Slipping away from the snakepit of Middle East geopolitics

Biden's trip failed to produce any significant results. That's the good news.

This is the good news about President Joe Biden’s recent trip to the Middle East: Nothing of substance or consequence was accomplished.

This has led many to regard the trip as a failure. And if the purpose of the trip was to reassert American leadership and re-engage in the region, it was a failure. 

But becoming more deeply ensnared in the snakepit of Middle East geopolitics is not in our strategic interests. In fact, slipping further away from it is.

Biden clearly wanted to signal re-engagement, as his speech to the Gulf Cooperation Council sought to do. But he’s not willing to do what would be necessary to regain American predominance in the region, which is plain to all. And that reluctance is a good thing for the United States.  

There are three reasons asserted as constituting actionable strategic interests for the United States in the region: Israel, Iran, and oil.

Israel is a brave democratic oasis in a despotic desert. The United States should be prepared to defend the country against calumnies and isolation in international forums. We should be willing to sell the country the arms it needs to defend itself. 

But Israel’s security threats are not automatically security threats to the United States and shouldn’t be treated as such. Very little of what threatens Israel is a direct threat to the United States. 

Moreover, Israel’s security situation has improved as the regional Sunni powers perceive a common threat from Shiite Iran. 

Israel and the Sunni powers want the United States to assume the primary role in containing and deterring Iran. 

Iran is a clear security threat to Israel, since its leaders continuously pledge to wipe Israel off the map. And it is, at a minimum, a competitor for regional influence with Sunni despots. 

However, Iran doesn’t really pose a direct threat to the United States. There is not a compelling reason to make this our fight.

Israel has proven itself capable of defending itself. U.S. involvement may very well place shackles on the Israeli response to the Iranian threat that increase the danger for Israel rather than reduce it. 

Saudi Arabia has a GDP 50% greater than that of Iran. It has the means to defend itself, particularly in alliance with the other Sunni regional powers.

But the Saudi strategy for more than a half century has been to get the United States to fight its fights for it. For some of this stretch, there was an argument to be made that the United States had an actionable strategic interest in keeping Saudi oil flowing. No longer. 

The U.S. is capable of not only supplying our domestic energy needs but also becoming a much larger energy exporter, particularly of natural gas. The Saudis can still influence fossil fuel prices at the margins. But slightly higher fuel prices are hardly a reason to assume the responsibility and risks of containing and deterring Iran. 

There remains one truly actionable strategic interest for the United States in the region: protecting this country against terrorist attacks, which tend to emanate from the region and its conflicts.

That requires some presence and cooperation in the region. And that is why Biden made a mistake in saying that he would treat Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as pariahs. 

The international landscape is reorienting toward a competition for influence and authority between democratic capitalism and authoritarianism. U.S. foreign policy should be strongly guided by this insight. 

But within that competition, the United States will still have the need to do business with some unsavory leaders to accomplish discrete objectives, such as protecting the country against terrorism. Our larger diplomatic effort should retain the scope for that.

Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy and engagement has been a muddle, conceptually and as executed on the ground. 

Slipping further away from the snakepit of Middle East geopolitics is in our strategic best interests, whether it occurs through accident, design, or incompetence.

Reach Robb at robtrobb@gmail.com.

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