During the 2020 primaries, one of my major misgivings about now-President Biden was his foreign policy track record. In my opinion, it was mostly awful during his time as a powerful ranking member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations during the W years. And worse, he seemed proud of it.
Then Biden became president and proved me wrong by having the courage to finally get us out of Afghanistan, signaling he’d learned from the Iraq debacle. His quick action to rally NATO and the persuadable world after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the value of having a person with a ton of experience and connections at the helm.
But now there’s this: (NYT gift link)
The United States is discussing terms of a mutual defense treaty with Saudi Arabia that would resemble military pacts with Japan and South Korea, according to American officials. The move is at the center of President Biden’s high-stakes diplomacy to get the kingdom to normalize relations with Israel.
Under such an agreement, the United States and Saudi Arabia would generally pledge to provide military support if the other country is attacked in the region or on Saudi territory. The discussions to model the terms after the treaties in East Asia, considered among the strongest the United States has outside of its European pacts, have not been previously reported.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, regards a mutual defense agreement with the United States as the most important element in his talks with the Biden administration about Israel, current and former U.S. officials said. Saudi officials say a strong defense agreement would help deter potential assaults by Iran or its armed partners even as the two regional rivals re-establish diplomatic ties.
“Peace in the Middle East” has been the prestige foreign policy white whale that presidents of both parties have chased since I was a child. Even the decidedly abby-normal presidency of Donald J. Trump included a run at peace in the Middle East via the so-called “Abraham Accords,” which supposedly squared things between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. The Trump people still crow about that, having few other bits of normal presidenting to tout.
And now it appears the Biden admin is pursuing a peace in the Middle East deal too. To what end? Does anyone think for a minute Prince Mohammed bin Bone Saw won’t flip off the oil pump next year to help sleaze the Trumps back into office? Or that Netanyahu won’t continue to break his country’s previous bipartisan approach to its major ally to openly side with Repubs and undermine Democrats every chance he gets?
Josh Marshall asks the right question at TPM: What’s in it for us?
What does the U.S. get from giving a strong security guarantee to a country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, that is now largely hostile to the U.S. on behalf of another country, Israel, that is increasingly annoying and meddlesome at best? This isn’t the 1990s or even the aughts when the Middle East was a region made up mostly of various sorts of fairly-locked-in U.S. allies, albeit ones with major disagreements amongst themselves…
The U.S. partnership with Saudi Arabia, stretching all the way back to the 1940s, was always uncomfortable and even unseemly. But for decades the Saudis were supporters of high level American interests and guarantors of price stability in global oil markets. At least that was the idea. Today they appear more in league with Russia than the United States, certainly in world oil markets and beyond that as well. They openly bid China against the United States for their favor.
We live in a different world today. The Saudis have as much right to pursue their own interests as any other sovereign country. But again, what would the U.S. be getting in return for any of this?
The only clear answer I can see is: nothing.
I don’t see the U.S. benefit either. Neither country is trending in a good direction on human rights and democratic governance — quite the opposite. Neither proposed partner is trustworthy, though it’s important to keep in mind that diplomacy almost by definition requires managing relationships with scoundrels and bloodthirsty sociopaths.
Biden has exceeded expectations in the foreign policy side of the job so far, IMO. He’s earned the benefit of the doubt, at least in my book. Maybe he’s got something up his sleeve here. But I don’t see it so far. What do you think is going on?
J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian)
Maybe President Biden wants to touch that golden orb? Apart from that, I don’t know enough about the modern politics of the Middle East to offer an intelligent opinion.
Baud
Of the top of my head, it seems like an attempt to head off a Middle East arms race. But this is the first I e heard of this, so that’s just speculation.
pacem appellant
IMO, it’s more of what you alluded to in the beginning: it’s the White Whale that pols in power love to take a stab at because they think they’ll be immortalized if they “stabilize” the Near East.
Baud
Another speculation is that this is directed at China.
J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian)
Also too: There is an article at ProPublica entitled “Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events”. The next sentence reads “Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.”
At this point, it would save ink and paper to point out what sleazy things Thomas hasn’t done.
narya
I am no foreign policy expert (I’m not knowledgeable, even)–so the only thing I can think, other than the oil prices, is that Joe in general thinks we’re better off making nice when we can, that it’s better to have some nominal “good” relationship than an adversarial/antagonistic relationship. I’m not suggesting he’s correct (see above, “not an expert”), just that this would fit with his general approach.
Villago Delenda Est
We invaded the wrong country in 2003. Why would we ally with the country that gave us 9/11?
bookworm1398
I assume what the US gets is Saudi doesn’t get a nuclear bomb. Same situation as Japan and Korea, who otherwise have incentive to go nuclear.
Chris
Yeah, I’m… unsure.
On the one hand, I’m very aware that you can only tackle so many problems at once, that the Saudis are able to inflict serious damage on the U.S. economy, and that they appear totally willing, as someone said on an earlier thread, to do that strategically in order to screw the U.S. economy and throw the election to Trump. And the rapprochement with the Chinese and Russians is plenty to be concerned about in its own right too.
On the other hand, not only is it one of the worst regimes on the planet (its record of human rights violations pisses on Iran’s from a very great height), but it also basically is to global Wahhabism (call it what you will) what the Soviet Union used to be to communism. Every violent Sunni supremacist militia in the world can count on money from rich Saudi donors, and often enough, the Saudi government itself. Even without the violence, the Saudis have basically been working on hostile takeovers of the local religious establishment in every country around the world with a significant Islamic population. Like our fundiegelicals in Africa and Latin America, they make sure the most reactionary anti-Western preachers have plenty of money and anybody else gets sidelined and/or can’t keep up. Much of the utter futility of twenty years of “war on terror,” in fact, comes from the fact that we were somehow trying to fight al-Qaeda and its peers without doing anything to endanger our BFF relationship with the Saudis. And lastly, even if we didn’t have all that preexisting context, a country that seems able and willing to use its oil as a weapon to meddle in our elections is a clear national security threat.
There is, in sum, a lot to be said for ripping the band-aid off and killing the Saudi-U.S. friendship. Naturally, this is not a good time for it. But then again it’s hard to imagine when would be a good time. And one of these days, it’s going to have to happen.
JoyceH
One of the significant benefits of a shift to green and renewable energy is that it would eliminate the need for us to have to make nice to global oil thugs.
