America Is Pushing Its Security Ideas on a Lukewarm Middle East

Nothing will kill legislation faster than when it becomes a political football on Washington’s Capitol Hill. So it has been refreshing to see members of both parties and houses of the U.S. Congress, with firm support from the administration, rally around a vision for the future of U.S. military engagement in the Middle East. The plan calls for the creation of a Middle Eastern security architecture that joins the military capabilities of U.S. Central Command (Centcom), the Israeli Defense Forces, and the militaries of neighboring Arab states to detect and defend against threats emanating from regional adversaries, mainly Iran.

Last year, as part of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress passed the Deterring Enemy Forces and Enabling National Defenses (DEFEND) Act, which authorized the U.S. Defense secretary to establish an integrated air and missile defense system with Israel and other Middle Eastern partner militaries. The bill enjoyed broad bicameral and bipartisan support when it was introduced. Once it was attached to the NDAA, its path from bill to law was sealed.

Legislators are poised to move further this year. Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen and Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, with support from fellow members of the congressional Abraham Accords Caucus, introduced the Maritime Architecture and Response to International Terrorism in the Middle East Act (MARITIME) Act. In a format similar to last year’s bill, the follow-up measure would authorize the Defense Department to establish an integrated maritime domain awareness capability with Centcom’s regional partners to jointly guard some of the world’s busiest commercial waterways in and around the Arabian Peninsula. Shortly after, Rosen introduced an additional bill that promotes Middle Eastern cooperation on cybersecurity threats—the kind that Iran employed to knock the Albanian government offline last summer. The Senate Armed Services Committee appears to have included versions of both bills in its 2024 NDAA, likely ensuring their passage into law.

This apparent enthusiasm for Middle Eastern regional security integration isn’t just a phenomenon on Capitol Hill. It also has the support of the White House, the Pentagon, and Centcom itself. The latter has been working assiduously to establish integrated defense systems under the leadership of its commander, U.S. Army Gen. Erik Kurilla. As far as policy initiatives go, that makes it all but unanimous. It should be as good as done, right?

Despite Washington’s enthusiasm, however, the United States’ regional partners have shrugged. In recent years, they have opened their proverbial doors to a wider variety of national security partners—both friends and adversaries—rather than aligning too closely and exclusively with the United States, as they might have done in the past. Refusing to be discouraged, the Pentagon has continued to pursue its campaign of defense diplomacy, investing time and resources in military exercises designed to showcase the collective power of U.S. and regional forces, most recently bringing Gulf Cooperation Council militaries together for Eagle Resolve 23, an exercise that included integrated air and missile defense and counter-drone activities.

The White House, Pentagon, and Congress are all synchronized on a vision for Middle Eastern security integration.

Despite these exercises and other regional legwork by Kurilla and his staff, Gulf Cooperation Council states—particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—seem unmoved. Unimpressed with the U.S. commitment to UAE security, Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed remembers what he believes to have been an insufficient response from Washington when Abu Dhabi came under attack from Houthi missiles in January 2022. Since then, he has made a sport out of rebuffing the Biden administration’s efforts to repair the relationship. Last month, in an act that read like petulance in Washington, the UAE announced it was ending its participation in a U.S.-led regional task force meant to watch over critical sea lanes around the Arabian Peninsula.

Media reports indicate that Saudi Arabia is pursuing major arms deals with China even as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hosts visits from senior U.S. officials attempting to determine his price for normalizing Saudi relations with Israel. The crown prince, understanding he’s as much in negotiation with Washington as with Jerusalem on any deal, is almost certainly seeking security guarantees, priority access to U.S. weapons systems, and possibly support for his own civilian nuclear energy program. He likely won’t get everything he wants, but he might get a considerable amount.

While the U.S. Congress has become significantly more critical and resistant to Saudi arms sales over the past few years, the Biden administration may not need to lean on Congress all that hard if members believe they have a chance to make history with a Saudi-Israeli peace deal. The majority of Congress is likely to be “pretty forward-leaning,” as Republican Sen. Joni Ernst recently described her own position in a discussion on the future of the Abraham Accords at the Center for a New American Security’s annual conference this month. At that same event, Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider asserted that an “overwhelming majority” would support a deal presented “in a clear and transparent manner.”

