How will the US re-engage with its Middle East allies and Iran in a post-Trump world?
The widely expected resumption of diplomatic engagement between Iran and the incoming administration of US President-elect Joe Biden in Washington has prompted an anticipatory foreign policy shuffle by powers across the Middle East.
The return of the United States to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - agreed on in 2015 to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons - is certain to top Biden's agenda as he seeks to reinstate a "rules-based order", according to experts on the Middle East.
In interviews with This Week In Asia, analysts based in Istanbul, Tehran and Washington agreed that the Biden administration would look to tie a US return to the JCPOA to a broader dialogue on Iran's political and military involvement in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
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Similarly, Biden is expected to ramp up pressure on key US allies in the region - Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - to rein in their military interventions in battlefields as far afield as Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean.
"The geopolitical landscape that Joe Biden is inheriting is much different than the one he left behind four years ago," said Yusuf Erim, an Istanbul-based foreign policy analyst and editor-at-large of TRT World, a Turkish state-owned broadcaster.
"The diminishing US presence in the Middle East and North Africa and Mediterranean basin during the Trump administration created voids which have been filled by other actors," he said. "Biden will have to tread carefully to create space for America to reassert itself in these areas of interest."
Iran remains deeply sceptical of Biden's motives for diplomatic re-engagement, however.
"The world view of Biden and Trump isn't really all that different when it comes to foreign policy. Both are American exceptionalists and advocates of Zionist supremacism in Palestine, so that doesn't give much space to manoeuvre when it comes to US foreign policy," said Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a professor of English literature and orientalism at the University of Tehran.
"But, just as Trump liked to project himself as the anti-Obama, Biden would like to project and present himself as the anti-Trump. He does wish to be seen as being different so he may bring about some changes, but the expectations aren't that great."
US-based analysts said they expected Biden to immediately start work on a number of Middle Eastern fronts.
"He will start by getting rid of the Islamophobic travel ban and returning the US to compliance with the JCPOA, if Iran will do the same. He will consult with the US' Arab allies and Israel but will not give them veto power over US policy toward Iran," said Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.
"He will also reduce the double standards of the Trump administration and make it clear to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Turkey that his administration will no longer remain silent over their egregious human rights abuses and external interventions that increase instability and humanitarian calamities in countries such as Yemen and Libya."
Analysts expect US President-elect Joe Biden to seek a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran. Photo: AFP alt=Analysts expect US President-elect Joe Biden to seek a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran. Photo: AFP
NO BLANK CHEQUES
Slavin said the US would encourage regional diplomacy to de-escalate and, if possible, end these conflicts. The US will remain close to Israel but will not provide "a blank cheque to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] for provocative steps against Iran and the Palestinians", she said.
Repositioning themselves accordingly, American allies in the Middle East were working to patch up their differences before Biden was sworn in as US president on January 20, largely because they foresaw Iran becoming more powerful in the event that "maximum pressure" economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the Trump administration were lifted, the analysts said.
Israel and Turkey are working towards reviving full diplomatic relations and an exchange of ambassadors, following a diplomatic clash in 2018 over the killings of hundreds of Palestinian protesters at the Gaza border by Israeli troops.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia is moving to end the blockade imposed by it, the UAE and Bahrain on Qatar in 2017, because of Doha's refusal to scale back relations with Iran or to withdraw its support for the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood - a Sunni political movement mirrored by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party.
Egypt, meanwhile, apparently acted last week to assuage fears that it - along with Russia and the UAE - planned to reignite the civil war in Libya, after a tenuous ceasefire was agreed in October between rival governments based in Benghazi and Tripoli.
Following secretive talks in Abu Dhabi, Egypt for the first time sent an official delegation to Tripoli last week for talks about reinforcing the truce with the UN-recognised government, which has been armed by Turkey and partly financed by Qatar.
"We can already see signs of a reshuffle in the region, as many actors are expecting the revival of the Iran nuclear deal," Erim said.
"If the past is any indicator of the future, the return of the nuclear deal will lead to the proliferation of Tehran-backed militia in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. This would be a major national security issue for countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey" he said.
