Hussein Banai (left) and Lee Hamilton (right). (Hamilton Lugar School)
This story has been updated.
Joe Biden arrived in Tel Aviv Wednesday morning, launching the first leg of his first trip to the Middle East as president.
Biden will stop in Israel, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia. The president also will meet privately with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite previous promises that such a meeting would not occur.
Almost eighteen months into his presidency, Biden’s visit to the Middle East comes late compared to his recent predecessors.
Associate Professor of International Studies Hussein Banai thinks strategic reasons may explain the delay.
“I think it has to do with the fact that so many things are in flux geopolitically in the region, and globally as well,” said Banai. “When Biden came into the office, he had to deal with not just an Iran deal that badly needed attention after withdrawal from the Trump administration, but also a transformed picture in Saudi Arabia and Israel.”
In particular, Banai pointed to bin Salman’s human rights record and Israel’s turbulent electoral politics.
Lee Hamilton, former Indiana congressman and chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, agrees that the timing is necessarily a strategic decision.
“Every region of the world wants the United States president to visit, so it becomes a major foreign policy decision as to where to go and when to go,” Hamilton said. “I think in this case there are a number of items on the Middle East agenda all coming in at the same time and confronting the president with some hard choices.”
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Biden wrote that he hopes American engagement will bring “a more secure and integrated Middle East.” In terms of specific policy objectives, both Banai and Hamilton identified three main goals: increasing Saudi oil production, containing Iran, and strengthening ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Biden has been a vocal critic of Saudi Arabia’s charismatic ruler Mohammed bin Salman, pledging to make the gulf kingdom a “pariah” state. Critics have pointed to Biden’s upcoming meeting with the prince as a policy pivot.
“I don’t think it’s so much a pivot as it is a brutal reality of power politics in the region,” said Banai. “Saudi Arabia at the end of the day is a country of great strategic importance to the United States, and especially given domestic worries with high inflation and high prices of gas, it doesn’t matter what moral or ethical qualms any particular leader has.”
Hamilton believes that Saudi Arabia increasing its oil output is a foregone conclusion. “I think the increase in production will come. Maybe not as quickly as we’d like it to come, but almost certainly they’ll agree to increase production of oil. There’s just too much demand for it across the world, and Saudi Arabia remains the producer of first and last resort.”
In terms of ending Saudi Arabia’s catastrophic war in Yemen, Banai sees little hope for progress. “At the end of the day, if they don’t do anything, the Iranians will fill the vacuum, and that’ll be a bigger headache. For the Biden team, letting Saudi Arabia take all the heat when it comes to its brutal execution of that war and playing the role of a critical supporter is going to be the extent to which they’re willing to go.”
Curbing Iran’s geopolitical and nuclear ambitions is also a high priority, not just in Washington, but Riyadh and Tel Aviv as well. While Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran was popular in Europe, it received little support from Iran’s regional rivals. The Trump administration scrapped the agreement, and Joe Biden has been unsuccessful at resuscitating it.
“I think part of the reason why Biden is making this visit later is he probably hoped there would be a deal that at this point would have come together, and this trip would be an opportunity to sell that deal to the Saudis and the Israelis,” said Banai. “Obviously that deal has not come about. The Iranians have become more boastful. They themselves have hitched their wagon to the Russian role in Ukraine and increasing influence in the region as well.”
In fact, Russian president Vladmir Putin is scheduled to visit Iran next week.
“It’s very clear this is an attempt to shore up alliances against Iran,” said Banai. “It foreshadows more than anything that the Iran deal is dead, and there will be an announcement forthcoming that hereon absent a deal, the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia will look at military options for checking Iran’s ambitions.”
“Iran poses terrific problems for us and a lot of our friends in the region. (Joe Biden) wants to slow down the momentum that Iran has picked up in the last few years,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton and Banai agree that Biden likely hopes a shared position on Iran will help build on the success of the Abraham Accords, which led several Middle Eastern countries to recognize Israel. Saudi Arabia hasn’t yet done so, but its relationship with Israel has started to thaw. A U.S. official announced Thursday that Saudi Arabia soon will allow access for Israeli airlines within its airspace.
“The Abraham Accords turned out to be the one success of the Trump administration, even in the eyes of Democrats,” said Banai. “Continuing them and deepening those ties is something that I think Biden would like to see.”
Successfully building on the Abraham accords would be a major win for Israel, but a loss for Palestinians. Many Arab countries had conditioned recognition for Israel on ending its occupation, but the recent success of U.S.-Israeli diplomacy changed that paradigm. Biden will meet with his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas for less than an hour Friday, during which the two will tour the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem.
“It’s all formality and little substance. I think the Palestinian issue is something that is for the first time in a long time really on a back burner for the White House,” said Banai. “The reality on the ground is that the Palestinian Authority is at its weakest position historically. The Abraham Accords have really meant the abandonment of the Palestinian issue by key Arab allies.”
See also: Biden to balance human rights and Middle East realities
Hamilton noted that Biden’s approach toward Palestine signifies a major shift in US priorities. “The Palestinian issue, which once dominated the discussions in the region for us, now obviously is of less importance,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it’s unimportant, but it doesn’t hold the prominence that it once did.”
Biden is scheduled to arrive in Jeddah on Friday, where he will attempt to improve relations in spite of his former criticism of the crown prince and the war in Yemen. “Look, you can’t avoid Saudi Arabia,” said Hamilton. “They do a lot of things we don’t like, but we have to. They’re a major player, you simply cannot write them off.”
