(Dobbs) The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend... Until It's Not
With new alliances, good news for the United States, and bad.
The Middle East is changing, and fast. And it’s changing in once unthinkable ways. It’s a new iteration of the principle that has long governed alliances and rivalries in the Middle East: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
It’s for better and for worse.
The first change was initially summarized in a headline two days ago in The Wall Street Journal: “Saudi Arabia Seeks U.S. Security Pledges, Nuclear Help for Peace With Israel.”
In all the years I covered the Middle East and in most of the years since, “Saudi Arabia” and “Peace With Israel” never would have been muttered in the same breath. So if Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States come to an agreement, it is a very big deal, the biggest since 45 years ago when Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, president of the most powerful Arab nation back then, shook hands at Camp David. They had fought three mortal wars against each other and for years after Camp David, Egypt was blackballed by virtually all the other Arab states. But the peace treaty held. Jordan ended its own state of war with Israel 25 years later.
Since then, other Arab states have established practical if not diplomatic relationships with Israel, for which the United States rewarded them: the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan, and Bahrain.
But Saudi Arabia? It is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. If the Saudis come around, others will likely follow. Saudi Arabia has long dealt with Israel under the radar— with both Iran and Hezbollah as common foes, they share mutually beneficial intelligence and half a year ago, the Saudis even started letting Israel’s national airline El Al overfly their airspace.
But they want more. Last year the Saudi crown prince told The Atlantic, "We don't look at Israel as an enemy, we look to them as a potential ally, with many interests that we can pursue together.”
That laid a foundation and now, they’ve stated their stakes. According to The Journal, the Saudi bid for “nuclear help” means “Riyadh officials want U.S. support to enrich uranium and develop its own fuel production system.” They say it would be for energy, not weaponry, although critics are not so sure. “Security pledges” means that “Saudi Arabia also wants firm guarantees that the U.S. will come to the kingdom’s defense when needed.”
And in return? A formal relationship between what is now the most powerful nation in the Arab world, and Israel, which is still, for all our differences over policy, America’s closest ally in the Middle East. That should be good for the United States.
But there are complications.
First, a second report of rapprochement, this time between equally unlikely parties: Saudi Arabia and Iran. The story’s headline yesterday in The New York Times carries all sorts of meaning: “Saudi Arabia and Iran Agree to Restore Ties, in Talks Hosted by China.”
Because of centuries-old blood feuds between the Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam, the Saudis and the Iranians are age-old regional rivals in the Islamic world. An agreement to restore economic and diplomatic ties after they were angrily cut seven years ago would not be an agreement by either side to trust anything the other side does, but it would, as Iran’s official spokesman tweeted, “change the dynamics of the region.”
However, it’s the second half of the headline that portends bigger change in the Middle East: “… in Talks Hosted by China.” This is China flexing its muscle. Three months ago Chinese President Xi went to Saudi Arabia. Last month Iran’s President Raisi visited Xi in Beijing.
This restoration of ties is the end-product. China is a player now, and its goals in the region aren’t ours. This is not good for the United States. What China has set up, if history is any guide, is a potentially explosive relationship between one nation that has a nuclear program with another that wants one.
The second complication, in more ways than one, is Israel itself. The government led for the sixth time now by Prime Minister Netanyahu is the most right-wing government in the 75-year history of the nation. Not only is it moving in the direction of authoritarian rule by fighting to emasculate Israel’s independent judiciary, which threatens its very stature as a democracy, but it is presiding over an era of violence between Israelis and Palestinians that we haven’t seen since the fierce and fatal rebellions called Intifadas. So far, in this year alone, more than 60 Palestinians and ten Israelis have died in clashes and attacks.
Which brings us to the issue that once defined Middle East politics: the Palestinians themselves and their goal of an independent state. When I reported from that part of the world, Arab nations didn’t always walk the walk but they talked the talk like there was no other issue on earth. Today though, that’s just history. In February the Saudi foreign minister said that if his nation is to make peace with Israel, the deal has to “include the Palestinians, because without addressing the issue of a Palestinian state, we will not have a true and real peace in the region.”
Now it’s March, and from the initial reports, the Palestinians are an afterthought. Which probably means more clashes, more attacks, more deaths, and less chance than ever of a Palestinian state.
Nothing is cast in stone yet. Some of the plans for once bitter rivals to make nice might materialize but some might not. The Saudis are always mindful that if they want to lead the Arab world, they need other powerful players in that world on their side. Yet when they openly flirt with Israel, which is still anathema to the Palestinians and the most intransigent Arab states, they can lose as much support as they gain. Iraq, for example, recently criminalized any contact with Israel. And if Saudi Arabia shakes hands with Iran, there’s plenty of history to predict that it might not last which could make the region even more dangerous than before. If it does last, then a pact between Saudi Arabia and Israel will mortify many Israelis.
The Middle East is changing. For better and for worse. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Until it’s not.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 36-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
The evolution of world alliances and conflicts seems to happen in never ending cycles. Bitter enemies become fast friends i.e. the US and Japan and the US and Germany, with a lot of bloodshed along the way on all sides. Having a world in sublime and total peace doesn't seem to be in the cards. Wars and rumors of wars must be in our DNA as a species.
Well said Greg. I certainly was surprised at this news.... but want to see what, if anything develops over 6 months.