Betty Cracker
@bookworm1398: According to the Times article, bin Salman is trying to include US assistance with development of a civilian nuclear program in KSA too. Hard to see how the admin could get enough votes to ratify any treaty that sanctions that. Or any sort of defense pact, really. This may go nowhere, but I’m puzzled that talks are even taking place, given the rogues on the other side of the table.
grubert
I would love, as I bet we all would, to know more about behind-the-scenes influence of big oil and big money in general upon presidential decisions, given that some horse-trading vis-a-vis other priorities must be taking place.
And I would like a pony too..
lowtechcyclist
Best possibility I can see is that Biden spends the next fourteen months dangling this possibility in front of the Saudis without ever quite consummating this deal, and meanwhile they don’t rock the boat on oil prices in order to not bollix this supposedly impending deal. Then after the election, without ever really saying, ‘fuck off, MBS,’ the U.S. gradually backs away from this deal, and it never comes to pass.
I don’t really think that’s what’s going on, unfortunately.
trollhattan
@JoyceH: Exactly.
US is flirting with being a net-exporter of oil and gas, and that means nothing WRT what we pay for our various petroleum products because global pricing and supply dictate that.
All that fricking fracking does not ultimately benefit us, it benefits the petroleum industry only.
52% of CAISO electricity supply is currently from renewables, 14% from non-hydrocarbon sources. More of this, please.
trollhattan
A PSA: the Nitter browser extension is unbroke today.
mrmoshpotato
@Villago Delenda Est:
Exactly! I read
and thought “Well wouldn’t that have been awkward on the morning of September 11, 2001!”
Repatriated
@Baud: Seems plausible. There’s significant potential for one — globally, not just in the Middle East — unless Russia is clearly defeated in Ukraine.
Also, cooperation (or at least reduced interference) regarding Russia.
@bookworm1398:
This too.
glc
Well, I have no idea what it all means. That’s my take on it.
gene108
Another question: What is this deal going to cost us?
If it doesn’t cost us anything, other than signing a mutual defense agreement based on the unlikely chance Iran invaded Saudi Arabia, I’m not sure what we should get in return.
Matt McIrvin
We should tell Israel to go pound sand, and we should sure as hell tell Saudi Arabia to go pound sand, BUT good relations between the two of them presumably are in most people’s best interest, so… I dunno.
Chris
@JoyceH:
While it’s by no means the only explanation for the shittiness of modern world politics, it’s nevertheless remarkable how often the alliance of “violent reactionary movements financed by fossil fuel oligarchs” recurs these days.
Wahhabism in much of the Islamic world, Putinism in Russia, and movement conservatism in the United States all run on this.
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
The U.S. can no longer ratify treaties. It takes a 2/3’s vote in the Senate to ratify a treaty. There aren’t enough Republicans willing to break ranks with the isolationist xenophobes in their party to vote to ratify one.
Gin & Tonic
@bookworm1398: Any country with an advanced engineering capacity that looks at Ukraine and does *not* desire to go nuclear is behaving irrationally.
MomSense
@bookworm1398:
That’s my thought as well.
BR
Only upside I see here is that this is a dangling carrot to prevent any shenanigans during the election next year. “You need to play nice while we are negotiating this agreement.”
GregT
And even that doesn’t really ‘cost’ us anything. Unless we back away from our role as global cop, we’re going to get involved in defending against any potential invasion of Saudi Arabia anyway. (See Gulf War I and Kuwait, with whom we didn’t have any mutual defense treaties whatsoever.)
So if the cost is pledging to do something that we’d already do, we might as well get whatever we can out of the negotiation.
sdhays
@gene108: Treaty ratification always struck me as worthless considering the President can just decide to pull out of treaties unilaterally.
An oversight in the Constitution, I think.
Kirk
What is Mark Mazzetti leaving out or twisting in this report?
I’m always going to be suspicious of any time reporter who spent the first half or more of the previous administration praising that group’s successes in foreign relations.
Shalimar
I was worried about a possible Canadian invasion before learning this would commit Saudi Arabia to providing us with assistance when that happens. So there is that.
MattF
Who knows? Biden has recently made nice(er) with Iran, while KSA and Israel have both designated Iran as their principal adversary, so there’s tension there. If this makes it easier for everyone to climb down, I’m not against it. But again, everyone hates everyone in the Middle East, so showing any favor to anyone is a risk.
Domestically, having some sort of ME ‘accomplishment’ is just part of the game.
piratedan
What I’ve taken from Dark Brandon thus far is that he’s a pragmatist.
I see him trying to balance the challenges of seeing Russia and even China from going nuclear and keeping those with the money and the means to affect regional political balances into a better position with the US and having us be less adversarial.
That is one high ass tightrope.
I see it as trying not to ignore what else is going on in the world while we also beat back fascism at home knowing that the rest of the world matters as well.
Malovich
I have a couple of questions I’d want answered before opining on how good or bad this is…
Would the US be able to position a force within the borders of SA?
What would the terms of defence be in the instance of an insurgency, rebellion or revolt?
What are the military capabilities of the SA and how would a US military presence alter that, hypothetically?
CaseyL
I don’t like it, either, and don’t see any benefit to the US at all. So it may be mere habit –
“We’ve always tried to have good relations with the Saudis” kind of thing (inertia in foreign policy is real).
Or, on a more hopeful note, this may be a maneuver to keep an eye on/drive a wedge into the Saudis’ dealings with China and Russia.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
It’s hard for me to see how the administration could get enough votes to ratify a treaty that favored motherhood and apple pie. There’s a substantial nihilist contingent in the Senate who will oppose any treaty on the grounds they surrender US sovereignty. If you look at recent history, almost every international framework we’ve entered into is either a treaty signed by the President but never ratified or something that is not formally called a treaty to avoid needing a 2/3 vote in the Senate for approval.
jonas
OT, but remember the guy whose “true story” about busting child sex rings in South America inspired the Jim Cavaziel film Sound of Freedom, which had conservatives and QAnoners all Boebert-ing each other in theaters this summer? Yeah, it turns out his whole “save the children” schtick was largely a pickup line so he could get laid. At least seven women have now come forward to lodge complaints about his behavior. He claims it’s the “pedophiles who are out to get him.”
Yes. Of course it is.
WaterGirl
I far preferred all the winning from last week to the substandard amount of winning we are seeing this week.
NotMax
To short circuit a strategic partnership with China.
SATSQ.
trollhattan
@gene108: So very much sand to pound, they’re sand-rich!
trollhattan
@Malovich: One of Bin Laden’s major beefs was US military presence in the kingdom and I have to believe those resentments would fire back up overnight, if we returned there.
