Dan Williams
Reuters / March 12, 2023
JERUSALEM – The Saudi-Iran detente sets back Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to isolate Tehran, but time will tell whether it also hinders his outreach to Riyadh or planning for any eventual military strike against Iranian nuclear sites.
The more pressing worry for Israel, some experts argue, is that Friday’s Chinese-brokered deal between the top Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim powers suggests the United States is giving ground in the region just when the Netanyahu government needs it most.
An Israeli official who requested anonymity described the detente as an unsurprising and preliminary process that should not hinder any parallel progress toward normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. After all, Israel has drawn close to the United Arab Emirates despite Abu Dhabi also engaging Tehran.
Meanwhile, Israel is keeping up a campaign of veiled threats to attack Iran alone if it deems nuclear diplomacy a dead end.
But all scenarios still hinge on Washington – a sponsor and sweetener of Israeli-Arab peace accords and guardian ally which, if it red-lights military action, Israel will be loath to cross.
“This is a brilliant stroke by China and Iran to undercut Saudi-American and Saudi-Israeli normalization. It helps bring Tehran in from the cold and undermines American and Israeli efforts to build a regional coalition to confront Iran as it is on the cusp of developing nuclear weapons,” said Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies in Washington.
There are unrelated strains on the Israeli-U.S. alliance, however. The Democratic administration of President Joe Biden, which has yet to invite Netanyahu to the White House, has voiced unusually strong concern at his religious-nationalist coalition.
Netanyahu is also beset by unprecedented mass demonstrations in Israel against his judicial overhaul push. The protests have included pledges by some air force reservists not to turn up for training, a signal that combat readiness and morale have been shaken.
WAKE-UP CALL
Amos Yadlin, a former military intelligence chief under Netanyahu, said the Saudi-Iran detente should be a wake-up call.
“The government’s focus on the judicial overhaul, which is tearing the nation apart and weakening Israel in all dimensions, reflects a deep disconnect between Netanyahu and international geopolitical trends,” Yadlin said on Twitter.
Accusing Netanyahu of “generating extraordinary damage to our national security,” Yadlin said he should scrap the reforms – which critics call an attempt to subordinates the courts to the government – and close ranks with Biden on how to forge Israeli-Saudi ties and jointly tackle Iran’s nuclear program.
That suggested that Yadlin – who was among pilots who bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and served as a top general during Israel’s 2007 attack on a suspected reactor in Syria – may not place much store in Israel’s ability to go solo against Iran, whose nuclear sites are distant, dispersed and defended.
Similarly, Ehud Barak, a former Netanyahu Defence minister turned political critic, described Iran as “marching confidently towards becoming a de facto nuclear threshold state”.
“U.S.-Israeli coordination appears to be strong in the defence sphere but weak and in need of change in the offence sphere,” he wrote in the best-selling Yedioth Ahronoth daily.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weaponry.
Eitan Ben-David, a former Netanyahu deputy national security adviser, said Israel was building up capacity to take unilateral military action of necessary, with the U.S. partnership and possible Gulf Arab alliances being of secondary priority.
Saudi Arabia remained aware of the key U.S. role in the region and of the value of bilateral ties with Israel, he said.
“Today, too, there is a vigorous effort to deepen and renew and advance these ties – with U.S. involvement, of course, but also directly,” Ben-David told Israel’s Kan public radio.
The New York Times reported over the weekend that, in return for normalizing relations with Israel, Riyadh wanted help with developing a civilian nuclear program and fewer restrictions on U.S. arms purchases.
Yadlin warned against Netanyahu, squeezed politically at home and at odds with the White House, accommodating such demands “in his alacrity to hold up a Saudi peace plan as an achievement”.
The Saudi government’s media office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on The New York Times report. Saudi Arabia has linked any move by the kingdom to normalize ties with Israel to a resolution of Palestinian statehood goals.
For its part, the White House appeared to downplay China’s involvement in Friday’s development. Its national security spokesperson John Kirby said the White House believes internal and external pressure, including effective Saudi deterrence against attacks from Iran or its proxies, ultimately brought Tehran to the table.
Writing by Dan Williams, editing by William Maclean
——
Analysis: China role in Saudi, Iran deal a tricky test for U.S.
Phil Stewart & Michelle Nichols
Reuters / March 12, 2023
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON – The surprise deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic ties offers much for the United States to be intrigued about, including a possible path to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program and a chance to cement a ceasefire in Yemen.
It also contains an element sure to make officials in Washington deeply uneasy – the role of China as peace broker in a region where the U.S. has long wielded influence.
The deal was announced after four days of previously undisclosed talks in Beijing between the Middle East rivals. White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday that while Washington was not directly involved, Saudi Arabia kept U.S. officials informed of the talks with Iran.
Relations between the U.S. and China have become highly contentious over issues ranging from trade to espionage and increasingly the two powers compete for influence in parts of the world far from their own borders.
Kirby appeared to downplay China’s involvement in Friday’s development, saying the White House believes internal and external pressure, including effective Saudi deterrence against attacks from Iran or its proxies, ultimately brought Tehran to the table.
But former senior U.S. and U.N. official Jeffrey Feltman said China’s role, rather than the re-opening of embassies after six years, was the most significant aspect of the agreement.
“This will be interpreted – probably accurately – as a slap at the Biden administration and as evidence that China is the rising power,” said Feltman, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
NUCLEAR TALKS
The agreement comes as Iran accelerates its nuclear program after two years of failed U.S. attempts to revive a 2015 deal that aimed to stop Tehran producing a nuclear bomb.
