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Old Middle Eastern pundits probably remember a time not long ago when the debate over US policy toward the region was dominated by one narrative: the “pro-Arab” crowd versus the “pro-Israel” community. This zero-sum game forced the Americans, the White House, and Congress to choose sides.
Even during that period of time, taking a binary approach to understanding US policy in the Middle East as a result of a confrontation between supporters of Israel and friends of the Arabs, or between Zionists and Arabists, was pointless.
Israel and the Arab oil countries had shared common interests in the 1950s and 1960s in opposing the pan-Arab movement led by Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nasser (“Nasserism”). In that context, they found themselves (along with the Shah’s Iran and Turkey) uniting in support of American interests in the region.
But the 1973 Middle East war, along with the oil embargo against the United States, followed by the emergence of the Palestinian issue as a central regional and global issue, showed that when it came to the negotiating Jewish state and its place in the Middle East, all the members of the Arab League were united behind a common agenda.
Since then, one of the main considerations in formulating US policy in the Middle East has been the US need to balance its interests in the Arab world and its commitment to Israel with the Jewish state. Supporters of the American state were pushing in one direction and allies with the Arab and Palestinian causes, which were seen as one and the same, were pushing in the other direction.
To a young journalist or scholar who follows the American approach to the Middle East these days, all of the above may sound a bit old-fashioned.– Especially the day when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, promoters of the 1973 oil embargo, are talking about peace in front of the White House. Not to mention, reports abound that Saudi Arabia will soon join them. Someone in their twenties might take the notion of the Jewish State at peace with Egypt and Jordan almost for granted.
There are many explanations for this dramatic shift in the balance of power in the Middle East and the evolving alliance between most Arab-Sunni states and Israel. One could place the end of the Cold War, the collapse of Pan-Arabism, the rise of Sunni and Shiite Islamism, the growing “cold war” between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the energy independence of the United States. That person could also notice the impact of the strategic depreciation of the “oil weapon”, the loss of centrality of the Palestinian issue in regional and global politics. and the growing fear– Shared by Arabs and Israelis – from a strategic threat posed by Iran.
In a way, US lawmakers and lawmakers may no longer have to “choose sides” in a fading Arab-Israeli conflict. More specifically, in the past, the irresolution of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians would have been an obstacle to Arab-Israeli detente and could have triggered a regional war that would have had an impact on American interests.
That is not the case today. Now, Washington is in a position to strengthen its ties with both Israel and the Sunni-Arab states without paying as in the past the costs of dealing with a military confrontation between these former adversaries.
There is With no global power equivalent to the Soviet Union threatening Western interests in the Middle East and the United States economy is less dependent on energy resources in the region, the United States is now in a position to pursue its policies based on what it considers to be. your fundamental geostrategic and geoeconomic interests.
There is a debate that is beginning to take place in Washington about what those interests are, under which the labels “pro-Arab” and “pro-Israel” have become insignificant, and the only consensus after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that the United States needs to reduce its military presence in the region.
From that perspective, there are those, and that includes the Trump administration and the Republican Party, who perceive Iran under the ayatollahs as a threat to American interests. They rely on the evolution of an Arab-Israeli axis to contain that threat without the need for direct US military intervention. Whether those expectations will be met is another question.
And then there are those who are questioning the continued strategic value of the US alliance with Israel and / or the Arab-Sunni states. They support fostering long-term reconciliation with the more assertive Iran and Turkey, which could help facilitate America’s disengagement from the region. This view appears to be shared by members of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and could push Joe Biden, if elected president, to move in that direction.
Leon Hadar is a senior analyst at Wikistrat, a geostrategic consulting firm and the author of Sandstorm: failure of politics in the Middle East.
Image: Reuters
