China-brokered Iran-Saudi deal raises red flags for US

BradDress

March 11, 2023

An agreement struck by Iran and Saudi Arabia on Friday to re-establish relations has shifted concerns back to the state of the U.S. role in the Middle East — especially since the deal was brokered by Washington’s main adversary, China.

The diplomatic agreement, reached after four days of talks with senior security officials in Beijing, eases tensions between the Middle East powers after seven years of hostilities.

Both Iran and Saudi Arabia announced they will resume diplomatic relations and open up embassies once again in their respective nations within two months, according to a joint statement.

Alex Vatanka, the director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute, said the Iran-Saudi Arabia deal was an important agreement for the region but questioned whether it would put an end to any violence, including in war-torn Yemen.

“It remains to be seen if they can have a meaningful dialogue. Opening up embassies is not the same as having a meaningful dialogue,” Vatanka said. “There will be a steep journey ahead.”

Saudi Arabia, a dominant Sunni Muslim country, cut ties with Iran in 2016 after protesters stormed the nation’s embassy in Iran after the execution of a Shiite Muslim cleric along with the execution of other prisoners.

Both nations have also been on opposing sides of the deadly civil war in Yemen, with Saudi Arabia supporting Yemen’s government and Iran backing the opposition Houthis.

The news on Friday was a diplomatic and political success for Beijing, which also recently published a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi quickly hailed the agreement as a “victory” on Friday and said his country would continue to address global issues, according to statements carried by several Chinese newspapers.

But the agreement undercuts the posture of the U.S. in the region. The U.S. has downsized in Syria after withdrawing forces in 2021 from Afghanistan.

The deal also comes as Saudi Arabia is demanding certain security guarantees, a steady flow of arms shipments and assistance with its civilian nuclear program in order to normalize relations with Israel, a major U.S. ally, the White House confirmed on Friday.

Speaking to reporters, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. was “informed” about the Saudi Arabia-Iran talks but played no role in them.

Kirby welcomed the normalization of relations between the two countries should it ease violence in the Middle East.

“To the degree that it could deescalate tensions, all that’s to the good side of the ledger,” Kirby said, adding the U.S. is not stepping back from its role in the Middle East.

Vatanka, from the Middle East Institute, said both Iran and Saudi Arabia have been seeking to ease tensions for the past couple of years.

While he was surprised by China’s role as a mediator, Vatanka said the deal does not constitute “a major loss” for Washington in the long-term.

“It symbolically makes the United States look like it’s not able to be a key player,” he said. “But it’s not going to be a Chinese-dominated Middle East.”

China is a large buyer of Saudi oil and maintains close relations with Iran.

Conversely, the U.S. has had strained relations with Iran for decades and a similar normalization agreement would have been next to impossible for Washington to mediate.

Some experts have cautioned that China is beginning a new era of diplomatic engagement in the Middle East, where it before mostly had economic ties.

Jonathan Panikoff, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Middle East Programs for The Atlantic Council, warned of an “emergence of China’s political role in the region.”

“It should be a warning to U.S. policymakers: Leave the Middle East and abandon ties with sometimes frustrating, even barbarous, but long-standing allies, and you’ll simply be leaving a vacuum for China to fill,” Panikoff wrote in a Friday analysis.

Middle East politics has become more strained for the U.S. as Israel clashes with Palestinians seeking a free state in Israeli-occupied Gaza and the West Bank. The ongoing civil war in Syria, violence in Yemen, heightened tensions over Iranian support for Russia and a scrapped nuclear deal with Tehran have added to complications.

President Biden also traveled to Saudi Arabia last summer amid high gas prices in the U.S. and was seen fist-bumping Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been criticized for overseeing human rights abuses and for the killing of the U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A few months after the visit, the White House was angered when the Saudi-led oil alliance OPEC+ slashed oil production output.

Still, during comments on Friday on the economy, Biden appeared welcoming of the diplomatic agreement. “Better relations between Israel and their Arab neighbors are better for everybody,” the president said.

Iran and Saudi Arabia signal the start of a new era, with China front and center

TamaraQiblawi

March 10, 2023

When Saudi Arabia and Iran buried the hatchet in Beijing on Friday, it was a game-changing moment both for a Middle East shaped by their decades-old rivalry, and for China’s growing influence in the oil-rich region.

