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Peaceful middle eastern countries6/20/2023 ![]() ![]() CIA Director William Burns traveled to Riyadh to express U.S. These rapid shifts in regional diplomacy have left the Biden administration scrambling. No starker example of this can be seen than in the visit of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi to Syria just days before the Arab League restored Syria to full membership - with barely a murmur of criticism about the visit from Arab capitals. Yet today, it seems to have been discarded entirely: Arab regimes have apparently accepted Iran’s role as a regional actor and acknowledged, if only tacitly thus far, the legitimacy of its regional presence. Arab regimes frequently justified outreach to Damascus on these grounds. In the past, the United States has seen Arab engagement with the Assad regime as a chance to weaken Iran’s influence in Syria. The impacts of this shift on the United States are already visible. policy seem increasingly out of sync with regional trends. Now, with Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, Assad’s normalization, signs of movement in resolving the impasse over Lebanon’s presidency, and new momentum in regional diplomacy more broadly, the assumptions underlying decades of U.S. The Abraham Accords were celebrated in the United States and Israel in part as signaling a convergence of interests among former adversaries that the Iranian threat had eclipsed residual commitments to Palestinian statehood. Its regional strategy has sought to contain Iran, weaken its regional clients, and support Arab partners. policy has been based on the premise of shared assumptions about Iran’s threat to regional stability on the part of both Israel and pro-Western Arab regimes. Where does the United States fit in a regional order that challenges many of the pillars of U.S. Whatever its fate, this evolving security landscape raises fundamental questions about the U.S. If it does, the West may witness a historic first for the Arab world: the formation of a locally organized, post-Cold War, post-Pax Americana security framework.Įdited by Dafna H. If the framework that has emerged from these conditions will not end regional divisions, it may yet serve to prevent durable rivalries from boiling over into open conflict. ![]() priorities in managing regional threats, and expanded possibilities to look beyond the United States, including to China, to bridge regional differences. These changes left Arab regimes bearing a greater share of the regional security burden, enabled them to downgrade U.S. What this emerging security architecture does indicate is how regional actors are responding to broader geopolitical shifts, notably the diminished role of the United States in the Middle East and an increasingly multipolar international order. Nor will a superficially inclusive regional security order mitigate hostility between Iran and Israel: it may have the opposite effect by increasing Israeli perceptions of vulnerability. Jordan struck a narcotics production site in southern Syria even before the ink on the Arab League vote had dried. It does not signal that tensions between Assad and the regimes that just a few years ago worked to overthrow his regime have diminished. This shift, however, does not imply the beginnings of a warm peace among Arab adversaries or between Arab regimes and Iran. In moving toward constructive engagement, regional actors have seemingly elevated pragmatism and realism over the geopolitical and sectarian cleavages that have divided them for decades. The effects of this shift are also evident in Yemen, where Saudi-Iranian rapprochement has made possible the longest ceasefire yet in the country’s decade-long civil war. Alongside other steps that have narrowed regional divides - between Iran and Saudi Arabia Qatar and its counterparts in the Gulf Cooperation Council Turkey and Arab rivals such as Egypt Israel and Lebanon over maritime issues or Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain - Syria’s normalization is an additional step toward the de-escalation of intractable regional conflicts. His return to the Arab fold marks the ongoing consolidation of what can only be described as a new regional security architecture, a framework for managing rivalries that is perhaps the most significant shift in regional dynamics since the U.S. When seen as one piece of a larger regional puzzle, Assad’s resurrection is more significant. Taken on its own, normalization can perhaps be written off as the recognition by Arab regimes, however grudging, that Assad cannot be wished away and must be dealt with, if only to limit his ability to impose costs on his neighbors. Yet it would be a mistake to view the league’s decision as sound and fury, signifying nothing. Whether it will ever do so is uncertain, despite the hype surrounding the Arab League vote. Assad’s normalization has not yet delivered much in the way of tangible outcomes either for his regime or for his Arab counterparts. ![]()
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