Israel presumably has the most to gain economically and in terms of security from an official thaw in relations with Saudi Arabia. The upside of a normalization deal with Riyadh seemed apparent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who marked his return to office in late 2022 by appearing on Saudi television to speak glowingly about the kingdom and chide Washington for not doing more to strengthen U.S.-Saudi relations. While that seemed promising, in the months that followed, Bibi’s government diverted all its attention and political capital to its domestic agenda of judicial reforms and West Bank settlement expansion. Those two policies have strained the foundations of Israel’s democracy in ways that have left some of Israel’s newfound friends in the Gulf wondering if the Jewish State will survive its “Jewish Spring,” an allusion to the civil uprisings that turned the Arab world inside-out just over a decade ago.

The White House, Pentagon, and Congress are all synchronized on a vision for Middle Eastern security integration. If Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia don’t seize on this moment of rare Washington unanimity to work toward a multilateral security framework that would benefit all of them, we might sadly amend former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban’s famous quip from 1973 and conclude that the Arabs and Israelis never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

To avoid this fate, here’s what needs to happen.

The UAE, like Saudi Arabia, wants an easier path to purchasing U.S. weapons and a defense pact that guarantees a U.S. military response if it comes under attack. Washington is not willing to immediately agree to either of those conditions. In time, and if Abu Dhabi takes the right steps, Washington’s political and policy environment might allow consideration in the future. However, neither can occur if the UAE allows China’s military to establish an overt or covert presence in the country, because the risk posed to sensitive U.S. military technology is just too great. It’s a nonstarter. To get what he wants, bin Zayed should demonstrate he takes U.S. concerns about the security threat posed by China seriously and throw Beijing out of Khalifa Port, where it is reported to have a secret military presence. Secondly, he should commit his military forces to do everything they can to build interoperability with the U.S. military and those of the United States’ other regional partners. He should understand that the more Washington feels it can rely on the UAE, the more it will—and doors will open.

Of course, from his own perspective, bin Zayed has proved himself a loyal partner to the United States time and again, but of late has had little to show for it. Emirati officials are quick to remind their U.S. counterparts that the UAE sent its military to Afghanistan in support of the United States, but when the UAE called for help, Washington didn’t answer. While one can debate the finer points of who did what for whom, the point is that bin Zayed, the only Emirati decision-maker who matters, feels personally aggrieved. If he can put his frustration with Washington aside and commit to making the UAE a pillar in the United States’ vision of a Middle Eastern security architecture, Washington will reciprocate. The Middle Eastern countries that Washington perceives as essential to regional stability tend to get the weapons they need. Just ask Israel and Jordan.

When it comes to getting Riyadh’s commitment to a normalization deal, the road runs through Jerusalem. Whatever Mohammed bin Salman demands from Washington, it probably won’t be an insurmountable hurdle. To sign the Abraham Accords, the UAE negotiated a commitment from Israel that the latter would not annex the West Bank for three years. To follow suit, Saudi Arabia will likely need a greater commitment than that. It remains unclear to what, if anything, Israel’s government might agree in order to strike a deal. Netanyahu’s cabinet is unprecedently right-wing and hostile toward Palestinian existence, let alone autonomy, let alone the statehood envisioned in the increasingly ephemeral doctrine of the two-state solution. If a deal were in reach, Netanyahu would likely need to form a new government to have the political latitude to meet Riyadh’s conditions—something he might consider, according to a theory recently put forth by Israeli journalist and Abraham Accords chronicler Barak Ravid. In the meantime, Netanyahu can do his part by ratcheting down tensions within and beyond Israel’s borders.

Since the United States isn’t ran by an autocrat, it’s rare that the U.S. government has a truly unified vision for anything. But at this moment, it does. Washington wants to connect its Middle Eastern partners in ways that deliver collective security benefits greater than the sum of any one nation’s military’s parts. And at this moment, Washington is sitting alone at the table while its would-be allies are playing footsie with the United States’ adversaries, stewing in the corner over past grievances, or distracted by domestic endeavors. They would be wise to realize the rarity and significance of the opportunity that Washington is presenting and take a seat at the table. As Eban might have said, they should take the opportunity to take this opportunity.