Not to mention they certainly asserted themselves militarily by bombing the snot out of Yemen for several years. Do they really have so much to fear from Iran they can’t handle themselves?
Kelly
@trollhattan: Bombing the snot out of Yemen but have the Saudi’s managed to impose their favored regime? I haven’t been following that outrage.
Roger Moore
@gene108:
Yep. A list of the US signed but not ratified treaties still pending in the US Senate is instructive. We can’t even ratify treaties intended to prevent double taxation, which is the kind of thing you’d think the Republicans would be 100% behind.
Roberto el oso
The assumption seems to be that a mutual defense agreement between the US/KSA would be aimed at Iran. But what about Yemen? Would we be required to get back into that, assisting the Saudis in that mess? It certainly seems like it would turn out to be pretty one-sided since the Saudi armed forces (even with all the shiniest new equipment that oil money can buy) have never proved themselves to be worth much, other than keeping their population of imported slave labor in line.
Another possible subtext, although I myself find this farfetched …. given that the Israeli military/intelligence services occasionally get overly clever, what would be the likelihood that they (the Israelis) would actively assist the Saudis in any nuclear development projects? As a deterrent to Iran’s ambitions, obviously, but also, given the Saudi contempt for many hands-on aspects of actually making infrastructure work, as a means of control?
NotMax
@trollhattan
When it comes to adversarial martial theaters of operation, Yemen is to Iran as Carthage was to Rome.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Look at it another way; the Saudis spent years unable to get their preferred outcome in Yemen. What makes you think they could stand up to Iran, a much more formidable military power?
cain
@Chris:
We ask our allies to not buy from Russia which is a source for a lot of their energy needs. How is this any different?
Saudia Arabia’s ruling class and their version of Islam is shit and they have a human rights violation. I can’t imagine we want to be in a position where we are defending them against something that might have started as a human rights violation.
Israel isn’t a great partner either.
Hell, I prefer if we started working with Iran instead. Working with those guys actually bore some fruit too bad we sucked.
Chris
@Malovich:
Well, we’ve done it before.
That’s the real question. Historically, the shared concerns in the Saudi-U.S. relationship has been not just foreign powers moving into the region, but “subversion” by political radicals in the region as well – Communists and Arab Nationalists in the early years, islamists more recently. Part of the reason they’ve started looking at us sideways this century is our newfangled (from their point of view) interest in “democracy promotion,” both when we invaded Iraq and when we chose not to defend friendly regimes from their own people a decade later during the Arab Spring. That’s a thing to watch as this continues.
As I understand it, their military is smaller than Iran’s (the main relevant regional rival) but better equipped. On the other hand, they’re far less experienced than Iran and also have a much smaller population.
With the U.S. military in the mix, well… it basically makes them impregnable for any foreign power, like it did in the 1990s when Iraq and Iran were the concern.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore: Geography. Iran has to go through Iraq and Kuwait to invade Saudi Arabia, unless they do so by sea, which seems problematic.
kindness
Another issue with both SA & Bibi is that both of them have gone out of their way to try to help elect a Republican as president over the last few elections. Screw them. Bibi & Saudi Arabia may deserve each other but we don’t deserve either of them.
Chris
@jonas:
That stuff pisses me off.
With all the closed borders around the world, the number of people vulnerable to human trafficking’s quite high and it’s a huge issue. But cultural reactionaries latch onto it mainly to LARP out their white savior fantasies, while completely whistling past all the structural things that need to be done to address the problem, and the ways their own politics make it worse.
I remember when the Sound of Freedom fans’ favorite movie on the topic was Taken. Whose take on human trafficking was “if pretty rich white American girls don’t listen to their fathers and wander off by themselves in scary foreign hellholes like [checks notes] Paris, France, they’ll be kidnapped by scary swarthy foreigners and sold as sex slaves to even scarier, swarthier foreigners!”
cain
@Chris:
Also honestly, nobody is going to go nuclear on Saudi Arabia given the holy sites within their borders. Can you imagine trying to do something that would destroy Mecca and Medina? JFC – imagine that shit show.
ETA – and I dont’ mean targeting them – but you throw a nuclear weapon that kills people through secondary exposure to radiation and what not… or disturbs the pilgrimage eg the Hajj. There will literally be hell to pay as the entire muslim population turns into a hornets nest.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Double-taxation, as in making sure that Americans who live abroad aren’t taxed twice, by the U.S. and the country they’re living in? They don’t care. Americans who live abroad are expat scum who think they’re too good for the rest of us. If they were really good Americans, they’d stay here. They deserve to get the shit taxed out of them.
(Seriously, back when I still read wingnut blogs I saw people arguing that Americans who live abroad shouldn’t even be allowed to vote. And this was years before the Trump phase of the party).
trollhattan
Who did nazi this coming?Tucker getting Russian TV show?
Baud
I’m guessing the concern isn’t full scale war between SA and Iran but lots of low grade skirmishes.
Alison Rose
@Chris: I suppose these days they would make an exception for Americans in russia. Maybe Hungary and Belarus too.
Jeffro
Maybe Biden & Co are just trying to get Russia and China and Iran to ‘bid up’ the amount of support they’re willing to spend on/share with Saudi Arabia, kind of like looking at a free agent you don’t really plan on bringing onto your team? But you show interest and talk a good game, so that when your rival eventually takes the free agent, they pay way too much?
What – global politics doesn’t work the same way as pro sports? Nevermind. ;)
Roger Moore
@Chris:
I think the big thing is what kind of war they’d be likely to have with Iran. They don’t share any borders, so any direct conflict between them would probably be over control of the shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf. Iran has a geographical advantage, since their port at Bandar Abbas controls the Straight of Hormuz, which is a choke point for Saudi Arabia’s oil exports from the Persian Gulf. It would be very hard for Saudi Arabia to ensure safe passage of their tankers, since it’s much easier to deny passage than to guarantee it. Saudi Arabia could probably deny Iranian exports, too, but Iran has a much larger, more diversified economy, so the pain would still be disproportionately on the Saudi side. That’s why Saudi Arabia needs a powerful ally.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Following in the footsteps of Larry King, who ended up on the Russia-backed RT network.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Iran doesn’t have to invade Saudi Arabia to do a lot of damage; they just have to block Saudi oil exports through the Straights of Hormuz. How long could Saudi Arabia keep going if the vast majority of their oil exports dried up?
lowtechcyclist
@sdhays:
I know both GWB and TFG have done this, but I don’t understand what empowers the President to do so. But everybody seems to go along with the notion that Presidents can indeed just do that by themselves, even though Congress was a party to creating the treaty in the first place. Very strange.
sab
I am trusting Biden on this. ( Naive me?) I was sceptical of him in the primary for many reasons over many years on many topics, but I have hardly any complaints about his presidency. He and his people (including VP Harris) seem to be people who take a long view and can strategize domestically and internationally.
