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Today's Topics:
1. German Rearmament and Its Critics (Chas Freeman)
2. Saudi Arabia and Iran Foreign Ministers Meet in Beijing,
Agree to Reopen Embassies (Chas Freeman)
3. Waiting for that Too-Much-Discussed Ukraine Counteroffensive
(Chas Freeman)
4. A Look Back at the American Experience in World War I Shows
the Danger of Where We May Be Headed (Chas Freeman)
5. The first China-UAE gas deal in yuan: A new blow to dollar
dominance (Chas Freeman)
6.
https://www.indianarrative.com/opinion-news/after-the-saudi-iran-agreement-has-west-asia-entered-a-de-americanised-era-128891.html
After the Saudi-Iran agreement, has West Asia entered a
de-Americanised era? China?s state councillor Qin Gang with
Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Beijing
(left) and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan (right)
(Photo: @SpokespersonCHN/Twitter) Talmiz Ahmad Published:
April 6, 2023 The agreement announced in Beijing on 10 March
between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore diplomatic ties after a
seven-year estrangement marks the first period in forty years
when there is no ongoing conflict in any part of West Asia and
North Africa.During the last few years, there has instead, been a
remarkable diplomatic churn across the region ? with new
engagements, new players and new alignments ? whi (Chas Freeman)
7. China economists expect 5.4% GDP growth in 2023. . . upgraded
on consumption recovery, exceeding Beijing's 5% target survey
(Chas Freeman)
8. The Bombing of Nord Stream - This act of war against Europe
requires Congressional investigation (Chas Freeman)
9. US sees in Finland?s NATO accession encirclement of Russia
(Chas Freeman)
10. Turning Tides: the US Congress and Julian Assange (Chas Freeman)
11. Al-Aqsa raid: How BBC coverage is enabling Israeli violence
(Chas Freeman)
12. This Election May Give China a New Latin America Friend at
Taiwan's Expense (Chas Freeman)
13. Israel strikes Gaza after dozens of rockets fired from
Lebanon (Chas Freeman)
14. How to fix the International Monetary Fund (Chas Freeman)
15. Re: Dying for Taiwan? (Chessset)
16. Are Americans Willing to Die for Taiwan? (Chas Freeman)
17. Israel hits targets in Lebanon and Gaza as tensions mount
(Chas Freeman)
18. How Taiwan and the US managed risks in Tsai Ing-wen?s meeting
with Kevin McCarthy (Chas Freeman)
19. Trump's real crime, (according to Compact) (SCOTT MCCONNELL)
20. Presidents Are Legally Immune for Their Most Dangerous Crimes
(Jim Bovard)
21. China sanctions Reagan library and others over Taiwanese
president's U.S. trip (Chas Freeman)
22. Fwd: SCMP: "Xi Jinping says ?wishful thinking? to expect
Beijing to compromise on Taiwan." (4/7/23.) (Chas Freeman)
23. Taiwan Warns Subtle China Response to Tsai?s U.S. Visit Could
Be Deceiving (Chas Freeman)
24. China's "Hai Xun 06" stays in the Matsu waters, but no
Taiwanese ships have been boarded and inspected (Chas Freeman)
25. Covid origins: Chinese scientists publish long-awaited data
(Chas Freeman)
26. China enters riskier space by positioning itself as
diplomatic alternative to US (Chas Freeman)
27. China issues warning to US and NATO over Ukraine (Chas Freeman)
28. Beware of the Restrict Act: Patriot Act for the Internet on
Steroids (Chas Freeman)
29. Europe Goes to China, Seeking Recalibration Amid Challenges
(Chas Freeman)
30. Fed fingerprints all over ?dollar-is-doomed? talk (Chas Freeman)
31. Air Strikes Against Iranian Targets in Syria (Chas Freeman)
32. ?Secret? NATO war plan leak triggers Pentagon probe (Chas Freeman)
33. Biden?s Summit for Democracy Isn?t Really About Democracies
(Chas Freeman)
34. he West Has Been Planning To Crush China For A Very Long Time
(Chas Freeman)
35. Will Biden Lift Oil Sanctions On Venezuela? OPEC cuts are
expected to create an increasingly tight oil market toward the
end of 2023 (Chas Freeman)
36. NATO Intel Leak or Disinformation? (Chas Freeman)
37. A Russian military vessel docks in Saudi Arabia for the first
time (Chas Freeman)
38. Netanyahu Tries to Regain Control of His Generals, but May
Lose Another Battle (Chas Freeman)
39. The Impact of Inflation (Chas Freeman)
40. CIA complained US was blindsided by Saudi outreach to Syria
and Iran (Chas Freeman)
41. U.S. Interference in the Middle East ? 20 Years Since the
U.S. Invasion of Iraq ? Col. Larry Wilkerson (Chas Freeman)
42. Congress Can Investigate the Afghanistan Withdrawal Without
