The Chinese-brokered pact to restore diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran threatens Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to isolate Tehran. The deal may complicate his outreach to Riyadh or military attack plans against Iranian nuclear installations.
The accord between the leading Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim nations appears to be a “good thing,” despite the fact that many critics have labeled it as a loss for U.S. influence and position in the Middle East and beyond.
The agreement
In 2016, Iranian demonstrators seized Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad in response for the killing of famous Saudi Shiite opposition preacher Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Since 2021, Iran and Saudi Arabia have been seeking to restore relations. The completion of the initiative was announced in Beijing on March 10, 2023. China, a passive diplomatic actor, took the opportunity to mediate globally though it has been planned for a long period.
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The accord has the potential to deescalate regional crises, particularly in Yemen, and demonstrates China’s determination to play a more active role as a global mediator.
How the deal would affect Israel?
Israel’s regional policy has allegedly focused on hegemony, superiority, and arrogance for decades. Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu promoted an alliance built on “Israeli brains and Arab money” and defending Arab regimes with Israeli intelligence and economic peace strategies.
An Israeli official described the detente as an unsurprising and preliminary procedure that should not impede parallel normalization efforts between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Notwithstanding Abu Dhabi’s engagement with Tehran, Israel has grown closer to the United Arab Emirates. Israel keeps on warning to attack Iran alone if nuclear negotiation fails.
These situations depend on Washington, which sponsors and sweetens Israeli-Arab peace treaties and is Israel’s guardian ally.
“This is a brilliant stroke by China and Iran to undercut Saudi-American and Saudi-Israeli normalisation. It helps bring Tehran in from the cold and undermines American and Israeli efforts to build a regional coalition to confront Iran as it is on the cusp of developing nuclear weapons,” said Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies in Washington.
Israel might pay a regional and worldwide strategic price for the Iranian-Saudi deal to normalise relations under Chinese auspices. It restricts Israel’s influence in the area and removes the possibility of an Arab-Israeli coalition against Iran.
“The government’s focus on the judicial overhaul, which is tearing the nation apart and weakening Israel in all dimensions, reflects a deep disconnect between Netanyahu and international geopolitical trends,” Amos Yadlin, a former military intelligence chief under Netanyahu said on Twitter.
The Saudi-Iranian agreement might put an end to Israel’s nuclear monopoly, allowing other nations in the area to gain nuclear capability. According to American media, Saudi Arabia is seeking Washington’s agreement to launch a civilian nuclear programme as a price for normalising relations with Israel. Other nations in the Levant and North Africa, like as Egypt, may consider a similar course of action. This would weaken Israel’s main deterrent force over time, endangering its regional influence and the Abraham Accords.
US does not seem to be in setback for long run
US officials are no longer publicly worrying over the potential, which was initially seen to be a setback. The pact may have temporarily affected US interests in the region, but the benefits may outweigh the costs in the short and long run.
“With regard to the agreement reached between Saudi Arabia and Iran with China’s involvement, from our perspective, anything that can help reduce tensions, avoid conflict and curb in any way dangerous or destabilizing actions by Iran is a good thing,” said US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
According to Gerald Feierstein, senior fellow on US diplomacy at the Middle East Institute think tank, the deal’s Chinese role may have been inflated. The deal “is consistent with what the US has seen as the right way forward, which is to reduce tension and to try to bring Iran back into the international community in some way”, Feierstein said. He remarked that the absence of the United States from the three-way handshake in Beijing is not significant because Washington has no connections with Tehran.
On the negative side of the ledger, increased cooperation between three autocracies—China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia—is not in the best interests of U.S. interests and principles (and a fourth, Russia, fully supportive in the background). Each restricts human rights and democracy at home and despises the spread of democracy abroad, notably during the Arab Spring more than a decade ago and in Ukraine’s fight for sovereignty now.
What about nuclear file?
The detente may hamper Washington’s Iran nuclear containment efforts. Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon, but US Vice President Joseph Biden has repeatedly vowed that he would not permit Tehran to acquire one. Since 2021, indirect discussions between Washington and Tehran have failed to revive the 2015 deal that reduced Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for economic sanctions.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is “no longer on the agenda” as the Biden administration continues to impose sanctions on Iran. The reconciliation may assist Tehran in breaking out of its economic isolation, with Saudi officials already discussing the possibility of investing in Iran once the agreement is implemented.
Despite the JCPOA’s stalled restoration, US officials believe negotiation is the best method to resolve Iran’s nuclear programme. Yet, the United States has not ruled out a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “We have been very clear that we will, through all means necessary, ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon,” the State Department said earlier this month.
Feierstein stated that the Iranian-Saudi agreement makes a hypothetical U.S. or Israeli military attack against Iran more challenging. An attack on Iran would be “far more complicated” without Saudi Arabia being “part of that effort,” whether by permitting military activities on its soil or by allowing aircraft to fly overhead, Feierstein said.
The Saudi economy is strongly interwoven with the American economy. Riyadh has been purchasing U.S. weaponry for decades. The United States has just concluded a large naval drill with Saudi Arabia and Israel in the region. On March 14, Saudi Arabia placed one of the largest aero plane orders in history with Boeing, a transaction that the White House termed as historic. The Chinese-mediated agreement has had no impact on these U.S.-Saudi connections but Israel seems to be in despair.
