By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
Why A Spate of Diplomatic Deals Won’t
End Conflict
The History of the
Middle East had a checkered early history.
Forwind, in mid-July 2023, Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan completed a high-profile tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United
Arab Emirates, bringing tens of billions of dollars in investment deals to
Turkey’s struggling economy. After nearly a decade of icy relations, the trip culminated
in a growing diplomatic thaw between Turkey and the Saudi and UAE governments.
This rapprochement was made possible by Turkish ally Qatar’s resumption of ties
with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi after a years-long rupture. In June, just weeks
before Erdogan’s visit, Qatar and the UAE had themselves renewed formal
diplomatic relations.
These are only some
of the deals taking place in the Middle East. In 2020, Israel agreed to open
relations with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in the Abraham Accords—the
first such act of normalization between Israel and Arab states since the
Israel-Jordan peace treaty 1994. A few months later, Morocco and Sudan also
joined the Abraham Accords. In March 2023, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to
resume diplomatic relations after seven years of mutual antagonism. And in May,
even Syria’s dictator, President Bashar al-Assad, was brought in from the cold
when he was welcomed back to the Arab League after more than a decade of
isolation.
At first glance, the
swell of normalization deals rolling across the region seems to mark a break
from the decade of turbulence set off by the 2010–11 Arab uprisings. States
that had pursued military approaches to some of the region’s conflicts,
directly or by proxy, have decided, for now at least, that diplomacy is a
better way to advance their interests. A case in point might be Yemen, where
Riyadh has talked with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels over the past few years to
end the long-running civil war or at least Saudi involvement. Such are the perceived
benefits of normalization. The Biden administration now suggests that a
rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia might help rescue the moribund
Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
But observers should
be careful not to overstate this apparent sea change. Many of the underlying
drivers of the region’s conflicts remain largely unaddressed: the debate over
the role of Islam and Islamists in government; the long-standing enmity between
Iran and both Israel and some Arab states; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
which faces precipitous new violence amid the rise of a far-right government in
Israel; and the region’s debilitating lack of effective governance, reinforced
by a regionwide reassertion of autocratic rule, including in Tunisia, whose
leader is reversing post-2011 democratic progress. Indeed, the normalization of
relations between the various governments may have further entrenched some of
these problems.
The Emirati Entente
Diplomacy is
doubtless important. The establishment—or reestablishment—of relations between
Saudi Arabia and Iran, Israel, and several Arab countries, Qatar and its Gulf
Arab rivals, as well as Turkey’s recent overtures to Egypt and several Gulf
states, will accomplish several things. These moves open new communication
channels, vital to preventing violent incidents from escalating into something
more significant by improving mutual understanding between rivals or
antagonists. Maintaining regular high-level contacts is essential in a region
beset with old, deep, and seemingly intractable conflicts. But does the swirl
of recent diplomatic maneuvering amount to more than that? If so, what is it,
and what are its limits?
The normalization
wave arguably began in 2019 with the UAE and Iran. That summer, Emirati
officials sought to dial down tensions with Tehran following a series of
unclaimed attacks on commercial shipping in the Gulf. The leadership in Abu
Dhabi interpreted these incidents as Iran’s warning that there would be
consequences if the Gulf Arab states supported U.S. President Donald Trump’s
“maximum pressure” campaign against the Islamic Republic. In visiting Tehran
that year, senior Emirati officials signaled that the UAE did not wish to be
associated with U.S. attempts to coerce Tehran, particularly in the wake of
Trump’s decision to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the JCPOA
(Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the Iran nuclear deal, his predecessor
had signed in 2015.
More parleys between
the UAE and Iran followed. The opening offered Iran a possible escape from its
relative isolation in the region, with the prospect of Emirati investments in
its ailing economy. The UAE sought a new security strategy amid the dangerous
standoff between Iran and the United States. Notwithstanding the UAE’s potent
military, Emirati officials had witnessed the mixed results of military
interventions in Libya, where the UAE provided military support to one side in
the armed conflict, and in Yemen, where it joined a Saudi-led effort against
Houthi rebels who had seized the capital. Those military efforts hit
significant roadblocks in each case and brought limited rewards. Meanwhile,
U.S. security guarantees seemed increasingly unreliable: not only was the Trump
administration pushing Iran into a corner, but it was also, in Gulf Arab eyes,
failing to extend its protective umbrella when Iran retaliated.
