The Middle East is learning to live without America. While the United States will continue to shape regional security, not least through its advanced weapons systems, its (perceived) retreat from the Middle East has raised serious doubts about its willingness to fulfill its commitments to its allies. Now, local actors are revising their geopolitical strategies, with old enemies pursuing reconciliation and some countries even seeking to create a system of collective security. To deliver regional peace and stability, however, countries will have to overcome even bigger hurdles than they seem to realise.
Middle Eastern leaders’ disillusionment with the US has been growing for more than a decade. Autocratic Arab rulers accuse the US of betraying them during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, by aligning with the forces trying to overthrow them. They also blame the US for effectively negotiating the 2015 Iran nuclear deal behind their backs, and for failing to discipline Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime in Syria.
More recently, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were none too happy with America’s non-response to attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on their oil infrastructure. That probably explains, at least partly, why neither country has been willing to meet US President Joe Biden’s requests to boost oil and gas production to contain surging energy prices amid the Ukraine war. Reportedly, they won’t even take his calls.
Instead, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are continuing down the path onto which they stepped at last August’s Baghdad summit, which was convened in an effort to defuse regional tensions. This includes efforts to improve relations with Iran, in hopes of bringing an end to the war in Yemen. The UAE has also re-established diplomatic relations with Assad, whom the US wants to continue treating as a pariah. Assad even visited Abu Dhabi last month—his first official visit to an Arab country since the Syrian civil war began more than a decade ago.
Read the article by Shlomo Ben Ami in The Strategist.