With the war in Ukraine, the exacerbation of global competition with China, and political and economic challenges at home, the first Biden tour of the Middle East seeks to revitalize the role of North American leadership to unite partners and allies around a common agenda. The region shows a new dynamism on the diplomatic front.
The destinations chosen and the statements that emerged show that the main purpose is to revitalize the image and role of the United States as a constructive leadership capable of uniting partners and allies behind a common agenda that consolidates its regional position based on the global dispute with China and Russia. Differentiate from the unilateralism and belligerence that characterized the Trump Administration, costly for North American political capital. Biden himself expressed it in a column published on July 9 in The Washington Post. The pragmatism exposed by Biden in his column supposes not antagonize your allies on sensitive issues such as respect for human rightseven if this and other aspects that color the rhetoric with which Washington has sought to outline its external image may come into tension.
Biden has outlined a clear agenda, with changes and continuities with respect to his predecessors: to consolidate and extend the normalization of relations and cooperation between Israel and the Arab States, relying on the path opened by the Abraham Agreement of 2020. Regional integration has a raison d’être as a means to guarantee energy and food security, technological and military cooperation. The other side of him: hold pressure and isolation of iran to end the development of its nuclear capabilities, at a time of heightened tensions and belligerent rhetoric.
The signing of the Jerusalem Declaration together with Israel’s interim prime minister, Yair Lapid, reaffirmed the US commitment to Israeli security and its shared interest in preventing Tehran from developing the capacity to arm itself nuclearly. This insinuation that the use of force as an option is not ruled out converges with the Israeli military exercises and simulations carried out last June, which included action against Iranian nuclear and defense facilities.
Israel is going through a governance crisis. after the dissolution of his cabinet of ministers, the product of tensions typical of a fragile coalition since its inception. Lapid will serve as interim prime minister until new elections are held in November this year. The relationship that he manages to project with the US president and the results that emerge from Saudi Arabia will offer him an opportunity to strengthen his own internal leadership.
In late June and early July, the foreign ministers of Qatar and Iran met in a new effort to revive the nuclear negotiations. However, and despite European, Chinese and Russian interest, any optimism has found it difficult to avoid the intransigence, mistrust and zero-sum logic that prevails in the Iran-US relationship.
Julián Aguirre has a degree in Political Science (UBA), is a member of the El Interprete Digital portal and a member of the Meridiano Foundation.