Emirati leaders
perceived new vulnerabilities and took a more diplomatic approach to the
region. Following the opening to Iran in 2019, they decided to formalize their
long-standing but mostly covert relationship with Iran’s archenemy, Israel, in
the Abraham Accords. Paradoxically, the UAE’s improved ties with Iran may have
facilitated its deal with Israel: had Abu Dhabi taken this step under different
conditions, it might have given Tehran less reason for restraint when it felt
its core interests threatened. In the event, Iran merely indicated a red line:
no Israeli military presence in the Gulf. Meanwhile, and though it was not the
Emirati leaders’ main objective, formalizing UAE relations with Israel covered
their backs with the Trump administration, which in principle demanded no letup
from Washington’s Gulf partners in putting pressure on Iran.
Talk Therapy
The election of Joe
Biden as U.S. president in 2020 accelerated the sense among Arab leaders that
they would need to draw more on their diplomacy to address regional tensions.
Confronting a period of profound social and political polarization at home, the
United States appeared to be looking inward, and in foreign policy, the Biden
administration was reviving the “pivot to Asia” orientation set by the Obama
administration. Soon after coming to office, Biden indicated his wish for the
war in Yemen to end—though the United States did very little to push things
along. A year later, he also spurned
Emirati entreaties to redesignate
the Houthis as a terrorist entity following drone attacks on Abu Dhabi in
January 2022.
Washington’s
relations with Riyadh, in particular, deteriorated. Upon entering the White
House, Biden ostracized Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman (often called MBS), holding him responsible for the 2018 murder of
dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden also wanted the United States to
return to the nuclear agreement with Iran. Although Saudi officials have
remained noncommittal about whether and under what circumstances they might
pursue a nuclear program of their own, they are deeply concerned about how Iran
might seek to project power in the region—either by itself or through its
allies—if Washington provided sanctions relief in a new nuclear deal.
In Saudi Arabia and
other Gulf Arab states, the growing uncertainty about U.S. security guarantees
fueled regional diplomacy. In 2021, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies decided to
end a four-year-old blockade of Qatar, which had resulted from Qatar’s
stubbornly independent foreign policy and support of Islamists during the Arab
uprisings. Even though Qatar had not met any of the blockading countries’
original demands, Riyadh brought about the Al-Ula agreement, which renewed
Qatari ties with Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members
Bahrain and the UAE, and Egypt, which had also joined the boycott. Although it
is unclear how far this symbolic reconciliation will be matched with
substance—and although Saudi-Emirati relations began to sour around the same
time—the turnabout was significant. It allowed Saudi Arabia to project a new
foreign policy demeanor based on diplomacy rather than bullying and enabled
Qatar to stage a successful football World Cup in 2022.
Meanwhile, Erdogan’s
government in Turkey has had its motives for returning to diplomacy. For over a
decade, Ankara’s ties with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt had badly frayed.
Although Turkey had prevailed in Libya and successfully helped Azerbaijan
capture back parts of the disputed Armenian exclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and
nearby areas in 2020, its support of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and other
Islamists in the region had infuriated those Arab governments. Nonetheless,
they saw that their efforts to put the Islamists back in a box had primarily
succeeded, first in General Abdul Fattah el-Sisi’s
2013 coup against President and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi in
Egypt and then gradually elsewhere. As Erdogan’s recent trip to the Gulf has
demonstrated, a normalization of relations, at least in trade, can mean a
significant boost to Turkey’s mismanaged economy; for their part, Turkey’s
interlocutors understand that checkbook diplomacy is a better way of dissuading
Ankara from supporting behavior they regard as subversive.
Some of the most
dramatic results of the Middle East’s new normalization drive have come in the
first half of 2023. In a particularly noteworthy move, after years of mutual
enmity and suspicion, Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to restore diplomatic
relations in March. In pursuing a détente with Iran, Saudi officials recognized
that the Trump “maximum pressure” approach had failed and that they needed an
alternative way forward. Senior Iranian and Saudi security officials maintained
an intermittent bilateral dialogue for a couple of years until, early this
year, China stepped in. By this point, the Biden administration faced sinking
relations with Iran amid faltering nuclear talks, popular protests in Iran, and
Tehran’s supply of weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine. With Washington out of
the picture, Beijing likely realized it had an uncommon opportunity to help the
two sides cut a deal.
The breakthrough was particularly
welcome given how destructive the Iranian-Saudi rivalry has been over recent
years, especially in Yemen. It also raises the possibility of a broader
regional dialogue on issues of shared concern, such as the impact of climate
change, the energy transition, and Russia’s war in Ukraine. Moreover, as was
the case with their Emirati counterparts, by lowering Iranian threats to oil
infrastructure, the Saudis have put themselves in a better position to
normalize relations with Israel if and when they choose.
