The geopolitics of the Middle East can be understood by dividing the countries of the region into those that remain wedded to the ideologies of the 20th century and those that are more forward-leaning and have adopted a 21st-century outlook and policies. In the former group are Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia. These countries are committed, whether explicitly or implicitly, to one of the so-called “ideologies of resistance,” viz., either Islamism or Arab nationalism and in combination with anti-imperialism. These construe the West as the enemy and present themselves as the oppressed victims of a global conspiracy, often led by Zionists and Jews. In every case, their people are governed by authoritarian regimes whose ideologies, whether secular or Islamist, are modeled on a variant of fascism, and misery reigns.
On the other hand, there are the countries of the Gulf, most notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which perceive the 20th-century “ideologies of resistance” as futile, having produced mostly brutalization, underdevelopment, and often chaos. Instead, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have adopted policies that stress the national interest above all else. These include rapid economic development, diversification away from dependence on oil as the energy transition picks up pace, a relaxation of restrictive social policies, efficient yet authoritarian governance, and the eradication of corruption. Thus, instead of pan-Arabism or pan-Islamism and the call for imposing Islamic law, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are invested in promoting nationalism and turning their countries into major regional and global actors. Riyadh, for instance, is now at number 15 among the G20 countries and aims to break into the top 10 economies of the world. It wants to become a key pivot in East-West relations as well as an international hub for trade, transport and logistics, technological advancement, and industrial and military production, as well as a leading destination for tourists. The Kingdom’s investment in sports is part of this process of domestic reinvention and invigoration, with a focus on the young who form a majority of the population. Sport, soccer especially, is replacing religion as the locus of nationalist sentiment and identity.
It is the push to prioritize national strategic interests that explains why Saudi Arabia—following the UAE in 2020 with the Abraham Accords—is now considering normalization of relations with Israel. Peace with Israel can be envisaged, but only if it can deliver specific, and principally American, guarantees that will benefit the Kingdom. To be clear, a majority of the Saudi population is not keen on this peace, with some in the Saudi government estimating that as many as 70 percent fall into this group. Furthermore, they estimate that 20 percent of these are deeply against it and 2 percent may be willing to mobilize politically, perhaps even violently, to resist an accord. A highly educated and westernized Saudi told me that “the day normalization happens will be the saddest in my life”—emotions run deep on this issue. As such, only if the deal is unambiguously in Saudi Arabia’s national interest can the government justify to its people normalization with Israel. And it should be noted that unlike, say, the Prime Minister of Israel or President Biden, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia will be taking great personal risk by signing onto peace, as President Sadat once did and later paid for it with his life. The previous crown prince of the Kingdom, Muhammad bin Nayif, was nearly killed by a suicide bomber on account of much less.
The Saudis have made five specific demands to conclude this peace. First, they wish to be officially recognized as a strategic ally of the United States. Second, they want a security agreement—similar to the one the U.S. has with Japan—that will provide American protection against a foreign attack on the Kingdom. Third, they want a more secure and stable process for purchasing advanced weapons systems from Washington since they have been repeatedly denied this by Congress for, among other things, their role in the civil war in Yemen. Fourth, they want a civilian nuclear program in the Kingdom that includes the enrichment of uranium. This, however, would be under the management and supervision of the United States and it appears that some Israeli officials are willing to agree to this. The Saudis are interested in nuclear power generation and are also convinced they have large uranium deposits which they wish to export overseas in enriched form. They have also stated publicly that they would develop a bomb should Iran do so. Lastly, they want the equivalent of a free-trade agreement with the United States.
It is not clear what the Saudis would offer in return for all this other than normalization with Israel. It has been reported that the U.S. will make specific demands, the most important being for the Kingdom to diminish the strategic relationship it has been developing with China, and for Riyadh to remain committed to the U.S. dollar in the trade of oil. Petroleum remains, by far, the most important exchanged commodity in terms of volume and value, and thus is a linchpin for keeping the dollar as the global reserve currency. Reports indicate that both the U.S. and Saudi governments are working very hard to accomplish an agreement by March 2024 when the U.S. presidential campaign will begin in earnest, and the president will no longer be able to give this matter his full attention.
Despite an acrimonious start to relations between the Biden administration and Riyadh, with name calling and insults and threats being hurled, today the two governments are working tirelessly to accomplish an agreement that would lead to normalization between Riyadh and Jerusalem.
Even as late as October 2022—when the Saudis cut oil production despite urgent pleading from the White House not to do so—U.S.-Saudi relations had reached a nadir and looked unlikely to improve under Biden. What has happened to change the course of events? One development helped lead to an important realization in the White House about Saudi Arabia’s centrality to U.S. strategic interests in the region and beyond. This was the arrival of Beijing in the Gulf as a guarantor of a Saudi-Iranian detente agreement. China was for the first time playing a political role in mediating the dispute between heavyweight regional actors and was offering to use its considerable economic leverage on Iran to help defuse tensions. And thus far the Saudi-Iranian agreement has held. An earlier realization in Washington of the Kingdom’s importance arose around the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It became clear to Biden that Saudi Arabia wielded considerable power in the oil market and that having it on our side would not only help stabilize the price of oil but would also mean having leverage over both Russia and China, whose economies depend on the Kingdom’s production decisions.
In other words, the Biden administration has adopted an interest-first approach to foreign relations and in so doing has come closer to Saudi Arabia’s way of doing things. A more capacious view of both interests and values now prevails so that what Saudi Arabia has been doing in favor of women’s rights and with the reform of education and the religious sector, as well as Riyadh’s attempt to end conflicts in Yemen and ease tensions with Iran, are all better appreciated in Washington. And while human rights inside the Kingdom remain an important concern, an exclusive focus on this will mean missing other opportunities that fall squarely in the national interest of the United States. Among these are the transformation of Saudi Arabia into a responsible and stabilizing regional power with a thriving domestic economy, peace with Israel and all the benefits that will accrue from this, as well as the push to keep China from becoming a more important strategic ally of Saudi Arabia. A senior Saudi intelligence official describes the Kingdom as a “garden in the middle of a fire.” It is a good thing that the Biden administration has finally realized that this garden needs to be tended. A better U.S.-Saudi relationship will lead to changes inside the Kingdom that will serve America’s interests and hopefully also those of the peoples of this troubled region.