OT Ohio November ballot propositions. No on Ohio 1 was the primary. That was to get choice rights on the ballot. So our sneaky Sec of State has made the new issue 1 blocking the primary issue 1 on the ballot. Confusing.
Issue 1 primary was anti-choice. Issue 1 general will be pro-choice. Issue 2 general will be pro- medical marijuana.
Lots of pro and proud Issue 1 guys still have their yard signs up. I might cruise my area and send them friendly postcards that they are now sending the wrong message.
Frank LaRose does seem to be a weasel. I grew up in a Republican family so I believe some of them are (or were, in olden times) honest, but he is not one of the honest ones. But he isn’t sleazy enough to get rich. Just another naive trust fund baby lost on the wrong side. Hoping to get ahead but too ignorant to get away with his behavior. He is being set up to be stupid, and I am cheering all the way.
Jeffro
OT but a good read: Jamelle Bouie on why trump won’t be able to have it both ways on abortion this time around.
(assuming he’s not behind bars next year, LOL)
Geminid
Saudi Arabian and Israeli intelligence agencies have maintained a relationship for some decades now. It was not publicized much, but more recently the two nations have announced miltary cooperation on regional air defense. And a couple of years ago the Saudis and other Gulf states dropped their objections to Israel’s inclusion in CENTCOM, and now their ships steam alongside Israel’s on naval exercises.
For a while now, Government controlled Saudi media has been prepping the populace for better relations with Israel. The way I see it, formal diplomatic relations between the two nations are just a matter of time. They need patience, and they need clarity even more.
So I don’t think the US should do anything more than encourage them. The Saudi/Israeli relationship is complex, and our respective relations with the two nations are far from simple. This diplomatic initiative would make the situation even more complex, and the bilateral Saudi/Israeli relationship less clear.
Jeffro
PS: early voting started TODAY in Virginia and I have already voted! Woot woot! =)
cain
@sab: The SoS does know that cuts both ways right? The anti-choice folks voting for the pro-choice bill? Wait till how pissed they will be if they found out they contributed to the pro-choice one.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: Per your question on the Menendez post:
Nothing mentioned if someone can replace his seat on the committee.
cain
@Geminid: let me know when they allow anybody into SA not only those who don’t have an Israeli entry stamp on their passport.
cain
@Jackie: Think the media will both sides that giving an example of a republican having to resign from a group because they are under indictment?
Betty Cracker
OT: I bet Adam will cover this tonight:
There are videos of the strikes on Xitter — missiles slamming into the building with precision and destructive power. According to Ukrainian sources on Xitter, the Russian fleet commander, Admiral Vikto Sokolov, was killed, but I haven’t seen confirmation of that anywhere else. If he was in that building, he’s probably a goner.
Geminid
@cain: If you are interested you can follow this as well as I can.
sab
@cain: I don’t think so. They contribute to whomever they contribute to, not directly to the ballot initiative.
Lots of not politicaly sophisticated folks on both sides, especially ours. I just want to get our guys knowing which side is which.
Edmund dantes
@Gin & Tonic: THIS
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
Depends on whether or not the treaty, as approved, includes a mechanism (and its concomitant timetable) for withdrawal.
Chris
@cain:
There are only so many oil superpowers you can ask your allies to boycott and expect them to play ball, and with Saudi Arabia we’d be starting completely from scratch with a country that’s been embedded into the West’s economies since the 1940s. I’m not surprised that Biden’s choosing to prioritize isolating Russia (and even that is like pulling teeth).
Saudi Arabia is also so far above everybody else as an oil superpower that there’s probably no way of preventing them from playing havoc with oil prices short of either conquering and occupying the entire country, or making the oil economy obsolete. (I’m a fan of that last one).
Completely agree that I’d ideally much prefer to have Iran as a main regional ally. The missed opportunities there go all the way back to Eisenhower. Goddamn Eisenhower, man.
HumboldtBlue
@trollhattan:
We provide air defense protection for the Saudis and have more than 2,700 personnel stationed there.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
There’s also the fact that, to put it indelicately, warfighting is the kind of activity (like most manual labor) that the Saudis have liked to outsource to others ever since they became an oil superpower. They’ve changed that in the last thirty years, slowly, to some extent, but they still have nothing like the experience with war that Iran or Iraq do. They can slap around Yemenis or Bahrainis, but it’s still an open question whether their population could tolerate the kind of all-out war with a peer competitor that, say, the Iran-Iraq War was.
(The unofficial social contract, after all, is “you don’t cause any trouble, and we’ll keep you comfortable.”)
Nettoyeur
@gene108: Aha. Thus the Biden Admin can tell Mohammed Bone Saw that they are really really trying to get a mutual defense pact through Congress, but that the Trump MAGA crazies block it. This might just dampen the Saudis’ enthusiasm for a second Trump admin. Biden et al will know of course that they won’t have to deliver, since it will be blocked. That’s Talleyrand 101.
RaflW
I can’t shake the feeling that this gamibt by Biden is related, unfortunately, to how far right-wing/fascie Bibi and his regime have gone. I’m not saying this is appeasement, but there’s some background stuff in the US-Israel relationship that is involved with this (the title of this post gets to that). But what is it?
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
Depends on whether or not the treaty, as approved, includes a mechanism (and its concomitant timetable) for withdrawal.
OK, but a treaty that allows the President to unilaterally withdraw – how is that any better than the sorts of executive agreements that Presidents have been signing in the absence of being able to get the Senate to ratify anything?
Geminid
@Chris: This Iranian regime has been in power for 44 years now. The way I see it, they are the ones responsible for their actions, not us.
NotMax
@Chris
See: Kermit Roosevelt (with Ike’s blinkered blessing).
Architect behind Pahlevi in Iran, Nasser in Egypt, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Ruckus
My only stance would be to ask – How well have we been doing in foreign relations in the last, say, 75 years? Are we keeping up with the changes in the world in a way that would at least not harm us?
We have seen a lot of changes in the world in the last 15-20 yrs. Does the US want to continue to play the peacemaker and big daddy or is it time to back off, even if only a small bit? I see that we still have issues at home that don’t align us with the concepts of the founders of this county, mostly because they could not be seen or likely imagined that long ago, and shouldn’t we be working on fixing our own issues? And yes the last “president” was far worse than a useless idiot, he qualifies as self destruct dummy – that just won’t.
sab
Repeat to clarify: Ohio
Issue 1 in the primary was pro-forced pregnancy. A vote No was a vote for abortion rights to be on the ballot.