The announcement was surprising yet expected. The two regional powerhouses have been in talks to re-establish diplomatic relations for nearly two years. At times, negotiators seemed to drag their feet, the deep distrust between the two countries appearing immovable.

Iran’s talks with Saudi Arabia were unfolding at the same time as negotiations between Iran and the United States to revive the 2016 nuclear deal were faltering. The outcomes of both sets of Iran talks seemed interlinked – Riyadh and Washington have long walked in lockstep on foreign policy.

But a shift in regional alliances is afoot. Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the US has become strained in recent years, while China’s standing has risen. Unlike Washington, Beijing has shown an ability to transcend the many rivalries that criss-cross the Middle East. China has forged good diplomatic relations with countries across the region, driven by strengthening economic ties, without the Western lectures on human rights.

In retrospect, Beijing has been poised to broker the conflict-ridden Middle East’s latest diplomatic breakthrough for years, simultaneously underscoring the US’ diminishing regional influence.

“While many in Washington will view China’s emerging role as mediator in the Middle East as a threat, the reality is that a more stable Middle East where the Iranians and Saudis aren’t at each other’s throats also benefits the United States,” Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Washington-based Quincy Institute, tweeted Friday.

Parsi argues that the development should trigger a moment of introspection on Washington’s Middle East policy. “What should worry American decision-makers is if this becomes the new norm: the US becomes so deeply embroiled in the conflicts of our regional partners that our manoeuvrability evaporates and our past role as a peacemaker is completely ceded to China,” he added.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman shakes hands with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during the China-Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia December 9, 2022. - Saudi Press Agency//Reuters

End of a dark era

Friday’s agreement could herald the end of a blood-drenched era in the Middle East. Riyadh and Tehran have been at ideological and military loggerheads since Iran’s Islamic Revolution installed an anti-Western, Shia theocracy in 1979.

Those tensions began to escalate into a region-wide proxy war after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq spiraled into civil conflict, with both Iran and Saudi Arabia vying for influence in the petrol-rich Arab country.

Armed conflict that pitted Saudi-backed militants against Iran-backed armed groups washed over much of the region in the decade and a half that followed.

In Yemen, a Saudi-led coalition military campaign to quash Iranian-backed rebels triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In Syria, Iran supported President Bashar al-Assad as he brutalized his own people, only to find his forces facing off with rebels backed by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. In Lebanon too, Iran and Saudi Arabia have backed different factions, contributing to a two-decade-long political crisis that has exacted a huge economic and security toll on the tiny eastern Mediterranean country.

Diplomatic relations were officially severed in 2016 when Saudi Arabia executed prominent Shia Saudi cleric Nimr al-Nimr, leading rioters in Tehran to torch the Saudi embassy.

But a slew of economic problems triggered by the pandemic and costly wars may have eroded the appetite for conflict, and Saudi and Iranian officials say they are eager to turn the page on that dark chapter.

The détente appears to go far beyond the resumption of diplomatic relations. Saudi and Iranian officials say they will also work to reimplement a decades-old security cooperation pact and revive an even older agreement on technology, and trade.

It’s a rare piece of good news for a region still reeling from their rivalry. How that plays out – and whether it can undo the havoc wreaked by the rivalry – remains to be seen.

But analysts say that China’s growing leverage in the region helped hedge both countries’ bets, changing a now-outdated political calculus that once made Western capitals the most likely venue for watershed regional accords.

“China is now the godfather of this agreement and given China’s strategic importance to Iran, that holds tremendous weight,” Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst familiar with the Saudi leadership’s thinking, told CNN.

“If Iran were to break this agreement, it will be hurting its ties to China that has put its full prestige into the ‘tripartite’ agreement.”

Saudi deal with Iran worries Israel, shakes up Middle East

SAMYMAGDY

March 11, 2023

JERUSALEM (AP) — The news of the rapprochement between long-time regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran sent shockwaves through the Middle East on Saturday and struck a symbolic blow for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the threat posed by Tehran a public diplomacy priority and personal crusade.

The breakthrough — a culmination of more than a year of negotiations in Baghdad and more recent talks in China — also became ensnared in Israel’s internal politics, reflecting the country’s divisions at a moment of national turmoil.

