Kashif Mirza: The landmark deal is a diplomatic win for China in a region where geopolitics has been dominated by the United States. China’s successful brokering of a detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia forced the United States into the awkward position of applauding a major Middle East accord secured by its main geopolitical rival.
China mediates Iran-Saudi Arabia detente, raising eyebrows in Washington. Arch-rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia agree to end years of hostilities and restore relations in deal. The successful talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Beijing are a victory for dialogue and peace, following the major diplomatic coup for China in Middle East geopolitics. The regional rivals are expected to reopen embassies within two months as they re-establish ties and a security agreement after Beijing talks. After decades of U.S. failures in the region, China takes a turn as Middle East power broker. Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations, in the joint statement from Saudi Arabia and Iran, which said the two countries had agreed to respect state sovereignty and not interfere in each other’s internal affairs. The statement also said Riyadh and Tehran had agreed to activate a security cooperation agreement signed in 2001. Riyadh, Tehran and Beijing expressed their keenness to exert all efforts towards enhancing regional and international peace and security, offering major good news at a time of much turbulence in the world. Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to re-establish relations after seven years of hostility which had threatened stability and security in the Gulf and helped fuel conflicts in the Middle East from Yemen to Syria. In the statement, the three parties expressed their willingness to make every effort to strengthen international and regional peace and security. The landmark deal is a diplomatic win for China in a region where geopolitics has been dominated by the United States. China’s successful brokering of a detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia forced the United States into the awkward position of applauding a major Middle East accord secured by its main geopolitical rival. Although, White House spokesman John Kirby said “We support any effort to de-escalate tensions”. But the signing of the accord in Beijing — which the Biden administration considers its No.1 geo-strategic threat — represents the latest effort by Xi to stake out a larger political presence in the Middle East, where the United States has been the dominant outside power brokering agreements since the end of the Cold War, waging wars and exerting influence in an oil-rich region vital to the world’s energy security. Saudi Arabia, whose longtime partnership with Washington has soured since the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by associates of the kingdom’s crown prince, applauded Beijing’s involvement in an open press event featuring a three-way handshake between China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi; Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary, Ali Shamkhani; and the national security adviser of Saudi Arabia, Musaad bin Mohammed Al Aiban.
The United States is a major defense provider to Saudi Arabia, including Patriot missile defense batteries. But allowing China to broker the diplomatic deal would threaten that relationship.
America’s Arab allies in Saudi Arabia and the broader Persian Gulf often lament the criticisms they receive from Washington over human rights abuses and a lack of political freedoms and elections — complaints they do not receive from Beijing. U.S. Central Command, which has thousands of U.S. troops to the kingdom and elsewhere in the Middle East, will continue to work closely with its regional partners to advance a regional security architecture. Though some in Washington expressed alarm at Beijing’s involvement in the deal, it’s unclear if the Biden administration would have been able to broker it even if it wanted to. Tehran and Washington are barely on speaking terms following the Trump administration’s decisions to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and assassinate the country’s top military commander, Qasem Soleimani. What is notable of course is the decision to hand the Chinese a huge public relations victory — a photo op that is intended to demonstrate China’s newfound stature in the region. In that sense, it would appear to be yet another Saudi slap in the face to the Biden administration. On its face, the agreement achieves priorities that the United States has long sought, as tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have threatened the stability of the region and fueled catastrophic conflicts from Syria to Yemen, and it would lead to an end to the war in Yemen, which has pitted a Saudi-led coalition, backed by American-made jets, against the country’s Iranian-backed Houthi militants. For years, the United Nations called the conflict there the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, but the country has enjoyed a rare reprieve from fighting since April when a truce sponsored by the United Nations went into effect. Though the truce expired in October, the peace has largely held, and back-channel talks between the Houthis and the Saudis have resumed. Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran in 2016 after the Saudi Embassy in Tehran was attacked and burned by Iranian protesters angered by the kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr. The cleric had emerged as a leading figure in protests in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, a Shiite-majority region in the Sunni-majority nation. The United States has been kept up to date on the negotiations from the beginning, adding that the Saudis made clear to U.S. officials that they were interested in restoring diplomatic ties with Iran. But the Saudis made clear, too, that they were unwilling to strike such a deal without strong assurance from the Iranians that attacks against them would stop and that they would curtail military support to the Houthis. By design, the deal does not immediately reestablish diplomatic relations, but rather stipulates the countries will do so in two months with several elements still to be worked out. Oman also played a significant role in the breakthrough.