Compromising a Vital Dissent Channel (Chas Freeman)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
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Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2023 15:56:58 -0400
Subject: [Salon] German Rearmament and Its CriticsACURA ViewPoint: James W. Carden: German Rearmament and Its Critics
acura ViewPointApril 6, 2023
News came last week, courtesy of German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, that Germany had completed a delivery of 18 Leopard 2 A6 main battle tanks to Ukraine. Still more, as Reuters reported on April 2, the German defense contractor Rheinmetall will set up a “military maintenance and logistics hub” in Satu Mare, Romania. What some might reasonably see as a major departure from Germany’s postwar foreign and defense posture is also the fulfillment of a promise German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made in his paradigm shifting Zeitenwende (“Turning Point”) speech of February 27, 2022. Speaking in the chamber of the Bundestag, Scholz proclaimed that…
We are living through a watershed era. And that means that the world afterwards will no longer be the same as the world before.The issue at the heart of this is…whether we have it in us to keep warmongers like Putin in check.That requires strength of our own.
Scholz went on to pledge €100 billion for “a special fund for the Bundeswehr” and to meet what had heretofore been a mysteriously unattainable target of two percent of German GDP on defense spending.
The Green’s Hawks Take Flight
In an interview with a leading member of Washington’s captive nations lobby, Germany’s ambassador to the US, Emily Haber, made the case for the Zeitenwende’s efficacy, noting that Germany is “…now the EU’s largest [provider] of military support [to] Ukraine and mind you, before the war, we even refused to send military equipment to Ukraine.”
Haber, in an interview with the Ukrainian-born CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis, also put forward her view that the war in Ukraine, “is not only about borders and security in Europe, the outcome of the war is about the future, the global map of influence. And that’s existential for America too.”
Haber has been a particularly strident supporter of the Scholz policy, relentlessly tweeting about the size and scope of the military and humanitarian aid provide to Ukraine by Germany, to the point where she, taking a page out of US ambassador to Michael McFaul’s playbook, has become embroiled in twitter battles with representatives of her host country.
Why Haber feels she has the standing to twit-lecture a sitting US Senator (JD Vance) who was just sent to Washington by 2.2 million Ohio voters is anyone’s guess. But it is indicative of the self-righteous stridency which characterizes the German Foreign Ministry under the leadership of Green foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. Perhaps because popular sovereignty doesn’t count for much among the Greens, as witness Baerbock’s pledge that she will put Ukraine first “no matter what my German voters think.”
Withal, the transformation of the Greens into the most militant and slavishly Atlanticist members of the German political establishment is one of the more remarkable transformations in recent European political history and one that was repeatedly remarked upon in conversations I had with parliamentarians, staffers and activists on the left, right and center of the political spectrum in Berlin in March.
Die Linke’s deputy leader, Sevim Dagdelen, MdB, told me that, “The Greens were once the party of peace and demilitarization, but now they are the strongest warmongers in Germany…very linked to the Trans-Atlantic community.”
The power that the Greens now hold in Berlin is partly owed to the influence of a network of transatlantic think tanks which many observers I spoke to believe serve as a kind of beachhead for the US national security establishment. In Dagdelen’s view, “The media landscape in Germany is very much influenced by the trans-Atlantic think tanks. Most of the executive editors, chief editors, are members of transatlantic partnership think tanks, such as Atlantic Council, Atlantic Bridge, German Marshall Fund.” And as if to prove her point, right on cue, the neoconservative Atlantic Council published a piece complaining that Scholz has “routinely missed the mark and gotten in the way of his own big idea.”