Issue 1 in the general election is to get choice (abortion rights and also other pregnancy care) into the state constitition.
Issue 2 is something about legalizing marijuana use. I do not care at all about that, but my husband and stepkids do a lot. They want it legal.
I do not want the anti-drug people voting against abortion because they are confused.
I do not want the pro-choice people voting against abortion because they are confused.
I do not want pro- marijuana people voting against abortion rights because they are confused.
Frank LaRose is a piece of slime and a disgrace to the military force he served in
ETA So on issue 1, vote yes in primary and no in general.
RaflW
Another factor that I’d expect the Biden security advisors are tracking is, that while yes, the House of Saud can mess with oil production to nudge up global prices, the current tightening may actually be less about pushing up the market or destabilizing Biden, and more a reflection that the Saudis are past peak oil.
The whole peak oil thing is less fashionable as a talking point nowdays, but (via the detailed rantings of one of my dad’s close friends some years ago – a bit of a RW crank guy but a 40 year global oil exploration & production man) the Saudis have been water-injecting and over-pumping their best fields for years and it’s pretty likely they couldn’t engineer a price collapse (the other chaos tool they previously had and used) anything like they could a generation ago.
I can’t say what, in geopolitical stability terms, the Saudi fields gradually, but not slowly, dropping in production means. As said upthread, it means less IF we can decarbonize more of our grid and especially our transport systems.
Anyhoo, oil undergirds a lot of this nasty, brutish cosying up with shitty regimes.
Chris
@Geminid:
It’s probably a good thing nobody’s saying otherwise, then.
Matt McIrvin
@cain:
The last people I recall bellowing about the need to nuke Mecca were [checks notes] a bunch of Americans, right after 9/11.
Chris
@NotMax:
Not so much Nasser in Egypt – or at least if he was involved in that, it’s the first I’ve heard of it? Nasser leaned to the other side of the Cold War divide.
But Pahlavi for sure.
Jackie
@trollhattan: I saw this tidbit: Apparently Tucker’s clueless?
JR
Part of me hopes that Biden pulls the runaround on these guys, like Napoleon did with Ferdinand. But then I remember what happened after.
Tony G
If I were a cynical man I might conclude that American political figures — both Republicans and Democrats — are just being clandestinely bribed by Saudi Arabia. If not, then it just doesn’t make sense for them to continue to support these Islamic-Fascists — who, by the way, were the perpetrators of the 911 attacks. The standard explanation since I was a teenager (at the time of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo) has been “well, they have oil”. Why, yes they do. But oil is a commodity that is sold internationally, and Saudi Arabia is not the only seller of that commodity. (Not to mention the fact that we should have started moving away from oil a half-century ago.) Something is deeply corrupt here and, as much as a I view the Democratic Party as the lesser of two evils, the corruption apparently rots both parties.
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
The anticipation is that it is a trigger never to be pulled under any but the most exceptional changes of political circumstance inimical to U.S. interests.
So far as GWB and Dolt 45 were concerned I would argue such conditions did not apply and their actions, while following the letter of the text, were both high-handed and foolhardy. The executive branch though, for good or ill, is the final arbiter of conducting foreign policy.
Geminid
@Chris: I guess I take the frequent reminders about the US’s actions towards Iran post-WWII as extenuating the current regimes actions. It sure seems that way at times.
jonas
@Chris: A while back, I was goofing around on YouTube and found this clip of the Graham Norton show with Seth Macfarlane absolutely slaying — of all people — Tom Cruise with an impression of Kermit the Frog speaking Liam Neeson’s famous “I have a very special set of skills” or whatever line from Taken. It’s pretty damn funny.
Never seen the whole movie, but if I ever did, I wouldn’t be able to stop laughing the whole time imagining it was Kermit tracking down the kidnappers.
wjca
It’s not like the US has no leverage in its dealings with the Saudis. For instance, if we even hinted that we were looking to normalize relations with Iran, the Saudis would (not entirely unreasonably) go into panic mode. Even if normalization is pretty unlikely any time soon. Because that would mean that they weren’t holding all the aces after all.
Sometimes, to have a productive conversation, you have to first whack the other guy upside the head with a 2×4 to get his attention.
Jackie
@cain: 😂🤣😂🤣😂
NotMax
@Chris
See Project FF.
For the record, ousted King Farouk was certainly no prize himself.
Tony G
@Geminid: The United States had an adversarial relationship with Great Britain for almost 100 years after the Brits burned down the White House. Actions have consequences for nations as well as for individuals.
Another Scott
I haven’t read all the comments yet, but it looks like nobody has mentioned the Carter Doctrine yet. Like it or not, and I don’t like it, myself, oil is still vitally important to the US and world economy and will be for quite a while (even as we move away from it). Remember what happened in the run-up to the Ukraine full-scale war. Look at what’s happening in the South China Sea (which has a lot to do with oil exploration and production as well).
China is going to need more oil to keep growing, and is looking all over the world for it. We know VVP has been trying for decades to make russia’s oil and gas industry his super-weapon. China, no doubt (really – no doubt in my mind) would use oil and gas to try to persuade Taiwan, Vietnam, etc., to be much “friendlier” to the PRC given the chance.
Trying to stop an arms race in the Middle East is a worthy goal as well,
I don’t know what’s behind this agreement with bonesaw, and Bibi. But the world is a small place and there are a lot of choke points, and the Ukraine war is showing us all that little drones can do a lot of damage to things like oil production facilities, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if thinking like the above plays a role.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chris
@NotMax:
I had somehow never heard about this.
Well, that didn’t bite us in the ass at all. (Although, as you say, Egypt pre-Nasser was hardly a democracy).
The German advisers are such a perfect touch, too.
DaBunny42
@trollhattan: Good thing we were kind enough to set up Iraq as an Iranian client state…
WaterGirl
The one constructive thing I can say is that we know Biden came into office wanting to have NOTHING to do with Bone Saw, so if Biden is entering into an agreement with that hideous creature, I am guessing he has a damn good reason.
sab
OT : I love John Scalzi books. Also too I love my cats. Can I do both? New into his new book.
wjca
The way to look at that is closer to: With lots and lots of military equipments purchased from the US and others, they have spent years failing to win in Yemen. Which is hardly a military superpower.
