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C. Raja Mohan writes: Lessons on navigating the evolving geopolitics in the Middle East

C. Raja Mohan writes: Joe Biden's recent trip to the Middle East highlights the emerging trends in the region's diverse political and strategic orientations. Diplomatic realism in Delhi means India can realise its potential in the region

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US President Joe Biden gesture as they stand for a photo ahead of the Jeddah Security and Development Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. (Reuters)Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US President Joe Biden gesture as they stand for a photo ahead of the Jeddah Security and Development Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. (Reuters)

For an India that is recasting its engagement with the Middle East, the lessons from US President Joe Biden’s trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia are doubly important. Biden’s visit highlights not only some new trends that are reshaping the region but also eternal truths about international politics that are lost in the din of public discourse about the Middle East.

First, contrary to the popular perception in the US, the region, and India, the US is not about to abandon the Middle East. Until recently, it became quite a common conviction among liberals as well as conservatives in the US that the time has come for American retrenchment from the messy politics of the region. Many in the US political class believed that given America’s oil independence from the Middle East — thanks to the dramatic expansion of hydrocarbon production in the US in recent years —Washington no longer needed the region. The precipitous American withdrawal from Afghanistan last year intensified these concerns and the region looked for alternative means to secure itself. But as in the Indo-Pacific and Europe, the Biden Administration has concluded that it can’t cede its regional primacy in the Middle East and is ready to reclaim its leadership. As Biden told Arab leaders at a summit in Jeddah, the US is not leaving the Middle East and that America “will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran”.

Second, while the US will stay put in the Middle East, it is certainly changing the manner in which it acts. In the past, the US saw itself as the sole provider of regional security and was ready to send its troops frequently into the region. Biden told the Arab leaders that his trip was the “first time since 9/11, an American President is visiting this region without American troops being engaged in a combat mission in the region”.

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While the US does not want to be drawn directly into the region’s wars, it is determined to help its partners develop capabilities to secure themselves. Equally important is the effort to produce greater reconciliation among Arabs and Israel and create stronger networks within and beyond the region to strengthen deterrence against adversaries. The current effort to craft a Middle East Air Defence coalition is an example of this. Under the MEAD, the US, Israel and some of the Arab nations are collaborating to prevent missile and other aerial attacks. The I2U2 signals that the US no longer views the Middle East in isolation from its neighbourhood.

Third, Biden had to modify his sweeping rhetoric about the “conflict between democracies and autocracies” as the principal contradiction in the world. To sustain the US position in the region, Biden had no option but to sit with leaders of monarchies and autocracies that are America’s long-standing partners. Sweeping ideological propositions rarely work in practice. The Middle East, in particular, is a place where ideologies come to die.

Festive offer

Fourth, even more consequentially, Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia demonstrated that “interests” generally tend to triumph over “values” in the conduct of foreign policy. During his campaign for the presidency, Biden vowed to isolate the Saudi state from the global community. Biden was responding to the outrage in the US against the killing of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in the Istanbul consulate in 2018. Biden’s words seemed to have little cost when he said them. But now, as US President, he had the acute discomfort of publicly eating those words during his trip to the region, agreeing to a fist bump with the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. With domestic media and political opponents focusing on his past rhetoric, Biden put his head down to do what was right for the US — to repair the relationship with Saudi Arabia — amidst the pressing need to cool down the global oil market and ease domestic inflation just months before the midterm elections in America.

Fifth, Biden’s focus on national interest found an echo in the Middle East, which is learning to put nation above other identities such as ethnicity and religion. In the past, the region seemed immune to nationalism as it focused on transcendental notions of “pan Arabism” and “pan Islamism”.

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There is plenty of evidence that the old illusions are being discarded. Neither the Arab League nor the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has met the objectives of their founders. Although the idea of Arab solidarity on the Palestine issue endures, many Arab leaders are not willing to let that come in the way of normalisation of relations with Israel.

A critical section of the Arabs, long seen as irreconcilably opposed to Israel, are now joining hands with the Jewish state to counter threats to their national security from Iran. Their shared Islamic identity with Iran does not translate into common perceptions of regional security. In fact, the contradiction between Arabs and Iran has emerged as a major fault line in the region. Consider the case of Iraq too.

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 to oust Saddam Hussein led to the empowerment of the Shia majority in the country. Arabs who had backed the US invasion watched warily as Shia Iran rapidly gained influence inside Iraq. But Baghdad has been unwilling to subordinate its Iraqi identity or Arab ethnicity to Shia solidarity with Iran. Iraq, which is both Shia and Arab, has found that it can play the role of an independent bridge between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Many Gulf kingdoms, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are now consciously promoting a national identity among their peoples. They are celebrating “national days” and creating greater popular awareness of national histories and heritage. While the Gulf kingdoms have no reason to discard their pan-Arab or pan-Islamic positions, the pursuit of their national interests acquires a higher priority. Once you define yourself as a nation-state, your focus is less on identity politics and more on state interests. This, in turn, leads to shifting geopolitical coalitions over time and space. It is this new reality that dominates the region.

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There was a time when Israel aligned with non-Arab Muslim states like Iran and Turkey to enhance its room for manoeuvre against the Arabs. Today, it is championing the cause of Arabs against Iran. Turkey, a NATO ally of the West, collaborates with Russia on some issues and competes with it on others. Despite shared religion, Turkey’s leader Recep Erdogan has in recent years sought to undermine many of the Arab regimes. Qatar has often found itself closer to non-Arab Turkey and in opposition to its Gulf Arab neighbours.

The Middle East was never an easy place for those spouting ideologies of various kinds or those with a weak appetite for geopolitical hard work in the region. Its politics has become even more complex in recent years. Delhi, whose Middle East policy today is imbued with greater realism, can hopefully discard the inherited ideological inertia, avoid the temptation of seeing the Middle East through a religious lens, and strive hard to realise the full possibilities awaiting India in the region.

The writer is Senior Fellow, Asia Society Policy Institute, New Delhi and contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express

First uploaded on: 19-07-2022 at 04:40 IST
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