Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spotlights seemingly widening differences
between the US and its closest Middle Eastern allies, sparking eulogies for an
era of bygone American regional dominance.
اضافة اعلان
“America’s Middle East friendships are dying a
natural death” predicted foreign policy analyst Steven A. Cook last week after
countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, to varying
degrees, rebuffed US requests to help reduce energy prices and join sanctions
against Russia.
A Saudi television satire that could not have been
broadcast without at least tacit government approval mocked US President Joe
Biden as a leader who had lost his memory and needed Vice President Kamala
Harris as a prop. The reference to Biden’s memory was an apparent reference to
Saudi and Emirati assertions that Biden has forgotten who America’s
longstanding regional allies are.
In a further sign of strained US-Saudi relations,
Saudi Arabia this week pushed the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) and its partners, including Russia, to stop using oil data from the
International Energy Agency’s (IEA) numbers when assessing the state of the oil
market because of the US’ alleged sway over the organization.
Swan songs for US regional partnerships may be
premature, despite the difference in attitudes toward the Ukraine crisis, a
divergence in perceived national interests, Saudi and Emirati frustration with
recent American policies toward Iran, and uncertainty about Washington’s
continued commitment to regional security.
Analysis of the impact and political significance of
the US military presence in the Middle East suggests a degree of
interdependence between the US and its regional partners that makes their
partnerships both indispensable and irreplaceable for Middle Eastern autocratic
rulers.
Analysis also suggests that neither China nor Russia
have the capability, or a military strategy predicated on the ability to
project force in any part of the world or the wherewithal to replace the US as
the guarantor of the Middle East’s autocratic rule.
Moreover, the Russian military performance in
Ukraine laid bare logistical and maintenance problems that, coupled with the
sanctions, make Russia a less attractive alternative arms supplier.
The Emirates and Saudi Arabia may be testing the
limits of the leverage they derive from their interdependence with the US, by
refusing to increase oil production to reduce oil prices and condemn Russia.
They may also be venting their anger at a US refusal
to respond more robustly to Iranian and Iranian-backed Houthi rebel attacks on
their oil facilities and critical infrastructure.
The US Navy said this week that it would initiate a
new task force with allied countries to patrol the Red Sea in response to
Houthi attacks on shipping in the strategic waterway without identifying the rebels
by name.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly
apologized to Mohammad Bin Zayed last month for the slow US response to the
attacks. Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to Washington, said a meeting
between the two men had helped “move the relationship between the UAE and the
US back on the right track”.
The announcement and Biden’s apology reaffirmed that
the US military presence in the Gulf remains one pillar of the Gulf states’
multi-faceted regime survival strategy.
American and host interests align… in supporting regime survival where the location is critical to the United States and its global system of trade and military pre-eminence. This alignment produces increasing autocracy rather than simple regime stability.
A study by political scientists and international
affairs scholars Andrew Stravers and Dana El Kurd argues that, despite paying
lip service to democratic values, the US commitment to autocratic rule in the
Gulf is as much a function of US military strategy as it is of the Middle
East’s strategic geography that straddles some of the world’s most important
maritime chokepoints.
“American forces have an autocratising effect on
host nations in strategically valuable regions. American and host interests
align… in supporting regime survival where the location is critical to the
United States and its global system of trade and military pre-eminence. This
alignment produces increasing autocracy rather than simple regime stability,”
the study said.
The authors argue that an American military presence
can increase autocracy in strategic regions “where American planners are
uncertain of the (national) military’s ability to withstand regime change”.
Some leaders in the Gulf at times shared that
uncertainty. Bin Zayed, for example, contracted Erik Prince, founder of the
controversial private security firm Blackwater, more than a decade ago to help
ensure regime security.
Stravers and Kurd go on to reason that the US
military presence “produces a need for the host regime to suppress opposition,
in order to maintain perceived stability and entrench its domestic position.
This increases the level of authoritarianism over time”.
This phenomenon is particularly true for the Gulf,
where the loss of a military base would have far more far-reaching consequences
for the US global position than the need to close or move a facility in, for
example, Japan.
The authors’ emphasis on the significance of
strategic geography in support of autocracy or democratization is borne out in
a comparison of US policy regarding the 2011 popular uprising in Bahrain, home
to the US Fifth Fleet, and protests six years earlier in Uzbekistan, where the
US had a significant military presence at the height of the Afghan war.
The US stood aside when Saudi-led Gulf troops
quashed the revolt in Bahrain. In Uzbekistan, Washington had no problem losing
its military facilities after taking the government to task for repressing
protests and violating human rights.
“An American military presence has an autocratising
effect in particular regions of strategic importance. In areas of less
strategic importance, American presence has relatively little effect on
regimes,” the authors concluded.
Stravers and Kurd’s analysis raises the question of
whether recent Gulf moves related to Ukraine and Emirati efforts to return
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to the Arab and international fold signal a
watershed in relations with the US or an effort by Gulf leaders to flex their
muscles at a time that the US may need them most.
The tendency of the US military presence to
encourage increased autocracy may be something some Gulf countries do not want
to lose, particularly not without an immediate replacement.
That is all the truer, given that it is not clear
that they do not have full confidence in the ability of their security forces
to fend off a concerted effort at regime change or an assault by Iran.
The UAE’s and Saudi Arabia’s problem is that the
decision about the future of the US presence in the Gulf is beyond their grasp.
Washington is lowering its valuation of the
strategic importance of the Gulf’s geography as its interest in the free flow
of the region’s energy diminishes.
The Gulf countries may be placing a risky bet: put
the relationship with the US on edge in the hope that the need to replace Russian
energy will return Washington to its senses.
That may be a long shot. But, just like Saudis and
Emiratis remember that the US did not respond robustly to attacks on their
critical facilities even if it took steps to reassure them, US policy and opinion
makers are likely to recall friends who were absent when they needed help most.
The
writer is an award-winning journalist and scholar, a senior fellow at the
National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and adjunct senior
fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and blog, The
Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
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