The Great Reshuffle
The China-brokered deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, announced after talks in Beijing on 10 March 2023, put the spotlight on the multipolar Middle East, that has been in the making for quite some time. Talks between representatives of the two powerhouses, whose frail relations have contributed to the upheaval that has characterised the region in the last decade, have intensified in the past two year, despite ups and downs. The change of administration in the US clearly incentivised a broad regional détente, as the diplomacy first approach of the Biden presidency replaced the muscular isolationism of Donald Trump. However, as relations with Riyadh worsened (especially in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) and ties with Teheran remained at an all-time low (as highlighted by the uncertain fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPOA), Washington became increasingly estranged from a core region in which only until now it has been the main powerbroker, but now increasingly looks distracted by other priorities.
While in Washington the soundness of this regional policy may come under scrutiny, Tel Aviv was surprised to see that its diplomatic pressure to normalise ties with its Arab partners stopped at the gates of the Kingdom. Distracted by its self-inflicted domestic problems, the Netanyahu government has avoided acknowledging at political level this great reshuffle.
The current alternative is a privileged partnership with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently reinforced with a free trade agreement that came into force at the end of March. Despite some visible cracks on a deprioritised Palestinian issue, emerged in multilateral fora like the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the UN Security Council (UNSC), the good relations between Israel and the UAE remains the most significant achievement of the Abraham Accords that were intended as a commercial way to break stalemate and change local equations, also according to US interests…
Umberto Profazio for the NATO Foundation.
