Israeli-Saudi deal had better be good one

The Atlantic has published an article stating that normalising relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be a major breakthrough, but not at any price. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

Over the past several weeks, Israeli and American officials have teased a possible deal to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Such an agreement has the potential to be a diplomatic triumph: Successive US administrations, going back decades and from both parties, have considered the security of both Israel and the Arabian Peninsula to be vital interests that Americans would fight and die for if necessary.

A deal that advances both objectives by normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be—should be—greeted with much fanfare and near-universal approval in Washington.

Precisely because they will come under pressure to celebrate any deal that’s announced, however, US policymakers need to be clear about what is and is not a “win.” Congress in particular should be prepared to ask hard questions about any deal.

A deal that commits the United States to an undiminished or even a growing presence in the region, whether in the form of troop numbers or policy attention, is a bad deal. So is one that rests on any Saudi motive other than a genuine desire to normalize relations with Israel.

A good deal is one that formalizes already warming relations between Israel and the Gulf states while allowing the United States—which has spent immeasurable blood and treasure on the region over the past three decades—to focus less time and money on the Middle East.

A shotgun marriage between Israel and Saudi Arabia, then, is not a win. The peace deal between Israel and Egypt offers a cautionary example. At the time, the accord was welcome, because the two countries had fought four disastrous wars in three decades, and the deal, backed by US military aid to the Egyptians, peeled the Arabic-speaking world’s most populous country away from the Soviet orbit.

But the Egyptian people largely detest Israel today. The two countries have very few meaningful social or economic ties, and Egypt—which is currently entangled in a mess of political and financial problems—views Israel with suspicion rather than as a partner.

The peace between Israel and Jordan is similar. The two relationships depend on US dollars, autocratic regimes in Amman and Cairo, and cooperation among the affected countries’ military and security services. And both peace deals have fostered a sense of entitlement among their participants: Governments in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan all believe they are owed billions of dollars in annual military aid and react angrily at any suggestion that such aid might be reduced. The problem is especially acute with Egypt, whose military is the country’s most powerful political actor but depends on aid in order to provide jobs and protect its economic interests.

The burgeoning relationship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, following the 2020 Abraham Accords, somehow feels different from those with Egypt and Jordan. Leaders in Israel and the UAE see the rest of the Middle East similarly to one another (and often, it should be said, differently from Washington). Mohammed bin Zayed and his sons and brothers view the threats posed by Iran and Sunni Islamists, for example, with as much alarm as any Israeli does, and the synergies between the UAE’s ambitious sovereign-wealth funds and Israel’s start-up ecosystem hold promise too. Israelis have reason to visit Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and Emiratis have reasons to visit Haifa, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. Each country has something to contribute—capital from the Emiratis, innovation from the Israelis—to the other.

The same should be true of Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Gulf, in general, is one of the very few economic bright spots in the world at the moment. Flush with cash from oil and gas revenues, the sovereign-wealth funds of the Gulf are spending liberally both at home and abroad, while Western private-equity and venture-capital firms seek to raise funds in the region.

Saudi Arabia has the largest consumer base of any wealthy Gulf state, which is why retailers and makers of consumer goods spend more time there than in, say, Qatar or the UAE. The economic reforms of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have made doing business in Saudi Arabia much more attractive than in years past, and more Western companies—under pressure from Riyadh, to be sure—are basing their regional operations in Saudi Arabia rather than in the UAE.

Israelis may wish to invest in Saudi Arabia, and Saudis will almost certainly want to invest in Israel. That incentive for normalizing relations between the two countries should be enough, and the United States should not feel obligated to offer much more.

Nevertheless, rumours have circulated that the US plans to increase its commitment to Saudi and Israeli security, and this prospect worries me. Peace between Israel and its neighbours should allow the United States to base fewer resources in the region, not more. But US diplomats often underestimate the commitments they are making on behalf of the Pentagon.

The Iran deal of 2015 provides a useful example. The Pentagon was, for some very good reasons, excluded from the negotiations between the United States and Iran, which the more optimistic members of the administration hoped might lead to a new era in US policy toward the region. But the deal itself effectively locked in a robust US force posture nearby to enforce Iranian compliance: Shifting US troops from the Gulf to East Asia became harder, not easier, following the deal.

I worry that any formal security commitments made to either Saudi Arabia or Israel might similarly promise tens of thousands of US troops to the Middle East for decades more. Moving US forces into the Gulf in a conflict is harder than you might imagine, so to respond to contingencies, much of what you would need has to be deployed to the region in advance.

(Approximately 35,000 US troops were semipermanently garrisoned in the Gulf at the end of the Obama administration.) The US should not make a new security commitment to the Middle East—the scene of yesterday’s wars—at the expense of prioritizing the Pacific theatre.

I understand the enthusiasm in Jerusalem and Washington, though. Despite my worries about the ill-advised and ultimately unnecessary commitments the United States might be tempted to make in order to bring the deal across the finish line, the Biden administration—and, yes, the Trump administration before it—deserves a lot of credit for having gotten us this close to what would be a momentous achievement for Israel, for Saudi Arabia, and for US diplomacy.