The Saudis’ problem is this. They have a small, well educated, elite. But the vast majority of their population are remittance men. Remittance men who have minimal skills relative to the modern world or a modern military. All the real work gets done by ex-pats.
It doesn’t take a lot of manpower to fly a few bombers (maintained almost entirely by some of those ex-pats) to pound Yemen, for example. But beyond that air capability, what they have is basically money to hire mercenaries. And money to buy off potential opponents.
Chris
@sab:
That’s next on my list. I actually got a signed copy from him at the DC book festival last month.
sab
@WaterGirl: Old guy, long view.
moonbat
My guess, and this is just a guess, this is cleaning up some mess that Trump made while in office. Didn’t TFG promise the Saudis a shit ton of weapons? Maybe in exchange for nixing that arms deal, Biden’s dangling this instead. And as someone up thread posited it probably is also to disincentivize them from getting the bomb.
Chris
@wjca:
Yep.
IIRC, one of Erik Prince’s first gigs in the late 2000s after Iraq got him all that bad press in America was offering mercenary services to several Gulf kingdoms.
Eolirin
@Roger Moore: If we actually start taking climate change seriously, those oil exports aren’t going to matter too much in a decade or two. It’ll be interesting to see what happens there.
Jay
@wjca:
Through out history, going back to the Romans, the only people to win a war in Yemen, have been the Yemeni,….
Barbara
@MattF: This is my thinking. I doubt that it is a coincidence that this was announced a week after Biden negotiated the release of Americans imprisoned in Iran and allowed Iran to have access to certain assets and oil moneys.
Roger Moore
@Tony G:
This is true but irrelevant. Oil is a globally traded commodity, so the actions of every producer have an effect on the whole market. If Saudi Arabia decides to cut back production, prices go up even for people who don’t buy a drop of oil from them. Saudi Arabia, in particular, is such a huge producer that they can completely mess with global prices. Also, many of the other top exporters, like Russia, are scarcely better, so the options of who we’re supposed to buy oil from instead are scarcely better.
sab
Often I hate the internet. On the other hand, I like to see creatures interconnecting, most of them normal, some of them extremely vile.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore: Of course, but to what end? If they bomb the hell out of one another’s oil production* and halt tanker traffic, then what has been accomplished besides oil getting $250 a barrel for the other producers?
They fear and hate one another, plus Israel and the US to lesser and greater extents. Going to war against one another seems like a MAD proposition straight out of 1962.
*The 2019 Saudi drone attack would seem to have been a marketing demo for Iran’s weapon industry. “Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to sell Saudi Arabia the advanced S-400 missile system so it could use it against air attacks instead of continuing to use the Raytheon Patriot missile system. However, Putin made this offer beside a chuckling Iranian President Rouhani in what was described as a ‘sublime bit of political trolling’.”
sab
@moonbat: I think you are on point. Biden would do this. Not saying he did, just very plausibly he would.
NotMax
@sab
But enough about Pornhub.
:) //
Jay
@NotMax:
Roger Moore
@Geminid:
What I would say is that the US actions post WWII poisoned our relationship with the revolutionary regime in Iran. That starting point was so catastrophically bad it’s kept us from mending the situation since then.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
This bit of trolling is further proof Ukraine does good media.
ETtheLibrarian
Someone was saying that the Biden administration was trying to deemphasize the middle east at leas in terms of driving US policy. Does this come into play in someway? If so how?
RaflW
Totally OT: 1911 BBQ in New Jersey is now offering a David Brooks special: A burger with fries and a double shot of whiskey…for
$78$17.78.Barbara
@trollhattan:Iran has more than twice the population of KSA. But more important, Iran has a professional army that is comprised of Iranian citizens. I think it would be insane for Iran to invade KSA, because such an invasion would add to the economic and political stress that Iran already faces with no clear benefit to Iran. However, Iran’s theocracy is of recent vintage and its population is more modern economically and socially than KSA’s. Saudi action against Yemen is brutal and horrible but the damage is delivered almost wholly from the sky.
Roger Moore
@Eolirin:
Which, more than anything, is probably why the Saudis prefer the Republicans. The Democrats have stated clearly and repeatedly that we want to decarbonize our economy, sometimes explicitly with the goal of ruining the oil exporters. Is it any wonder the oil exporters prefer the party of continued fossil fuel dependence?
RaflW
Another thought: The US is apparently, at the moment, producing more crude than we’re consuming. Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t import oil. Light sweet crude has more value and is easier to crack/refine into the fuels we want, so we’re shipping crude in, and probably shipping some crude out, as well as refined products (and refilling our Strategic Petroleum Reserve).
But it’s really India and China who are incredibly dependent on foreign oil. What strategic effects might Biden be looking at down the road given that?
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Wars aren’t rational. They can be sparked by all kinds of things, and once they get started they tend to spiral out of control. I’m sure Iran and Saudi Arabia know a war is not in their best interests, but that doesn’t mean they won’t get into one.
sab
@moonbat: You might be right. Not saying. Just maybe.
Geminid
@Tony G: Your general point is well taken. But I gotta say, the assertion that the various rivalries and conflicts between the US and Great Britain over the next 100 years were conditioned by the War of 1812 is a stretch.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Tony G:
Right. So who are the big oil producers.
*Russia- yeah, can’t get it from them
*Iran- If Trump hadn’t torpedoed our progress with that relationship, they would be great option, but here we are
*Venezuela- Collapsed and chaotic right now
*Canada- At least we have our friends in the North
*US- Fracking is causing all sorts of issues and part of Biden’s coalition is pushing to ban it all
*Iraq- Yeah, that’s complicated
*Saudi Arabia- They love them some Trump, and Biden needs them to love him less.
*Then there are the countries producing some of the worlds oil, but not a larger percent of it: UAE, Norway, Nigeria, Kuwait, & Brazil. We have good relations with these folks, but they will not meet our very big needs.
Cozying up to Saudi Arabia might feel icky, but it is practical until oil is no longer needed which is going to be quite a while into the future.
Geminid
@Roger Moore: I don’t think we will ever have a warm relationship with this regime. Once the Iranian people finally free themselves from these repressive men I think our nations will have good relations, our post-WWII actions notwithstanding.
NotMax
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
You omitted Mexico and the U.K.?