The complex diplomatic manoeuvring ahead of Biden's inauguration is characteristic of the foreign policy challenges he faces in the Middle East, the analysts said.
"One of his priorities will be re-engagement with Iran, but it's going to be difficult," said Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a think tank. "People talk about just getting back into the JCPOA, but even that would have to be negotiated regarding terms and timetables of implementation. It's more complicated than most people understand."
Biden with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2010. Photo: Handout alt=Biden with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2010. Photo: Handout
He said Iran needed to be very careful in understanding that Biden was not going to simply throw away all the leverage Trump accumulated - or just go back to 2015.
"I think the Biden team is well positioned to be both forthcoming and tough with Tehran, and if the Iranians are serious about making a deal, they can have one. But they are going to have to give a good deal as well as get one, and given their aggrieved attitudes and the anger that has accumulated over the past four years [since the US pulled out of the JCPOA], it's going to be difficult," Ibish said.
QUID PRO QUO
Marandi, the University of Tehran professor, said the prevailing sentiment in Tehran was that the Biden administration would seek to return to the JCPOA but - like the Obama administration - would refrain from reciprocating to full Iranian compliance by lifting all sanctions unless Tehran made further geopolitical concessions.
"That would be a major mistake and miscalculation because the Iranians did not appease Trump, so they are definitely not going to appease Biden," he said, adding that Iran would remain fiercely independent and no major changes in its foreign policy should be expected.
"Iran will give Biden the opportunity to change his position, to behave more reasonably towards the country," Marandi said. "If he does, the Iranians will reciprocate, but if the US chooses to behave irresponsibly and irrationally towards Iran, then the Iranians will continue to keep their distance. Iran is very confident about the future."
As with Iran, economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration will be Biden's greatest leverage over Turkey as he seeks to pressure Erdogan into scaling back his geopolitical ambitions.
Washington imposed unprecedented sanctions on December 14 against fellow Nato member Turkey after it refused to scrap S400 air-defence systems purchased from Russia.
Despite hosting about 50 US nuclear weapons, Turkey was ejected from the F-35 stealth fighter programme in July 2019 after it deployed the Russian system, which Nato said could learn to track the advanced warplane.
"Turkey's problem is not really with Biden but with the West in general, and with Nato," Ibish said.
"They are striking out on their own for the first time after having spent almost a century as a dutiful member of an alliance centred on other issues and with an agenda largely formed far from Ankara. Under such circumstances, they are in tension, if not on a collision course, with the whole West, and Nato, and not just the US or even Biden," he said.
Ibish said Turkey was "extremely worried" that losing Trump would be a serious blow for Erdogan personally, who was under fire domestically for failing to curtail double-digit inflation and interest rates, and arrest rapid currency devaluation.
With Turkish presidential elections approaching in 2022, Erim, the Istanbul-based foreign policy analyst, said he expected Erdogan to shift his attention inward and concentrate on the economy and undertaking reforms.
"This could provide a good opportunity for a reset in relations with the US," he said.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, a country that an analyst says has a problem "not really with Biden but with the West in general, and with Nato". Photo: AP alt=President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, a country that an analyst says has a problem "not really with Biden but with the West in general, and with Nato". Photo: AP
"Turkey will most likely take a wait-and-see approach with Biden and try to compartmentalise problems and work on areas of shared interests" such as security cooperation against Russia in the Black Sea, de-escalation in Syria's Idlib province, increasing bilateral trade and strengthening Nato cooperation, Erim said.
However, the Biden administration's ability to change ground realities will be limited because of US military disengagement from the Middle East during the Obama and Trump administrations.
"Russia will remain influential in Syria and Turkey will remain influential in Syria and Libya," said the Atlantic Centre's Slavin.
Likewise, Biden's ability to pressure US allies in the Middle East to reduce their economic interaction with China is likely to have limited impact because of Beijing's mercantile focus and political neutrality in the region's affairs, the analysts said.
"China is well positioned to continue to increase its already large economic stake in the region and to slowly increase its strategic significance," Slavin said.
"It has benefited enormously from US sanctions on Iran, which solidified China as Iran's biggest trading partner, and on the perception of Arab states that they cannot depend indefinitely on the US for security."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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