The agreement, which gives Iran and Saudi Arabia two months to reopen their respective embassies and re-establish ties after seven years of rupture, more broadly represents one of the most striking shifts in Middle Eastern diplomacy over recent years. In countries like Yemen and Syria, long caught between the Sunni kingdom and the Shiite powerhouse, the announcement stirred cautious optimism.

In Israel, it caused disappointment — along with a cascade of finger-pointing.

One of Netanyahu’s greatest foreign policy triumphs remains Israel’s U.S.-brokered normalization deals in 2020 with four Arab states, including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates — part of a wider push to isolate and oppose Iran in the region.

He has portrayed himself as the only politician capable of protecting Israel from Tehran’s rapidly accelerating nuclear program and regional proxies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel and Iran have also waged a regional shadow war that has led to suspected Iranian drone strikes on Israeli-linked ships ferrying goods in the Persian Gulf, among other attacks.

A normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and wealthy Arab state, would fulfill Netanyahu’s prized goal, reshaping the region and boosting Israel’s standing in historic ways. Even as backdoor relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia have grown, the kingdom has said it won’t officially recognize Israel before a resolution to the decadeslong Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Since returning to office late last year, Netanyahu and his allies have hinted that a deal with the kingdom could be approaching. In a speech to American Jewish leaders last month, Netanyahu described a peace agreement as “a goal that we are working on in parallel with the goal of stopping Iran.”

But experts say the deal that broke out Friday has thrown cold water on those ambitions. Saudi Arabia’s decision to engage with its regional rival has left Israel largely alone as it leads the charge for diplomatic isolation of Iran and threats of a unilateral military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The UAE also resumed formal relations with Iran last year.

“It’s a blow to Israel’s notion and efforts in recent years to try to form an anti-Iran bloc in the region,” said Yoel Guzansky, an expert on the Persian Gulf at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank. “If you see the Middle East as a zero-sum game, which Israel and Iran do, a diplomatic win for Iran is very bad news for Israel.”

Even Danny Danon, a Netanyahu ally and former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. who recently predicted a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia in 2023, seemed disconcerted.

“This is not supporting our efforts,” he said, when asked about whether the rapprochement hurt chances for the kingdom’s recognition of Israel.

In Yemen, where the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran has played out with the most destructive consequences, both warring parties were guarded, but hopeful.

A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen’s conflict in 2015, months after the Iran-backed Houthi militias seized the capital of Sanaa in 2014, forcing the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The Houthi rebels welcomed the agreement as a modest but positive step.

“The region needs the return of normal relations between its countries, through which the Islamic society can regain security lost from foreign interventions,” said Houthi spokesman and chief negotiator Mohamed Abdulsalam.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government expressed some optimism — and caveats.

“The Yemeni government’s position depends on actions and practices not words and claims,” it said, adding it would proceed cautiously “until observing a true change in (Iranian) behavior.”

Analysts did not expect an immediate settlement to the conflict, but said direct talks and better relations could create momentum for a separate agreement that may offer both countries an exit from a disastrous war.

“The ball now is in the court of the Yemeni domestic warring parties to prioritize Yemen’s national interest in reaching a peace deal and be inspired by this initial positive step,” said Afrah Nasser, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Arab Center.

Anna Jacobs, senior Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group, said she believed the deal was tied to a de-escalation in Yemen.

“It is difficult to imagine a Saudi-Iran agreement to resume diplomatic relations and re-open embassies within a two-month period without some assurances from Iran to more seriously support conflict resolution efforts in Yemen,” she said.

War-scarred Syria similarly welcomed the agreement as a move toward easing tensions that have exacerbated the country’s conflict. Iran has been a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, while Saudi Arabia has supported opposition fighters trying to remove him from power.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry called it an “important step that will lead to strengthening security and stability in the region.”

In Israel, bitterly divided and gripped by mass protests over plans by Netanyahu’s far-right government to overhaul the judiciary, politicians seized on the rapprochement between the kingdom and Israel’s archenemy as an opportunity to criticize Netanyahu, accusing him of focusing on his personal agenda at the expense of Israel’s international relations.

Yair Lapid, the former prime minister and head of Israel’s opposition, denounced the agreement between Riyadh and Tehran as “a full and dangerous failure of the Israeli government’s foreign policy.”

“This is what happens when you deal with legal madness all day instead of doing the job with Iran and strengthening relations with the U.S.,” he wrote on Twitter. Even Yuli Edelstein from Netanyahu’s Likud party blamed Israel’s “power struggles and head-butting” for distracting the country from its more pressing threats.