Zeitenwende oder Ostpolitik?
A SPD parliamentarian who was in the chamber when Scholz delivered his Zeitenwende address told me that he and his colleagues were shocked – not so much by the content of the speech but by the militant, even joyful reaction of the conservative CDU/CSU members to Scholz’s seeming repudiation of German foreign policy since 1945.
Ostensibly, the Zeitenwende is a 180 degree (not, as Ms. Baerbock recently opined, a 360 degree) turn away from Ostpolitik, the “Eastern Policy” of normalizing relations with the countries of the communist bloc that was crafted by Chancellor Willy Brandt and his advisor Egon Bahr in the late 1960s.
According to Ralf Stegner, MdB, deputy leader of the SPD in the Bundestag, “There is pressure on SPD to change their policy to send more and more weapons combined with an attack on the Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt.”
“On foreign policy,” he continued, “some in the CDU/CSU and many in the Green Party have a moralistic view that ‘we must punish the authoritarian regimes,’ but it’s not a smart foreign policy not to speak to them.”
Some don’t see the Scholz policy as that drastic of a change. Joachim Schuster, SPD member of the European Parliament told me that, “Scholz has said we don’t want to become a party to the war. Nor does he say that Ukraine must win the war. He speaks about the fact that Ukraine must not lose the war. In addition, he stressed that further diplomatic efforts are also needed.”
Professor Hajo Funke, professor of politics and culture at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science at The Free University of Berlin, told me that in his view, “Formally, at least, the SPD is united behind Scholz but there are signs of an internal split, the Bundestag SPD faction chief Rolf Mutzenich, is a supporter of Ostpolitik. Scholz himself is wavering, being very cautious not only because of the public wave of support for Ukraine, but also because his coalition partners, the Greens and Free Democrats, are pushing it, so it’s a balancing act, and in this situation he is somewhere between Biden and Macron.”
Others on the left and right ends of the political spectrum take a more critical view.
Die Linke’s Dagdelen agrees with Funke that Scholz is “under pressure from a number of different quarters, especially by his coalition partners, the Greens and the Liberals.” Yet she believes that by deciding to get further involved in the war effort, Scholz has “entirely turned his back on the legacy of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik.”
Dagdelen said, “The decision of the German government to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks taken in response to massive pressure from the US, paves the way to making Germany more and more of a party to the conflict and sending it into the line of fire against Russia. The German government is acting as a willing vassal to the US administration and bowing down to the US’s strategy of driving a wedge between Germany and Russia.”
Officials I spoke to on the far-right have also been critical. A AfD politician from Brandenburg told me that in his view “a Cold War mindset still holds power over the Western part of Germany.” “But Germany,” he said, “should be neutral and has no interest in this war.”
Yet it would be a mistake to view the Zeitenwende as burying Ostpolitik once and for all. Indeed, recent months have seen a wave of popular dissent over Germany’s deepening involvement in the war.
In February, at the instigation of the feminist activist Alice Schwarzer and Sarah Wagenkneckt, a leading Die Linke member of the Bundestag, a ‘Manifesto for Peace’ was published which called for Scholz, “to stop the escalation of arms deliveries, Immediately!” Further, the Manifesto called for Scholz to, “Lead a strong alliance for a ceasefire and peace negotiations at both German and European level.” The Manifesto led, in the weeks that followed, to a demonstration which drew 50,000 to the center of Berlin.
Professor Funke, one of the original signers of the Manifesto, told me that when it was released the signers faced what he described as a series of “McCarthyite smears” from the media. Yet the tide began to turn as the popularity of the Manifesto grew to the hundreds of thousands (as of this writing it has garnered over 775,000 signatures). One positive sign Funke pointed to is the support for negotiations by Wolfgang Ischinger, a former ambassador to the US who served as chairman of the Munich Security Conference from 2008 to 2022. Funke says that “public opinion may be turning and Ischinger is a good indication of this as an important German public intellectual.” A follow up peace appeal spearheaded by the historian Peter Brandt, son of the late Chancellor, was published in Germany this week.
So while it is clear that the German political establishment remains, for now, firmly under the thumb of the US national security establishment, German public opinion is a different matter altogether – and may be at a ‘turning point’ of its own.