Roger Moore
@Geminid:
Right now, I think we have an OK relationship with the Iranian people, if only because we’re their enemy’s enemy. I don’t think we will be able to maintain a friendly relationship with a genuinely democratic Iran unless we’re willing to accept their right to self governance. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the failure that put us on the path to their enmity in the first place, and it’s what has caused us so much trouble with many other countries throughout the world. We really need to get it into our heads that we don’t have the right to interfere with other countries’ properly elected governments. We need to find that nice area where we can express our disagreement with their policy decisions without threatening to overthrow the government and replace it with our puppet.
moonbat
@sab: Gotcha. Like they said in “Miller’s Crossing” I’m just speculating on a hypothesis. But If I were Biden, I wouldn’t want this country bound by any promises made by Trump when he was angling to get his son in law $2 trillion in loan deals.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: Well, I think the world has changed at least on that score since 1954, but I would add that we did not simply help to overthrow the democratically elected government, we pushed, funded, and protected the dictator that replaced that government, that is, the Shah, and we gave him lots of technical assistance that allowed him to repress his own people.
Geminid
@Roger Moore: We interfered with the Iranian people autonomy 69 years ago when we helped topple Prime Minister Mossadegh. In 1979, Jimmy Carter could have interfered with their autonomy by giving the Shah a green light to employ his military against the widespread protests, but Carter did not.
I do not see interference with Iranian autonomy as a fixed principle in our foreign policy and I do not think it will condition our relations if and when they rid themselves of this murderous regime.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Another matter when it comes to this: it’s very far from certain that a regime collapse would actually lead to a genuinely democratic Iran. The unpleasant impression I got from studying that country back in my international relations program is that even when the regime falls, the likeliest thing to fill the vacuum isn’t a democracy, or a monarchy, or even another theocracy – it’s a post-Soviet-style mafia state ruled by alumni of the Pasdaran the same way the ex-KGB currently rules Russia and several other former Soviet republics. They’re already dug into the nation’s economics and politics like ticks, and they’re not going to become any less so as the regime continues to lean on them for survival. (Back at the time of the failed Green Revolution in 2009, observers were already pointing out that the real power base of the regime was shifting from the clergy to the Pasdaran).
A regime collapse might at least improve relations with the West but especially in this scenario, even that doesn’t seem likely. Seems likelier that the country’s rulers would continue to prefer the Russians and Chinese, with whom they have a long relationship at this point and whose more opaque and cronyistic brand of economics is more in line with what that sort of mafia state would want. (Of course, if we end up becoming fully trumpfied, who knows! Okay, I’ll stop with the bleak and depressing thoughts now).
Matt McIrvin
@Eolirin: I think we’re already at the point that the end of cheap oil would not do nearly as much damage to global civilization as people imagined when “Peak Oil” was the scary thing of the day. It would still do a lot, of course, but not “civilization collapses and humanity dies back to a tiny band of hunter-gatherers”.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: “Peak Oil” was a very scary prospect 20 years ago. Along with wider exporation, utilization of horizontal drilling technology has pushed that prospect back considerably. Now I read that producers are beginning to consider the prospect of “stranded oil.” That is, proven reserves that might never be tapped because of fallen demand.
bookworm1398
@132. Revolutions generally do not have a good record of producing democracy (the US really is exceptional in this regard). Gradual liberalization works much better. Iran keeps seeming like it’s going to go there (liberalize) but then backtracks. Still, it might happen. The new supreme leader could pull a Juan Carlos.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
Some people are always looking for something to be scared of. Even during Peak Fear about Peak Oil, alternative energy sources were available. They weren’t as cheap as they are today, but it should have been clear that they were A) possible and B) likely to become cheaper if we tried to build them at scale. Also, too, our economy had (and still has) large areas where we could work on improved efficiency without much pain, like insulating our houses and downsizing our cars. And that’s without radical changes like building our public transit networks.
That’s not to say people were wrong to worry about Peak Oil. Worrying about it is part of what convinced people to put real effort into making those alternatives a reality, just as the 1970s oil crisis had a generation before. We just need to remember the difference between productive worrying that makes people plan solutions to potential problems and counterproductive worrying that immobilizes them with fear.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: I do remember considering it slightly odd that people thought the civilizational crisis would happen suddenly and catastrophically the moment the rate of oil production started to level off. I was trying for a while to figure out what mechanism people where imagining for that. Carlos Yu speculated it came from the behavior of the original Limits to Growth model back in the 1960s-70s.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: I remember people kept emphasizing that “there is no substitute for oil”, meaning, there is no other single resource that does everything petroleum does. But there are substitutes for burning oil for energy, under most circumstances.
Probably the most difficult substitution aside from chemical feedstock applications is for aviation fuel. But for many applications there are substitutes for aviation.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
Even for chemical feedstocks, there were obvious, if expensive, alternatives to oil. We can, for example, start with methane from biological reactions and crack it into other hydrocarbons. That’s just the obvious, brute-force solution; the chemical industry has developed all kinds of plant-based alternatives since then. And aviation fuel shouldn’t be that big a problem, either. Turbine engines are well known for working with just about anything that burns, so it shouldn’t be terribly hard to find a practical alternative. It also wouldn’t be so terrible if people flew less and took more trains for short to medium trips. Trains are great in these scenarios, because electrification is a solved problem and the preferred way of powering them pretty much everywhere outside the USA.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I read that Democrats in the last Congress considered including a mandate for use of carbon neutral aviation fuel in their climate package. It would have been phased in. They set the mandate aside as premature, but I would not be surprised if some sort of mandate was enacted later this decade.
Only 2 to 3% of worldwide carbon emissions are attributed to air transport. By contrast, cement production accounts for 8% or more of emissions. Aviation attracts a lot of attention though, perhaps because of the fascination with high speed rail. Many people have their hearts set on high speed rail, and some even hope it could be a carbon-free replacement for aviation.
Villago Delenda Est
@Geminid: The bandit house of Saud will gladly sell the Palestinians down the river if they they think it will advantage them in any way.
Roger Moore
@Geminid:
I think there’s more than one thing going on, here. One part is that aviation is seen as wasteful in a way concrete isn’t. There’s a fair bit of aviation- private jets, especially- that’s basically a luxury good for the ultra-rich. There’s more that could probably be replaced by lower-carbon transportation (like high-speed rail) or by alternatives to travel, like on-line meetings. In contrast, there aren’t a lot of alternatives for concrete, though people are working hard on reducing concrete’s contribution to global CO2 generation.