Another opposition lawmaker, Gideon Saar, mocked Netanyahu’s goal of formal ties with the kingdom. “Netanyahu promised peace with Saudi Arabia,” he wrote on social media. “In the end (Saudi Arabia) did it … with Iran.”

Netanyahu, on an official visit to Italy, declined a request for comment and issued no statement on the matter. But quotes to Israeli media by an anonymous senior official in the delegation sought to put blame on the previous government that ruled for a year and a half before Netanyahu returned to office. “It happened because of the impression that Israel and the U.S. were weak,” said the senior official, according to the Haaretz daily, which hinted that Netanyahu was the official.

Despite the fallout for Netanyahu’s reputation, experts doubted a detente would harm Israel. Saudi Arabia and Iran will remain regional rivals, even if they open embassies in each other’s capitals, said Guzansky. And like the UAE, Saudi Arabia could deepen relations with Israel even while maintaining a transactional relationship with Iran.

“The low-key arrangement that the Saudis have with Israel will continue,” said Umar Karim, an expert on Saudi politics at the University of Birmingham, noting that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank remained more of a barrier to Saudi recognition than differences over Iran. “The Saudi leadership is engaging in more than one way to secure its national security.”

Iran says deal reached to buy Russian fighter jets

AFPNews

March 11, 2023

Iran has finalised a deal to buy Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia, state media reported, as defence cooperation between the two countries deepens.

The air force of sanctions-hit Iran has an ageing fleet of aircraft and has struggled to acquire spare parts to keep its warplanes in the air.

In a statement to the United Nations, Tehran said it began approaching "countries to buy fighter jets" to replenish its fleet in the wake of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

"Russia announced it was ready to sell them" after the expiry in October 2020 of restrictions on Iran purchasing conventional weapons under UN Resolution 2231, said the statement carried late Friday by the official IRNA news agency.

"The Sukhoi 35 fighter jets were technically acceptable for Iran," it added.

Tehran has forged strong ties with Moscow in various sectors including the military in the past year.

Kyiv has accused Tehran of supplying Moscow with Shahed-136 "kamikaze" drones used in attacks on civilian targets since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February last year -- an allegation the Islamic republic denies.

The United States has expressed alarm over the growing military cooperation between Iran and Russia, with Pentagon spokesman John Kirby warning in December that Russia looked likely to sell Iran its fighter jets.

Kirby maintained that Iranian pilots had reportedly been learning to fly the Sukhoi warplanes in Russia, and that Tehran may receive the aircraft within the next year, which would "significantly strengthen Iran's air force relative to its regional neighbours".

Iran currently has mostly Russian MiG and Sukhoi fighter jets that date back to the Soviet era, as well as some Chinese aircraft, including the F-7.

Some American F-4 and F-5 fighter jets dating back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution are also part of its fleet.

The United States began reimposing sanctions on Iran in 2019, a year after its unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal under then-president Donald Trump.

The 2015 deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, gave Iran relief from international sanctions in return for curbs on its suspect nuclear programme.

What does the Iran-Saudi Arabia truce mean for Washington’s standing on the global stage?

Phil McCausland

March 10, 2023

As some world leaders hailed the restoration of ties between long-standing enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia, there were growing fears in Washington that the deal could help spell the end of the United States’ pre-eminence in the region and beyond.

China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, called it a “victory for dialogue” and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres celebrated the announcement, expressing his appreciation to China for brokering the deal. The U.S., meanwhile, said through a National Security Council spokesperson that China’s successful agreement appeared to mirror the failed negotiations the White House pursued with both countries in 2021.

Aaron David Miller, who served as a Middle East policy adviser at the State Department for 25 years, said it was “really stunning” that the Saudis had cut a deal with the Chinese and the Iranians. 

“I think it demonstrates that U.S.’s influence and credibility in that region has diminished and that there is a new sort of international regional alignment taking place, which has empowered and given both Russia and China newfound influence and status,” said Miller, who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Tehran faces international criticism for providing weapons to Russia to aid its invasion of Ukraine, continuing efforts to enrich uranium that could allow it to develop a nuclear weapon, punishing its people for taking part in anti-government protests and for escalating tensions with Israel. These are all items the U.S. has elevated on the world stage as an indictment of the Iranian government.

