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Saudi-Iran Rapprochement: In China's Middle East, Israel Has Little Influence
Haaretz
Zvi Bar'el
Mar 10, 2023
Israel's dream of forming an Arab alliance against Iran was shattered on Friday with the news that Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to restore diplomatic ties within two months.
The dramatic announcement is likely to redraw the regional map of friends and foes, and will have global reverberations.
The agreement provides Iran with much-needed legitimacy in the Arab world, and could lead to further deals with Arab states like Egypt, pave the way to end the war in Yemen, offer a workable solution to the crisis in Lebanon, and even lead to a resumption of negotiations to save the nuclear deal.
The Saudi-Iranian rapprochement will force the United States to reevaluate its standing in the region. After all, it was China – not Washington or Moscow – that was able to reassemble a complex political constellation traditionally under American purview.
The renewal of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been on a slow burn for the past two years. Five rounds of talk were held with Iraqi mediation in Baghdad or under guidance of Oman, who had mediated between Iran and the U.S. in the lead up to the nuclear deal in 2015.
In December, four Saudi fighter jets escorted Chinese President Xi Jinping's plane as he landed on an official, or shall we say royal, visit to the kingdom. This wasn't his first visit, but this time he came to sign a strategic alliance agreement which included trade and investment deals worth tens of billions of dollars, and more importantly, developing nuclear power reactors designated for domestic energy production.
Saudi Arabia has been asking the United States to help it build nuclear reactors for many years. But American demands, including an insistence that the Saudis comply with International Atomic Energy Agency regulations, derailed any cooperation on the issue. In 2020 The Wall Street Journal reported the disconcerting news that China and Saudi Arabia were cooperating to exploit the kingdom's vast uranium deposits, and shortly after that, U.S. intelligence agencies announced they are verifying reports that Saudi Arabia was looking to build a nuclear reactor with Chinese assistance.
Saudi Arabia has found a solution in China, with whom it signed a nuclear reactor construction memorandum in 2017. In any case, the Saudis have presented the U.S. with a serious dilemma: help Saudi Arabia with its civilian nuclear program and potentially gain its support for a deal with Israel, or to let China reap the economic and political rewards.
China has become a major a strategic ally of both Saudi Arabia and Iran, with whom it signed a 400 million dollar economic cooperation agreement over 25 years.
China has entered the fray as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia in order to construct an alliance that serves the interests of all three without needing the services or assurances of the United States.
More importantly, China is taking the United States' place as an economic and strategic power in the region.. A power that Israel has little influence over.
Haaretz
Zvi Bar'el
Mar 10, 2023
Israel's dream of forming an Arab alliance against Iran was shattered on Friday with the news that Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to restore diplomatic ties within two months.
The dramatic announcement is likely to redraw the regional map of friends and foes, and will have global reverberations.
The agreement provides Iran with much-needed legitimacy in the Arab world, and could lead to further deals with Arab states like Egypt, pave the way to end the war in Yemen, offer a workable solution to the crisis in Lebanon, and even lead to a resumption of negotiations to save the nuclear deal.
The Saudi-Iranian rapprochement will force the United States to reevaluate its standing in the region. After all, it was China – not Washington or Moscow – that was able to reassemble a complex political constellation traditionally under American purview.
The renewal of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been on a slow burn for the past two years. Five rounds of talk were held with Iraqi mediation in Baghdad or under guidance of Oman, who had mediated between Iran and the U.S. in the lead up to the nuclear deal in 2015.
In December, four Saudi fighter jets escorted Chinese President Xi Jinping's plane as he landed on an official, or shall we say royal, visit to the kingdom. This wasn't his first visit, but this time he came to sign a strategic alliance agreement which included trade and investment deals worth tens of billions of dollars, and more importantly, developing nuclear power reactors designated for domestic energy production.
Saudi Arabia has been asking the United States to help it build nuclear reactors for many years. But American demands, including an insistence that the Saudis comply with International Atomic Energy Agency regulations, derailed any cooperation on the issue. In 2020 The Wall Street Journal reported the disconcerting news that China and Saudi Arabia were cooperating to exploit the kingdom's vast uranium deposits, and shortly after that, U.S. intelligence agencies announced they are verifying reports that Saudi Arabia was looking to build a nuclear reactor with Chinese assistance.
Saudi Arabia has found a solution in China, with whom it signed a nuclear reactor construction memorandum in 2017. In any case, the Saudis have presented the U.S. with a serious dilemma: help Saudi Arabia with its civilian nuclear program and potentially gain its support for a deal with Israel, or to let China reap the economic and political rewards.
China has become a major a strategic ally of both Saudi Arabia and Iran, with whom it signed a 400 million dollar economic cooperation agreement over 25 years.
China has entered the fray as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia in order to construct an alliance that serves the interests of all three without needing the services or assurances of the United States.
More importantly, China is taking the United States' place as an economic and strategic power in the region.. A power that Israel has little influence over.
I've stressed several times in the past, that the U.S. has to look and deal with China in different ways and mentality, not everything is always solved controversially and by force, plus the fact that America cannot easily face an alliance of China and Russia, of course the Chinese are advancing rapidly in Africa, buying a big chunk of western industries and farm lands, thus further expanding their influence, and now surprise surprise, they are adding the most important two powers in the Middle-East and the shattered Arab world, their influence is surely going to have implications in the region, more so as the U.S. is pulling out systematically from the region, of course it's not a comfortable situation or outcome for the U.S. immediately, but not necessarily bad on the long run or strategically, but surely not good for Israel, that could try and push some solutions by triggering an adventure of their own, I hope that we won't be dragged again into foolish acts and dangerous wars for the sake of Israeli geopolitics of total supremacy and hegemony......
As always, my profound many thanks to all my friends and readers....
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