Biden’s New Approach to the Middle East

As the Biden administration offered the mullahs in Tehran a $6 billion ransom for five American citizens, it was also offering Iran’s archrival Saudi Arabia unprecedented defense commitments and cooperation on a civilian nuclear program to help persuade Riyadh to normalize relations with Israel.

Inquiring minds want to know: Why is Joe Biden working so hard to do favors for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? And why is he shoveling cash to the mullahs while working to empower their enemies?

These are good questions. Brokering a Saudi-Israeli peace deal will be expensive. It will cost in the region, where both Israel and Saudi Arabia will look to extract as many concessions and sweeteners as possible before giving Washington what it wants, and it will be expensive at home. The human-rights activists who dominate much of the Democratic Party’s foreign-policy apparatus will scream bloody murder if Mr. Biden embraces Bibi and MBS. Isolationists in both parties will ask why the Biden administration is deepening American security commitments in the Middle East instead of continuing to withdraw.

Two perceptions seem to be driving the new Biden approach. First, while continuing diplomatic outreach to Iran demonstrates that Team Biden hasn’t given up on reaching some kind of understanding with Tehran, for now at least it is accepting that the mullahs don’t want to play ball.

Second, the administration appears to have a new appreciation of the importance of the Middle East, and therefore of leading powers like Saudi Arabia and Israel, for American global strategy. Being the primary security and economic partner of the countries that dominate the world’s most important oil reserves still matters. America’s position in the Middle East gives us leverage over China’s energy supplies. It can ensure that the Middle East sovereign wealth funds prefer our tech and industrial sectors over those of our rivals. It can maintain the profitable defense relationships that help keep American arms makers ahead in a competitive arena.

This was all as true in January 2021 as it is today, but after 2½ years in office the administration now seems to get it. Team Biden now appears to understand that diplomatic relations and deepening formal security ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia could be the foundation of a new regional security architecture that secures critical American interests while reducing the long-term need for American military presence in the region. Getting the Saudis and the Israelis to “yes” will be difficult, but success would be transformational.

The biggest problem with the new approach is a familiar one: Iran. The mullahs will inevitably see a U.S.-backed regional security system aligning Israel and Saudi Arabia as a direct threat to their drive for regional hegemony. Iran has the capacity to cause a crisis in the Middle East any time it likes. It can accelerate the production of enriched uranium. It can attack shipping in the Gulf. It can order its proxies to launch missiles or stage terror attacks.

Team Biden seems to be hunting for a mix of carrots and sticks that will keep Iran quiet as the U.S. collaborates with the regime’s most bitter foes to build a powerful regional security architecture. Pallets of cash here, Marines on foreign-flagged tankers there. Can the U.S. pacify Iran while reassuring allies? We shall see.

There will be other problems, also familiar. Getting to yes will require the cooperation of two leaders who have little respect for Team Biden. Biden-era policy toward Saudi Arabia, pivoting awkwardly from icy contempt to oaths of undying affection, is a series of what my students would call “big yikes”—cringe-inducing rookie mistakes. And the chemistry between Mr. Netanyahu and the Democratic foreign-policy leaders of the Obama-Biden era has never been good.

Then there are the Palestinians. Although decades of Saudi and broader Arab frustration with Palestinian political incompetence have substantially reduced their influence in the region, the Palestinians haven’t fallen off the map. Saudi public opinion, and the government’s self-respect, will not permit Riyadh to reach agreements with Israel that set the Palestinians entirely off to one side. With most of the Israeli cabinet dead-set against any concessions, and the Palestinian leadership at a low ebb of authority and legitimacy among its people, addressing this problem could be even more difficult than usual.

Nevertheless, the Biden administration’s embrace of the Trump-era vision of Middle East regional security based on Arab-Israeli reconciliation with American support has opened the door to new and perhaps more creative diplomacy in a region that is critical to the global balance of power and world peace. That is a very good thing.