Long before President Joe Biden laid waste to a centerpiece of Washington’s Global War on Terror by ending the war in Afghanistan, the-then chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2003 haughtily stamped his name on another neoconservative machination and steered the late-Bush administration’s push to lie the country into war with Iraq through Congress.
Though twenty years apart, the two episodes in Biden’s aeonian career capture the hypocrisy inherent to the administration’s engagement strategy for the Middle East. The chaotic foreign policy consensus that has repeatedly entangled the US into regional squabbles and hamstrung diplomatic efforts which would allow actors in the region to reduce tensions and gain trust is undoubtedly expected to linger. The formation, instead of re-evaulation, is rooted in the laws of stubborn persistence. Washington plans to build on the Trump-era campaign that normalized ties between some of its autocratic partners in the Arabian peninsula with the apartheid government of Israel by bringing in more governments heavily dependent on the US for assistance and support.
The Biden Doctrine, as White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk recently detailed at an Atlantic Council inaugural awards ceremony, is the antidope to cure the unease of moving on from the Global War on Terror and gather the cheekiness to seriously start with great power competition. But far from abandoning the region in the midst of competition with Beijing, Washington is using the threat exploits from its new Cold War and the threat of the weaponization of the Iranian nuclear program as justifications to enmesh its military and political presence for perpetuity.
With an “unparalleled comparative advantage in building partnerships that strengthen deterrence,” McGurk said, elaborating on the rhetorical directives described in the administration’s National Security Strategy, the United States can “set a long-term foundation for stability with a sustainable, proactive, and permanent US military and diplomatic presence.”
McGurk, the administration’s tenured bureaucrat tasked with building the US-led Arab-Israeli economic and political garrison, is honest enough to admit the supposed need for a permanent US presence. The backbone of Biden’s strategy is protecting allies and partners, and the establishment of a permanent military presence would be the only way Washington can provide such a request. US forces have loosely operated alongside partners or directed and funded strategic assets in the Middle East for decades – usually for the purpose of reaffirming US strategic interests or US dominance in the region – but that deployment was never understood to be perpetual. The financial costs of such an imperial exercise are not just unimaginable and undeterminable – it’s teeming with legal and moral hypocrisies.
If Washington wants to advance plans to normalize relations between Saudi and Israel, it’s going to have to pay a lofty price. The Kingdom is demanding the US provide a security guarantee, as well as clamoring for more American weapons and military technology. It’s also seeking Washington’s assistance developing Saudi’s civilian nuclear program – a request US officials have long ignored.
The far-right government in Israel is encountering its own domestic issues. Tens of thousands of Israeli’s are routinely protesting the government’s attempts to undermine the country’s judiciary, in addition to its intensified campaign to ethnically cleanse the country of Palestinians. Washington will have to lend more than just its conscience if it plans to unite two of the region’s most aggressive dependents of US weaponry.
Long have the tools of US diplomacy rusted and the sentiments of prudent non-engagement been treated as mere thoughts lost to history. There is little room for diplomacy in the American framework. The preferred mechanism is intervention. In a Quincy Institute report from 2019 entitled “No Clean Hands,” Matthew Perri and Trita Parsi demonstrate how the US plays a central role in prolonging regional tensions by providing most of the region’s governments with weapons and military support. “In fact, five of the six most interventionist powers in the Middle East are armed by the United States – and also enjoy significant political support from Washington.”
The recent Chinese-led Saudi – Iranian normalization effort strikes at the heart of what the US strategy lacks. Unlike Washington, Beijing can travel to the Middle East and seek mediation because the Chinese government hasn’t picked a side it wants to win. The Chinese government acknowledges that the governments in Tehran and Riyadh have some common interests, and the region might be better off if the two sides settle, in some way, a few of their differences.
On the coattails of the Chinese-led normalization effort, Washington should use this moment to re-start negotiations with Tehran on the Iran Nuclear Deal. Framed as dead in water, the negotiations would be easily re-energized if Washington provided the least bit of sanction relief. Attaching side considerations to the negotiations distracts from the main goal of preventing the weaponization of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, so it’s a necessary first step for Washington to ditch its maximum pressure campaign to indicate the negotiations are substantive.
If Saudi Arabia can mend ties with Iran, the United States should be doing the same. Likewise is the situation in Syria, where the Arab world is beginning to reconcile its nearly decade-long riff with the Assad government. Detente and diplomacy is cheaper and easier to maintain than aggression and empire.
Washington would be much better off if it learned a thing or two about the benefits of diplomacy. The Biden Doctrine, as it stands, fits the traditional mold of a highly aggressive and interventionist US foreign policy.
