He may not spend as much tee time as his predecessor, but President Joe Biden has played enough golf to know he should be wary of gimmes. That is the approach he should take to Saudi Arabia’s conditions for normalization of relations with Israel.
The kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has reportedly asked for American security guarantees, a loosening of restrictions on U.S. arms sales and help in developing a civilian nuclear program, in exchange for joining other Arab nations in signing the Abraham Accords. The accords, brokered by President Donald Trump, have enabled Israel to develop diplomatic, commercial and security ties with two of Saudi Arabia’s neighbors, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Getting other Arab states to join the accords is one of Biden’s key foreign-policy goals, and the Saudi prince’s signature would be a huge prize. It would also be a crowning achievement for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — as well as providing much-needed relief from the opprobrium he has been receiving from much of the Arab world over his government’s treatment of Palestinians.
Veteran Middle East hands in Washington, such as Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, have suggested the conditions set out by the Saudis give Biden useful leverage over Netanyahu, perhaps enough to restrain the Israeli leader from annexing more Palestinian territory.
The Biden administration has also been seeking to win brownie points with MBS, as the prince is commonly known, since the embarrassment of the president’s visit to Riyadh last year, when the Saudis snubbed his requests for a substantial increase in oil production to tame gas prices worldwide. Despite bumping fists with Biden, MBS signaled that he had not got over the president’s pledge to make him “a pariah” for the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
So it will be sorely tempting for the White House to jump at the opportunity presented by MBS’s conditions. After all, taken at face value they seem perfectly consistent with U.S. interests. Saudi Arabia has long enjoyed the safety of the American security umbrella, as well as being the world’s leading purchaser of U.S. arms. And if Riyadh wants to develop a civilian nuclear energy program, it would be to Washington’s commercial and security advantage to make available the necessary assistance, rather than have the Saudis turn, say, to Russia or China.
But before leaping at the overture, the White House should take a pause to consider why it is being made — and why now. Until recently, the received wisdom from Riyadh was that MBS would not consider signing on to the Abraham Accords while his father was alive. King Salman represents the generation of Arab leaders who pledged never to recognize Israel until the Palestinians had a state of their own.
In recent years, the Saudis have also signaled that they no longer depend exclusively on American security, and are keen to make defense arrangements with China and Russia. It was suggested that these countries would be able to use their ties with Iran to provide the kingdom with some protection from its historic enemy.
What’s more, the Saudis were pursuing diplomatic channels with the Iranians, with Iraqi mediation. The two are to reestablish formal diplomatic relations by opening embassies in Tehran and Riyadh. They were also seeking a permanent truce with Iran’s proxies in Yemen, the Houthi militia, in the hope of extricating themselves from a war without end.
Overall, the message from Riyadh to Washington was: We don’t need you as much as we used to.
So it is odd that MBS should now be making a 180-degree turn. Odder still that he should be signaling an openness to sign the Abraham Accords at the very moment when his previous reluctance to do so seems so prescient. While his Emirati and Bahraini counterparts are embarrassed by Israeli violence against Palestinians, the prince is sitting pretty.
What has changed to merit MBS’s about-turn? Far from fostering an Iranian-Saudi rapprochement, the Russians are keen to sell the Islamic Republic sophisticated arms and, reportedly, some nuclear technology. And while the Chinese are perfectly happy to buy Saudi oil, they are not offering anything like a security umbrella.
An awareness of Saudi anxieties should inform the Biden administration’s response to MBS’s terms for normalization with Israel. The U.S. can and should agree, but impose conditions of its own. American security guarantees should be provided with reciprocal assurances of Saudi cooperation in the pursuit of U.S. objectives — including, from time to time, some pump priming. Purchases of U.S. weapons must be accompanied with promises not to use them for wanton destruction of civilian lives and infrastructure.
As for nuclear assistance, the Saudis should commit to the deal the U.S. signed in 2009 with the UAE for its nuclear power plant in Barakah. In compliance with Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, that agreement gives the Emiratis access to American nuclear materials, equipment and technology but bars it from uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing, the processes required for building a nuclear weapon.
____
ABOUT THE WRITER
Bobby Ghosh is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering foreign affairs. Previously, he was editor in chief at Hindustan Times, managing editor at Quartz and international editor at Time.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