Yet another striking
normalization move has been the efforts of some Arab leaders to restore ties to
the Syrian regime. The UAE led the way by sending its foreign minister to
Damascus last November and increasing aid and trade. Then in May, the Arab
League readmitted Syria into its ranks following a final push from Saudi
Arabia. In taking these steps, Gulf Arab leaders effectively acknowledge that
Syrian dictator Assad has prevailed over the opposition he violently
suppressed. But they are also adding to a long-standing effort to pry Assad
away from his Iranian protectors and to deal with the growing problem of
state-sponsored drug smuggling from Syria to the Gulf. (Customs authorities in
Jordan and the Gulf have seized millions of Captagon
pills, and Jordanian forces have gone after traffickers, killing some even
inside Syria.) Adding to the Syrian regime’s rehabilitation, Turkey resumed
discussions with Damascus this spring, prodded by Russia and keen to proclaim
ahead of presidential elections in May that it was actively seeking a way for
Syrian refugees to return to Syria; and the UAE spoke with to the commander of
Kurdish rebels in northern Syria to bring the group closer to Damascus.
Surface Over Substance
From a conflict
prevention perspective, the Middle East’s turn to diplomacy and normalization
offers indisputable benefits. Several of the region’s intertwined
conflicts—between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, and Israel and
Hezbollah—are only a hair trigger away from a significant escalation. A single
miscalculation, miscommunication, or rocket hitting a school or shopping center
rather than a military target or an open field could create an uncontrolled
chain of events. In such a situation, having preexisting lines of communication
and active diplomacy are critical, even if those channels do not involve the
immediate belligerents.
However, whether all
this talking can help address the deeper forces driving conflict in the region
is far less specific. The long-standing debate over the role of Islam in
government, and especially in its most organized expression, the Muslim Brotherhood,
is one such driver, leading to recurring instability and tension in countries
such as Egypt and between Qatar and the UAE. To complicate matters, the
Islamist issue is mediated and reshaped by ethnic and sectarian differences and
some states' regional dominance aspirations.
Today, for example,
two years after the Al-Ula agreement, the UAE remains far apart from Qatar and
Turkey, let alone Iran, on the question of Islam’s role in government. And
although Islamists are unlikely to take power anywhere anytime soon, the
popular support they still enjoy across the region, and their organizational
acumen are a matter of abiding Emirati concern. The Al-Ula agreement also
highlighted Mohammed bin Salman’s intentions: to transform Saudi Arabia from an
oil-dependent and socially conservative country into a global middle power on
par with Indonesia or Brazil. To this end, he is sidelining the hard-line clerics who for decades dictated repressive
social controls, diversifying the economy away from its overreliance on oil
income, as in his “Saudi Vision 2030” strategy, which calls for a dramatic
modernization of the Saudi economy and society, including massive investments
in the energy transition as well as a broad social opening; and seeking a new
role in resolving regional conflicts, most recently in the civil war in Sudan.
(Besides evacuating stranded foreigners and distributing humanitarian aid,
Riyadh has, together with Washington, brokered talks between the two Sudanese
rival leaders to reach a cease-fire, so far unsuccessfully.) In other words,
MBS’s primary aim in turning to diplomacy has not been to encourage greater
Gulf unity but to reassert Saudi regional dominance.
Similarly, it is
unclear how much the Saudi-Iranian agreement will change Iran’s regional power
projection. The deal could significantly lower regional tensions in the near
term, especially in Yemen. But although Iran may nudge the Houthis to strike a
deal with the Saudis, it is unlikely to reduce its regional footprint or lessen
its support for such proxies and allies as the Houthis, Hezbollah, paramilitary
groups in Iraq, or the Syrian regime. Assad may have secured Syrian reentry
into the Arab League, but the league is a deeply divided and toothless amalgam
of Arab states. Gulf investments will not arrive significantly in Damascus if
Western sanctions on Syria remain or if Assad continues to rely exclusively on
Iran and Russia for his survival. In any case, Saudi Arabia and Iran will
likely continue to spar over regional power and influence.
The Abraham Accords
also come with significant limitations. Although they constitute a considerable
change of regional alignments, they have left many underlying conflict drivers,
especially concerning Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza,
unaddressed or further entrenched. Israel and the UAE derive mutual benefit
from bringing out a relationship they had been nurturing in the shadows for
many years. In addition to trade and—so far, one-sided—tourism, the UAE has
been eager to purchase advanced U.S. weaponry with an Israeli green light (a
traditional prerequisite for U.S. arms deals in the Gulf), along with Israeli
surveillance technology, developed and honed by Israel in the Palestinian territories
it occupies. Yet the new Israeli-Emirati relationship falls well short of
Israel’s desire for an anti-Iran alliance. Gulf Arab states, which fear
becoming collateral targets in a war between Iran, Israel, and the United
States, have made clear they want no part in such an undertaking. Saudi and
Emirati rapprochement with Iran has buried the prospect of such an alliance.