Those efforts have been complicated by a violent crackdown by Iranian authorities on protests and tough U.S. sanctions on Tehran over accusations of human rights abuses.
Brian Katulis, of the Middle East Institute, said that for the U.S. and Israel the agreement offers a “new possible pathway” for reviving stalled talks on the Iran nuclear issue, with a potential partner in Riyadh.
“Saudi Arabia is deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear program,” he said. “If this new opening between Iran and Saudi Arabia is going to be meaningful and impactful, it will have to address the concerns about Iran’s nuclear program – otherwise the opening is just optics.”
Friday’s agreement also offers hope for more durable peace in Yemen, where a conflict sparked in 2014 has widely been seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
A U.N.-brokered truce agreed last April has largely held despite expiring in October without agreement between the parties to extend it.
Gerald Feierstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, said Riyadh would “not have gone along with this without getting something, whether that something is Yemen or something else is harder to see.”
GROWING ROLE FOR CHINA
China’s involvement in brokering the deal could have “significant implications” for Washington, said Daniel Russel, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia under former President Barack Obama.
Russel said it was unusual for China to act on its own to help broker a diplomatic deal in a dispute to which it was not a party.
“The question is, whether this is the shape of things to come?” he said. “Could it be a precursor to a Chinese mediation effort between Russia and Ukraine when Xi visits Moscow?”
When it comes to Iran, it is not clear that the results will be good for the U.S., said Naysan Rafati, senior Iran analyst at International Crisis Group.
“The drawback is that at a time when Washington and Western partners are increasing pressure against the Islamic Republic … Tehran will believe it can break its isolation and, given the Chinese role, draw on major-power cover,” said Rafati.
China’s involvement has already drawn skepticism in Washington about Beijing’s motives.
Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, rejected China’s portrayal of itself as peace-broker, saying it “is not a responsible stakeholder and cannot be trusted as a fair or impartial mediator.”
Kirby said the U.S. was closely monitoring Beijing’s behavior in the Middle East and elsewhere.
“As for Chinese influence there or in Africa or Latin America, it’s not like we have blinders on,” he said. “We certainly continue to watch China as they try to gain influence and footholds elsewhere around the world in their own selfish interests.”
Still, Beijing’s involvement adds to a perception of growing Chinese power and influence that contributes to a narrative of a shrinking U.S. global presence, said Jon Alterman, of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“The not-so-subtle message that China is sending is that while the United States is the preponderant military power in the Gulf, China is a powerful and arguably rising diplomatic presence,” he said.
Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Jonathan Landay and David Brunnstrom; writing by Michelle Nichols; editing by Don Durfee and Daniel Wallis
But former senior U.S. and U.N. official Jeffrey Feltman said China’s role, rather than the re-opening of embassies after six years, was the most significant aspect of the agreement.
“This will be interpreted – probably accurately – as a slap at the Biden administration and as evidence that China is the rising power,” said Feltman, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
NUCLEAR TALKS
The agreement comes as Iran accelerates its nuclear program after two years of failed U.S. attempts to revive a 2015 deal that aimed to stop Tehran producing a nuclear bomb.
Those efforts have been complicated by a violent crackdown by Iranian authorities on protests and tough U.S. sanctions on Tehran over accusations of human rights abuses.
Brian Katulis, of the Middle East Institute, said that for the U.S. and Israel the agreement offers a “new possible pathway” for reviving stalled talks on the Iran nuclear issue, with a potential partner in Riyadh.
“Saudi Arabia is deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear program,” he said. “If this new opening between Iran and Saudi Arabia is going to be meaningful and impactful, it will have to address the concerns about Iran’s nuclear program – otherwise the opening is just optics.”
Friday’s agreement also offers hope for more durable peace in Yemen, where a conflict sparked in 2014 has widely been seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
A U.N.-brokered truce agreed last April has largely held despite expiring in October without agreement between the parties to extend it.
Gerald Feierstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, said Riyadh would “not have gone along with this without getting something, whether that something is Yemen or something else is harder to see.”
GROWING ROLE FOR CHINA
China’s involvement in brokering the deal could have “significant implications” for Washington, said Daniel Russel, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia under former President Barack Obama.
Russel said it was unusual for China to act on its own to help broker a diplomatic deal in a dispute to which it was not a party.
“The question is, whether this is the shape of things to come?” he said. “Could it be a precursor to a Chinese mediation effort between Russia and Ukraine when Xi visits Moscow?”
When it comes to Iran, it is not clear that the results will be good for the U.S., said Naysan Rafati, senior Iran analyst at International Crisis Group.
“The drawback is that at a time when Washington and Western partners are increasing pressure against the Islamic Republic … Tehran will believe it can break its isolation and, given the Chinese role, draw on major-power cover,” said Rafati.
China’s involvement has already drawn skepticism in Washington about Beijing’s motives.
Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, rejected China’s portrayal of itself as peace-broker, saying it “is not a responsible stakeholder and cannot be trusted as a fair or impartial mediator.”
Kirby said the U.S. was closely monitoring Beijing’s behavior in the Middle East and elsewhere.
“As for Chinese influence there or in Africa or Latin America, it’s not like we have blinders on,” he said. “We certainly continue to watch China as they try to gain influence and footholds elsewhere around the world in their own selfish interests.”