The agreement was announced months after President Joe Biden visited Saudi Arabia, just weeks before the U.S. midterm elections, to appeal that it help keep gas prices down. Instead, Riyadh came to terms on a separate deal with Russia and other oil-producing states to lower production. The Biden administration saw it as a stab in the back and promised that the Saudis would face “consequences.”

But it appears the Saudis felt vulnerable, Miller said. “When you’re dependent on one great power, you seek to align with another to cut deals with your adversaries,” he noted.

China’s ‘victory lap’

While some policy analysts and former officials said the China-brokered deal appeared to indicate a shrinking role for the U.S. on the world stage, others said that Washington never had a chance to mediate such an agreement because it has no means of dialogue with Iran. The U.S. has no relationships with Tehran, sidelining it from negotiations and talks. 

China will undoubtedly take a “victory lap,” much to the chagrin of the U.S., said Jonathan Lord, the director of the Center for New American Security’s Middle East Security Program, in spite of the fact that Saudis and Iranians have wanted to make a deal for some time.

“China is clearly going to trumpet their role on the international stage as an arbiter and negotiator between nations,” he said, “but it was very clear that there was both intention and effort by both the Iranians and Saudis for years to get to this place.”

That China hammered out this agreement is not necessarily a threat to the U.S., said Thomas Countryman, who served as assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation during the Obama administration. Because China has economic and diplomatic ties to Riyadh and Tehran, it would make sense they could come to terms with the two nations.

“The thing that concerns me is that in the current climate in Washington, anything China does will be seen as a sign of perfidious intent and a demonstration that China is seeking to dominate the world,” Countryman said. “The fact is it was only somebody like China who could have brokered this rapprochement.”

While it will certainly enjoy the international esteem, Beijing also is serving its domestic interests.

China will likely use this opportunity to bolster its energy security through a strengthened relationship with the two oil-producing countries. Beijing is dependent on Iran and Saudi Arabia for oil, while the U.S. and Europe have moved to find energy assurances elsewhere, said Brian Katulis, the vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute.

“It’s not just symbolism,” he said. “It matters to (China) quite a lot to have access to those energy resources.”

A peace to build defense

Iran and Saudi Arabia also have much to gain. The two longtime rivals in the Middle East have fought a proxy war in Yemen through the Iranian-tied Houthi rebels, and the Saudi Arabian-aligned government that has also received support from the U.S. government. The two countries’ proxies are at odds elsewhere in the region, including in Lebanon and Iraq.

Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran may see fewer tensions because of the accord, experts said. Many hoped that it would decrease violence in Yemen and lead to fewer spats between the two countries.

Undoubtedly, the Saudis see the deal as a means to try and reduce Iran’s ability to threaten it, or “at least limit some of the Iranian trouble-making incentives,” said Dennis Ross, a former Middle East envoy who has worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Ross said he didn’t think the deal changed anything in terms of the two countries’ fundamental relationship. A restoration of diplomatic ties between the two nations “reflects a mutual interest, but it’s within a relationship of profound distrust,” he said.

While there will likely be less conflict, the two countries are also expected to use the de-escalating tensions to build up their own defenses. Lord said that Saudi Arabia had worked assiduously to build their military capacity to defend itself against the types of attacks Iran is capable of. In its ongoing dialogue with the U.S. about normalizing relations with Israel and other issues, Riyadh even raised expectations to build up its nuclear capabilities to mirror Iran’s.

But having an agreement with Iran could perhaps give Riyadh cover to pursue the U.S.’s efforts of normalizing ties between the Saudis and Israel without incurring “a physical response” from Iran.

“I think perhaps this buys down the risk, potentially a bit, and gives them a little bit more latitude to explore, quietly, greater opportunities with Israel, (the U.S. and other regional partners),” Lord said.

While helpful to the Saudis’ position, perhaps, Israel is unlikely to be very happy. Iran has long been considered a particularly staunch nemesis of Israel, and has worked hard to normalize relations with Arab Gulf kingdoms -- notably through the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s former prime minister, criticized the Saudi-Iranian deal and placed the blame for it on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. He said it was a “dangerous development” for Israel, as the country seeks to build a bulwark against Iran.

“This is a fatal blow to the effort to build a regional coalition against Iran,” he said.