Anything that lowers the temperature between Iran and Saudi Arabia and lessens the possibility of conflict is a good thing. Shia-majority Iran and Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia support rival sides in several conflict zones across the Middle East, including in Yemen, where the Houthi rebels are backed by Tehran and Riyadh leads a military coalition supporting the government. Riyadh broke off ties with Tehran in 2016 after protesters invaded Saudi diplomatic posts in Iran. Saudi Arabia had executed a prominent Shia Muslim scholar days earlier, triggering the demonstrations. Besides the war in Yemen, Iran and Saudi Arabia also are on rival sides in Lebanon and Syria. Improved relations between Tehran and Riyadh, therefore, could have an effect on politics across the Middle East. The security situation in the region, like in Yemen and Lebanon, deteriorates and suffers when these two countries have differences. With this deal, it is possible that it might start to see compromises in these countries. This deal can lead to the creation of a better security situation in the region. They have a lot of leverage in these countries. But both sides have recently sought to improve ties. China is a top purchaser of Saudi oil, and has a big interest in not seeing the regional security situation descend into chaos, such as in 2019, when the waterways of Hormuz were the sites of different explosions and attacks. There are inherent interests for the Chinese to try and use the leverage that they have towards both Tehran and Riyadh to make some efforts to balance these relations and finalise what the Iraqis and Omanis had in fact started. The US playing no role in this agreement, it has been common to hear anti-American sentiments in Iran but from at least the fall of 2019 onwards, there is also some disappointment and some increasing scepticism inside Saudi Arabia towards the role of the US in that region. The security umbrella is no longer an actual idea that the US was supposed to build for Saudi Arabia and its allies, so there was a need also sensed in Saudi Arabia to think in a different way about how it can secure its territory, borders and interests. China played a role shows where global power is shifting — and a meaningful change in how Chinese President Xi Jinping conducts Middle East policy. Thus far, Beijing has been cautious in taking an active role there; this diplomacy, while significant, doesn’t mean China is trying to displace the US security role in the Middle East. U.S. abdication in the Middle East led to Chinese diplomatic power. All diplomacy and normalization is good if it leads to more communication and can calm tensions. Iran and Saudi Arabia are in opposition across the Middle East, in the tragic proxy war in Yemen, where more than 150,000 people have died, as well as in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Since then Iran’s pursuit of nuclear enrichment has led Saudi Arabia to seek a civilian nuclear program. Saudi Arabia has often been on alert for Iranian attacks, and it has led to fears of unintended escalation between the two countries that could set off a broader war. Saudi Arabia had updated the US on the talks, but Washington was not directly involved. The US does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, and Saudi-Iranian rapprochement was not apparently something the Biden administration was working toward. The Saudi Arabia and Gulf monarchies were already forging a foreign policy independent of the US, in response to what they saw as the abdication of the US military responsibility for the Gulf and diplomatic ineptitude. After Iran interfered in the key energy shipping pathway around and in the Strait of Hormuz and it or its proxy forces attacked a Saudi Aramco facility in Abqaiq in 2019, the US did not respond with military force. Such US restraint may have been smart in terms of not escalating tensions, but it did leave Saudi Arabia and its partners without a sense of US security backing. Basically, the US defaulted on a long-standing commitment to be the strategic backer and defender of the Gulf Arabs. The context is one in which a diplomatic default by the US has opened an opportunity for someone else to emerge as a peacemaker. The region now speaks for itself. It doesn’t follow anybody’s diktats. Iran, hampered by ongoing protests against its government, was perhaps more willing to make a deal. And it’s not yet clear whether the normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is a true reconciliation or just a brief cessation of hostilities.
Regardless, it’s a promising sign for stability in the region for the short term — less so for US influence in it. Indeed, China is trying to produce a peaceful, international environment there, in which you can do business. Saudi Arabia, long a US partner, appears to be shaking off its commitment to a unipolar US world. It says a lot about how Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman conducts foreign policy as the kingdom brings China and Iran closer, in pursuit of security outside traditional Western allies. Saudi has also a preference for an alternative world order that is dominated by the likes of Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Take away the grievances between the Saudi and the Iranian regimes, and they are actually more alike than they’re different. It’s a big blow to the Biden administration’s Middle East policy. After pledging to hold Saudi Arabia to account on the presidential trail, Biden visited the kingdom in an about-face last summer in response to high oil prices caused by Russia’s war — and the US didn’t get very much in return. They are still pursuing an outdated and disproven cold war mentality by doubling down on their existing allies like Saudi Arabia and abandoning all campaign promi ses, especially on human rights. Both the Biden and Trump administrations tethered their Saudi and Middle East policy to uniting Israel and Gulf states over countering Iran. Iran and Saudi Arabia’s cooling of tensions shows that for all of the kingdom’s harsh anti-Iranian rhetoric in recent years, there is space for collaboration, albeit without a strong US role. China is the largest trading partner of the Gulf and most of the Middle East, and it has a real stake in an easing of tensions. Looking ahead, Saudi Arabia made a strategic choice here and elsewhere — it’s looking to join the BRICS grouping of developing countries and take on observer status at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It indicates that the kingdom wants to focus on domestic economic development over geopolitical conflicts at present, particularly as conflicts in Syria and Yemen settle into stalemate and Iran’s leaders are preoccupied by domestic unrest. Biden and the US would never agree to Saudi conditions of nuclear power and security guarantees, and Saudi Arabia is unlikely to agree to a real peace deal with Israel. Tensions have long been high between the regional rivals. Removing misunderstandings and the future-oriented views in relations between Tehran and Riyadh will definitely lead to improving regional stability and security as well as increasing cooperation among Persian Gulf nations and the world of Islam for managing current challenges, whereas, it’s hope that China will continue to play a constructive role in handling hotspot issues and demonstrate responsibility as a major nation. Though blunting China’s influence in the Middle East and other parts of the world remains a priority for the Biden administration, it is of two minds about the latest agreement. It wants the Saudis to take increasing responsibility for their own security, but it does not want Saudi Arabia freelancing and undermining U.S. security strategies. As a good-faith and reliable mediator, China has faithfully fulfilled its duties as a host for dialogue. It’s also a potentially encouraging sign that countries in the region can pursue such initiatives without requiring lots of goodies and guarantees from the U.S.