The Accords’ impact
has been particularly destructive on the ever more precarious search for
Israeli-Palestinian peace. To those in Washington who think that normalizing
relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel could bring progress to the
Palestinian situation, it is worth looking at the results of the existing
deals. Emirati officials argued that closer UAE relations with Israel would
positively affect the issue, but they have almost nothing to show. Instead, now
led by a hard-line right-wing government, Israel has
expanded settlements and pursued even harsher military measures in the occupied
territories while counting its splitting of the Arab camp as a significant
victory. The Accords drove a nail in the moribund Arab Peace Initiative put
forward by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states two decades ago. In response,
Saudi diplomats have tried reaffirming the initiative’s enduring importance.
Still, such efforts seemed aimed more at staking a bargaining position than a
genuine bid to revive the plan. Most Gulf Arab states can agree that today is
some economic peace for Palestinians under Israeli control, as Trump’s “Peace
to Prosperity” tried to force through in 2020. But Palestinians have never
shown any appetite for such proposals. In the face of all odds, they continue
to aspire to an independent state of their own or, failing this, the
application of equal rights for all people in the territory between the
Mediterranean and the Jordan River—a nonstarter for most Israelis. What is
emerging instead is a system of control that leading Palestinian, Israeli,
and international human rights organizations say meets the legal definition of
apartheid—now with adequate backing by the Arab parties to the Abraham Accords.
Meanwhile, the
Israel-Palestinian conflict grinds on, erupting into violent outbursts on
various fronts with accelerating frequency. Israeli and Palestinian societies
are so polarized that neither can deliver a sustainable negotiated settlement
to the conflict. And although Israel may claim a resounding success in
colonizing the West Bank, sooner or later, it will have to face the reality of
demographic changes that challenge the very foundations of the Jewish state.
Within the broader Middle East, the fact that the protagonists in the region’s
rawest conflicts—Israel and its enemies—are not even talking to each other
heightens the risks of a significant flare-up in Lebanon or Syria, if not Iran.
Neither does U.S.
recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western
Sahara—Trump’s gift to the kingdom for agreeing to normalize relations with
Israel—do much to resolve this postcolonial conflict, almost half a decade old.
It could make a peaceful negotiated solution even more difficult as the sides
dig in.
Tiptoeing Around The Tinderbox
Perhaps most
importantly, the Middle East’s normalization wave seems unlikely to help the
region’s suffering populations. The most profound driver of conflict has little
to do with elite diplomacy and everything to do with how the individual states
manage their economies and govern their societies. After all, it was indignity
and widespread anger at ruling elites—their cronyism and inability to reliably
deliver essential services or, amid belt-tightening, distribute largesse to
those who needed it most—that sent people into the streets during the 2011
revolts and produced a familiar cry for social justice. Some countries that
escaped the turmoil in 2011—Algeria, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan—experienced a form of
it eight years later, and Iran had its version last year.
The regimes that
managed to weather the storm of popular fury—Egypt, Syria, Algeria, and perhaps
now also Tunisia, though today under a different autocratic leadership–have
reconstituted themselves as “fierce” states: internally weak but with maximum
resources directed toward policing their people with enhanced surveillance and
social controls. The Gulf Arab states that spearheaded the post-2011
counterrevolution (instigating the 2013 coup against Morsi in Egypt) showed the
way—with the help of Israeli technology. Past decades have demonstrated that
super-repressive states can survive for quite some time, but their growing
inability to cope with accumulating social and economic pressures eventually
ends. The incisive UN Arab Human Development reports from the early years of
this century warned that an Arab state system lagging in human development and,
with all its other socioeconomic ills, was unsustainable—foreshadowing the
uprisings a few years later. Today, however, the challenges have only grown
worse. The Middle East now faces the scars of war, the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid
population growth, widespread youth unemployment, and uncontrolled
urbanization, not to mention climate change and the nascent transition to clean
energy. No government in the region is currently capable of seriously
confronting these issues.
It is good news that,
at the highest levels of government, much of the Middle East seems to be opting
to get along. But the glass is only half full. One Houthi drone striking an Abu
Dhabi shopping mall, a Lebanese man climbing over the border fence with Israel
and attacking a bus, Israeli security forces killing Palestinian youths inside
the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and inflaming the entire Muslim world, or Egypt
defaulting on its debt and having to slash bread and fuel subsidies—it is all
too easy to imagine an event that could quickly upturn the current semblance of
regional stability. And even if people may not soon again take to the streets
in great numbers, public pressure for improved governance will continue to
fester. Autocratic regimes may come to appreciate how putting their own houses
in order may allow them to confront better the tough challenges that global
disorder continues to throw at them. The question is, will they seize the
opportunity?
For updates click hompage here