from the war in Ukraine. Advanced weaponry no longer comes from the West or the East, but from the US, Russia, Europe and China.
Indeed, MENA's responses to the Ukraine war constitute an excellent example of strategic diversification. Despite the symbolic votes at the UN General Assembly, relations with Russia have continued largely intact, in stark contrast to the fundamental reassessment we have seen in Europe. Turkey, despite being a member of NATO, has chosen to play the role of mediator and intermediary to increase its global profile. Israel, for decades the main beneficiary of US foreign aid in the region, has been reluctant to accept US and EU sanctions against Russia.
In the region, recent years have seen a series of diplomatic initiatives that reflect a new awareness among key US allies that they (and not Washington) must assume primary responsibility for their own security. and stability, even if it is at the expense of American political priorities. Thus, Saudi Arabia resolved the GCC crisis by lifting the blockade of Qatar; and, later, both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi repaired their (previously hostile) relationship with Turkey, Qatar's close ally. The UAE preceded Saudi Arabia in negotiating a rapprochement with Tehran and, similarly, was the first to initiate a disengagement from the Yemen war and normalization with Damascus. More recently, last year saw an indefinite suspension of hostilities between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Houthi movement, culminating in the visit to Sana'a of an official Saudi delegation facilitated by Oman.
The most significant advances are, of course, the Saudi-Iranian and Saudi-Syrian normalizations; although also in this last case it is important to note that the road to Damascus was previously traveled by other regional governments, such as Jordan, the Arab Emirates and Oman, and could soon include Turkey. Egypt also took steps to repair its relations with Iran, broken in 1980, and with Turkey, whose lowest point was reached in 2013 after Al Sisi's coup d'état that overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government, considered by Ankara as a a kind of protected ally and a model for the rest of the region.
As these various initiatives have developed, Western media speculation has tended to focus on the prospects for normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. On the one hand (and as the Arab Emirates demonstrate), relations with Iran and Israel are not mutually exclusive. At the same time, Riyadh today has no interest in concluding an agreement similar to the one concluded by Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia already maintains extensive relations with Israel and, leaving aside expressions of American goodwill, would not gain any additional benefit from formalization. Second, such a deal would first and foremost represent an American achievement, and bin Salman is reluctant to provide Biden (who had previously pledged to treat him as a “pariah”) an achievement that would bolster his re-election campaign. .
And, what is more important, an agreement with the current Israeli Government would only bring displeasure to the Saudi leaders. Aside from its cold relations with the US and even worse with its own citizens, Israel has a high-ranking minister who calls himself a “fascist” and another who is a convicted terrorist and has collectively adopted the intensification of violence as a strategic objective. the dispossession of Palestinians and the systematic escalation of violence against them. Because of these realities, the United Arab Emirates, Israel's most enthusiastic Arab partner, have already considerably cooled the formal and public aspects of their relationship with that country. Despite autocracy and absolute monarchy, Saudi Arabia must take into account a much broader and more committed public opinion. And, in that context, Riyadh understands very well that Israel will not offer significant initiatives regarding the Palestinians in exchange for normalization; and that, instead of being able to claim any benefits for themselves, what Saudi Arabia would essentially do would be to provide greater Israel with a Saudi certificate of halal compliance.
As the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia must also take into account that the new assaults on Haram al Sharif and the Al Aqsa mosque are a foregone conclusion. In short, Netanyahu and his far-right associates do not deserve any gesture at all, and even less so if Washington uses Saudi-Israeli normalization as bait to seduce Israel to consent to the eventual fruits of US-Iranian diplomacy. In this sense, it is important to note that, despite the resumption of diplomatic relations and the reduction of tensions, Riyadh and Tehran continue to compete for regional influence. Indeed, efforts to reduce regional polarization have neither resolved nor prevented the emergence of new tensions, such as the growing political and economic rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
But overall, Saudi Arabia and its regional partners appear to have devoted their energies to rebuilding what is known as the formal Arab order or Arab state system. Such a resurgence, with its many flaws and limitations, is considered by them to be a better insurance policy against the turmoil of the last decade and to deal with new threats and challenges that may arise.
Mouin Rabbani is co-director of ‘Jadaliyya’ (Jadaliyya.com) and a non-resident researcher at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Studies.