As for high-speed rail, there’s good reason to be enthusiastic about it. We know from the example of other countries that it works. It’s actually faster than flying for trips up to about 400 miles, because it doesn’t have the same kind of security hassles as flying, and it’s easier to put train stations in city centers than airports, which tend to be out in the middle of nowhere. And yes, it’s easy to make zero carbon train travel by electrifying the system and using renewable energy for the electricity. The US actually has some of the most promising places for high-speed rail in the world; the northeast corridor has a huge number of people in exactly the kind of corridor that trains serve especially well. The same thing with the big cities in California. A train from San Francisco to San Diego is a really natural fit.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore:
Though this is kind of contingent–when you ride Spain’s excellent high-speed rail system (Renfe AVE), you do have to go through an airport-style security checkpoint, understandable given the experience of the Madrid rail bombings. It’s not quite as onerous as the TSA though.
Geminid
Yes, there are people working hard to reduce the carbon footprint of concrete production. There also people working hard to reduce the carbon footprint of aviation travel as well. Why is one inferior to the other?
And private jets? What percentage of aviation’s 2 to 3% of share of worldwide emissions do private jets account for? This is a moralistic argument and not a practical one. Aviation is headed to carbon neutrality, anyway, and rail transport might not get there much sooner.
I understand the utility and desirability of high speed,l rail, but I think these virtues are blown far out of proportion. It has become a talisman of modernity. We are finally making large investments in passenger rail and people are acting like an expanded passenger rail system with top speeds of 150 mph is chopped liver!
High speed rail certainly has a place in our future transportation mixture, but it will be no more important a place than than other systems and modes of transport, and I think our mental and physical investments should be apportioned accordingly.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Aviation has a really big “thing you can personally do” factor: you don’t have much control over concrete production (and some proposals for decarbonizing transport may even involve pouring more concrete) but cutting down on unnecessary plane travel is a big improvement to one’s personal carbon footprint.
Of course that just speaks to the limits of the “personal carbon footprint” approach to this that emphasizes consumer responsibility over corporate and policy decisions.
I’d eliminate business trips before personal vacations (things you actually want that are good for the spirit), though in some cases it may be possible to change mode of transport–if you have a fairly efficient car, even driving somewhere with your whole family on board is probably better than flying.
Uncle Cosmo
When they start booking overnight couchettes between NY and London, I’ll be in line for a berth. ;^D
Seriously, if hydrogen-fueled turbofans ever become commercially viable. Iceland is going to be a major hub for transatlantic flight. Airliners won’t have nearly the range, since H2 is much less energy-dense by volume than Jet-A, so they’ll need to refuel midway, and the Icelanders have a shitton of geothermal energy they could apply to electrolyzing water instead of importing bauxite for aluminum smelting. Leif Ericsson Airport at Keflavik could end up one of the world’s busiest.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I am all for cutting down on air travel. That’s one reason I would welcome a carbon-neutral fuel mandate that would raise air travel costs. I just see at least 7 ways we can reduce the carbon footprint of our transportation system and high speed rail is only one of them.
Matt McIrvin
@Uncle Cosmo: I kind of doubt it’ll be hydrogen, probably some kind of biofuel instead (and not this corn ethanol bullshit–it’s more carbon-intensive than hydrocarbons). But actually making production carbon-neutral or even less carbon-positive is not easy.
Geminid
@Uncle Cosmo: Companies are testing 20 to 40 passenger prop planes powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The idea is to put them into service by the end of this decade.
YY_Sima Qian
Everything about US foreign policy these days (especially outside of Europe) make more sense when you realize it’s all downstream from Great Power Competition w/ the PRC. When the PRC facilitated the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia & Iran earlier this year, large parts of the “Blob” interpreted it as US losing influence in the region. This is an attempt to reassert US influence, even though it is kind of superfluous as Geminid mentioned. Plus MBS threatened to never purchase US weapons if the U.S. will jot provide a Japan/SK-like security guarantee. Transparent & shameless ransoming.
Why else would the U.S. be so quiet on massive human rights abuses in India & Vietnam, growing illiberalism in Poland, Japan & the Philippines? Have anyone heard Blinken say anything about Saudi border guards gunning down hundred if not thousands of African migrants? Can’t risk pushing “gettable” countries into Chinese arms, so the thinking goes. Just like in the last Cold War, geopolitical rivalry leads to all kinds of perverse 2nd/3rd order effects.
Except nothing the US does will change the fundamental tenor of these countries’ foreign policies: pitting great powers against each other to maximize their interests, not being yoked to anyone. Modi will only coordinate w/ the West wrt China exactly as far as it directly serves Indian interests. MBS will not ever shun the PRC because the latter is the largest customer for SA’s oil, Chinese green tech & nuclear tech is critical to his ambitions of evolving SA to more than a petro-state. Vietnam will continue to carefully balance between the US & the PRC, simply because the latter will always be huge & next door, the Vietnamese export machine is intimately interwoven into the China centered regional supply chain, & that despite the historical distrust the CPV & the CPC are simpatico when it comes to their worldviews. The Philippines too would be doing “multi-alignment” if the PRC would be less of an assh*le in the South China Sea. Reading the output of USG & most DC think tankers, it is not clear the “Blob” understands that.
The world is already multipolar, even as the US remains the strongest pole by quite some distance.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: I am generally in favor of better relations between Israel and the Arab countries in the region. But I am sceptical of the way we brokered the deal with Morocco. Everything has gone fine between the two countries since they took up diplomatic relations almost three years ago. They’ve signed trade deals and a military agreement. Israeli tourists visit Morocco now, and I guess Moroccans visit Israel. This relationship serves both countries’ interests.
So why the hell did that idiot Trump have to recognize Morocco’s rule over the Spanish Sahara territory? He not only disregarded it’s half million residents’ right to self-determination, but Algeria is dead set against Moroccan control of that territory and Trump thumbed Algeria in the eye when he didn’t have to.
Algeria is too strategically important a country to treat in such a cavalier manner. They could help stabilize southern Libya, Chad, Niger and other troubled countries in the Sahel but they will be very reluctant to help the US do anything now.
Also, they probably hold this action against the Israelis because it ostensibly was done on their behalf. And that defeats the general purpose of normalization. It’s like Trump and his worthless son-in-law were collecting diplomatic trophies without regard to long term interests.
Biden’s team operates from a far sounder base of knowledge than Trump’s, thank G-d. But contrary to that NYT report in the post, this Saudi deal is not breaking news. I’ve been seeing it discussed for weeks by Laura Rozen and other security correspondents and basically, they all think it’s a stinker.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Yeah, none of the U.S. foreign policy analysts I am following on Twitter are in favor of the proposed deal, particularly the part about letting SA enrich their nuclear fuel, or giving SA security guarantees along the lines of JPN/SK.