Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines

Biden’s Middle East trip: Importance of the right framing.

• President Biden’s Middle East trip is marred with political difficulties.

• To start with, there are a number of strategic challenges to overcome - the main one being the attempted revival of a relationship with Saudi Arabia.

• These cables have long advocated against a possible Biden-MBS meeting: such a move gives away too much leverage for questionable (if any, gain).

• A better strategy is to deal with MBS from a position of strength and stern expectations.

• Nonetheless, a Biden-MBS meeting will after all take place.

• (side note: another question is whether the handshake will. On this, the White House came up with a creative last minute COVID rule to limit interpersonal contact - including handshakes. Well.. that excuse to not shake hands with MBS is out the window: now that Biden decided to not only shake hands, but also to hug…).

• President Biden’s earlier attempts to dismiss the obvious contradiction with his prior stance on the US-Saudi relationship (a promise to turn the Kingdom into a “pariah”) could essentially be boiled down to: I am not meeting him tête-à-tête: he is one of the parties attending a Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

• This wasn’t actually a bad framing at all: and it helped to retain whatever leverage Biden had going into the meeting.

• But increasingly, he is facing further heat from all angles - and from the entire spectrum of domestic political players.

• The progressive left accuses him of duplicity, shameless u-turn, and abandonment of principles in return for short-term pragmatism (on this, they are not entirely wrong).

• Meanwhile, the right will accuse him for the unnecessary delay: if you were going to make such a u-turn, why didn’t you make it much sooner? We could have had much more time to deal with this oil crisis.

• (side note: they will surely also grill him for the likely lack of concrete results after his meeting with MBS)

• Biden is in a tough spot - his approval rating is tanking, and foreign policy success is the only possible saving grace ahead of the midterm elections.

• Saudis know this too, so they will of course try to extract maximum concessions in return for any offers to increase the production of oil (if that even happens).

• But for an American President to retain foreign policy credibility and weight is a bipartisan issue - it is in the US national interests that Biden maintains a strong frame and leverage when dealing with the Saudis on his trip to the Middle East.

• Biden already tried to calm the progressive left with unconvincing promises that the issue of human rights was still on his mind:

• “I know that there are many who disagree with my decision to travel to Saudi Arabia. My views on human rights are clear and long-standing, and fundamental freedoms are always on the agenda when I travel abroad”.

• Naturally, no one believes for a second that Biden would put any force behind his appeals for human rights.

• No - he is there to secure a release of more oil into the markets.

• But neither should this be the explicit stated aim of his visit.

• Firstly, because it is a very narrow policy goal that should not necessitate a visit from the leader of the free world.

• And secondly, because he is likely to fail in any case: the more loudly this policy objective is advertised, the more humiliating will be the failure to achieve them.

• Instead, the framing should focus around the objective of strengthening local allies to create a more resilient, all-encompassing shield for a more stable Middle East.

• The sought objectives being:

• 1) Advancement of America’s own national security interests;

• 2) Increase in America’s dominance and leadership in the region (blocking further advances from Iran, Russia and China), and;

• 3) Added pressure on Iran to acquiesce to American demands on the nuclear deal (increasingly important now that Iran is shutting down observation cameras and is escalating Uranium enrichment with at the Fordow nuclear plant).

• This is a much more powerful and persuasive pitch for Biden’s visit.

• And achieving these objectives is also much more likely.

• It is important to note that Biden is likely aware of this angle, for he hinted to this objective in the following statement:

• ‘‘I will be the first president to visit the Middle East since 9/11 without U.S. troops engaged in a combat mission there. It's my aim to keep it that way."

• In other words: I intend to keep the Middle East stable, secure, and predictable.

• But this is not explicit enough.

• Biden should instead focus on all three pillars of the framing advocated above by these cables.

• American people need to hear that it is important to block further Russian, Iranian, and Chinese influence in the Middle East.

• They also need to understand that the way you deal with Iran, is by negotiating from a position of strength: there are unfortunately still too many voters who think that it is America that needs to offer concessions.

• The good news is that there is an excellent context to promote such a frame for Biden’s visit.

• Just a week prior to Biden’s trip, the UK Warship seized a ship carrying Iranian missiles to Yemen.

• The weapons shipped included surface-to-air-missiles and engines for land attack cruise missiles.

• This is not only: 1) A powerful evidence of Iran’s leading role in propping up Houthi rebels, but also; 2) An explanation for potential failure of (thus far holding) Yemen truce - for even if the Biden admin received little praise for the truce, they will get all the media blame for its failure.

• (side note: the current administration must also be careful of Saudis using this incident as an excuse for their own (potential) deliberate escalation in Yemen. MBS may now think that he is safe from further repercussions of a failed Yemen truce, and that it would be easier to justify further US military aid to the Kingdom. He should be warned against such optimistic assumptions. MBS must never assume that he now has even more leverage vis-à-vis the US. And on this point, this week’s White House statement that the US was considering lifting the offensive arms sales embargo on Saudi Arabia was a major tactical mistake. Revealing the fact that the US is this close to conceding to the Kingdom, and just a few days prior to Biden’s trip, was an exercise in self-harm - one bound to reduce America’s leverage in the upcoming negotiations.)

• What an excellent argument in favor of the US-led Israeli-Arab air defense alliance/shield.

• (side note: although, at the moment, this is an aspirational plan at best. It is already exceptionally difficult to get the US Army and Navy to integrate their radars and sensors into a common command-and-control system. How practical is it that a number of states using different tech are going to pull this off successfully? A lot of the effectiveness of such a plan would also hinge on the willingness to share secretive national security data. It is unclear whether Arab states are ready to provide such sensitive information to Israel. But maybe a threat of a common rising enemy with nuclear ambitions (Iran) could be enough of an incentive to pull this off)

• Biden must double down on the framing of America’s role of a protector and leader in the region - firmly dismissing the often-repeated notion that there is a power vacuum to be exploited by our ‘‘great power adversaries’’.

• After months of never-ending and fruitless negotiations with Iran, and subservient appeals to the Gulf monarchs, there is an opportunity for the US President to recover prestige and credibility in the Middle East - this should not be wasted.

Changing Power Dynamic & Realignments in the Middle East.

• Biden’s Middle East visit is not occurring in a vacuum.

• The Middle East of today is quite different from that of Summer 2021.

• We will periodically revisit and touch upon the changing power dynamics and inter-state/player relations.

• But for now, we shall focus on the updates within the two regional powers: Iran and Russia, and specifically what the Kremlin gains from Tehran’s regional plays.