Tom Friedman oversells the significance of normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia:
First, a U.S.-Saudi security pact that produces normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and the Jewish state – while curtailing Saudi-China relations – would be a game changer for the Middle East, bigger than the Camp David peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
There may be people in the administration that want Biden to believe this is true, but it isn’t. While the US would be on the hook for paying the price to make it happen and it would mire the US even deeper in the region, very little would change and the things that would change would not be for the better. There would be no fundamental changes in the region. The “game” would not be changed at all. It would simply become more like what it already was: the US subsidizes bad clients that take whatever they can get and then they work against American interests whenever it suits them. It’s clear enough what the Saudis and the Israelis would get out of this arrangement, but all that the US gets is a very expensive bill whose full cost won’t be known for years to come.
If a deal with the Saudis ends up being anything like the ones brokered with Morocco and the UAE, it would mean that the US bribes an authoritarian government to have formal diplomatic relations with Israel by giving them political and military favors. The Palestinians would once again be hung out to dry, the oppressive system that they live under would remain in place and probably continue to get worse, and warmongers in the US and Israel would continue their business of trying to stoke a conflict with Iran. The US would be hugging both clients more closely at the exact moment when it should be pushing both away.
Since Saudi Arabia hasn’t been at war with Israel in generations, it would barely deserve the name of peace. In exchange for this not-so-significant breakthrough, the US would pledge to go to war for Saudi Arabia. That is abhorrent in itself, and it would be lousy negotiating on our part. The US promises something huge and potentially very costly that binds our government to defend them from attack, and in exchange the Saudis agree…to open an embassy? This is the sort of deal Trump would make and then claim that it was the most beautiful deal in the history of the world.
It also makes no sense to be adding formal security commitments in the Middle East when the US already has far too many commitments as it is. It would amount to doubling down on an extremely stupid bet on the Saudi royal family. If the last decade has shown anything, it is that US and Saudi interests have been diverging for a while and a close security relationship with their government is bad for America.
Read the rest of the article at Eunomia
Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
Biden is trying to succeed where Trump and Xi succeeded but he will fail. Trying to get Saudi Arabia to establish diplomatic ties with Israel is as impossible as trying to get Israel to establish diplomatic ties with Iran and trying to get it to call off war with Iran.
Israel and certain Arab Countries established diplomatic ties but it did not end Israel’s mistreatment of its Arab Population. It did not prevent the Gulf Wars.
If the bribes are sufficient, they will play nice with each other. Always leaves one wondering, why not just bribe Iran too? And that was a rhetorical question.