James W. Carden is a member of the ACURA Board and a Writing Fellow at Globetrotter Media.
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Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2023 16:02:08 -0400
Subject: [Salon] Saudi Arabia and Iran Foreign Ministers Meet in Beijing, Agree to Reopen EmbassiesSaudi Arabia and Iran Foreign Ministers Meet in Beijing, Agree to Reopen Embassies - Middle East
ReutersApr 6, 2023The foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia met in Beijing on Thursday for the first formal meeting of their top diplomats in more than seven years, after China brokered a deal to restore ties between the regional rivals.
After years of hostility that fuelled conflicts across the Middle East, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to end their diplomatic rift and re-open embassies in a major deal facilitated by China last month.
In brief footage broadcast on Iranian state TV, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, greeted each other before sitting down side-by-side.
The two countries said in a joint statement they would launch arrangements to reopen embassies and consulates within the two-month period stipulated in the deal last month.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian meets with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Beijing on Thursday.Credit: WANA NEWS AGENCY/ REUTERS
"The technical teams will continue coordination to examine the ways of expanding cooperation including the resumption of flights and bilateral visits of official and private sector delegations and facilitating the granting of visas for the citizens of the two countries," they said.
In March, China's President Xi Jinping helped broker the surprise deal between the rivals to end a seven-year rift and restore diplomatic ties - a display of China's growing influence in the region.
That month, Xi spoke by telephone with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud about several issues.
Iranian Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian said the Thursday meeting with his Saudi counterpart was "good and forward-looking", according to Iranian state TV.
Beijing’s role in the breakthrough between Tehran and Riyadh shook up dynamics in the Middle East, where the United States was for decades the main mediator.
Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in 2016 after its embassy in Tehran was stormed during a dispute between the two countries over Riyadh’s execution of a Shi’ite Muslim cleric.
The kingdom then asked Iranian diplomats to leave within 48 hours while it evacuated its embassy staff from Tehran.
The relationship began worsening a year earlier, after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened in the Yemen war, where the Iran-aligned Houthi movement ousted a Saudi-backed government and took over the capital, Sanaa.
For Saudi Arabia, the deal could mean improved security. The kingdom has blamed Iran for arming the Houthis, who carried out missile and drone attacks on its cities and oil facilities.
In 2019, Riyadh blamed a massive attack on Aramco oil facilities, which knocked out half of its oil output, directly on the Islamic Republic. Tehran denied those allegations.
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Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2023 16:20:42 -0400
Subject: [Salon] Waiting for that Too-Much-Discussed Ukraine CounteroffensiveWaiting for that Too-Much-Discussed Ukraine Counteroffensive
Yves SmithApril 6, 2023At the start of March, we pointed out, Ukraine’s armed forces were more fragile than was acknowledged in the Western press. That’s since been confirmed by more-than-occasional admission-against-stories depicting how Ukraine is short on ammo, taking serious losses, and not looking likely to retake Russia-occupied territory.
We’d like to point out a conundrum. The West has been engaging in a remarkable level of propaganda and stunts. Some of that has been that the Ukraine government is particularly good at that sort of thing, and apparently even our intelligence agencies have not been much/at all sanity-checking what Ukraine tells them. Admittedly, satellite imagery limits how much tale-tale-telling Ukraine can do, but many Western official seem genuinely to believe dodgy Ukraine claims, like the level of Russian deaths, where the BBC, despite looking very hard, has been able to confirm a small fraction (16,000 as of the start of March).
All of this perception-management is perceived to be necessary because this war is costing a lot of money and the backers need to be able to maintain enough supports so as to be able to get funding bills passed. And aside from being predisposed to make maximum use of its soft power skills, Ukraine appears to be quite cognizant of the fact that it depends on coalition support for its survival, and therefore needs to keep up an image of success, or at least viability.
One side effect of the coalition-ness has been that the military side of this campaign has been far too transparent. There’s been a weird “loose lips sink ships” quality to Western disclosures. Brian Bereltic should not be able to chronicle declining US/NATO weapons deliveries. TASS should not be able to estimate, as it did earlier this week, how many Western tanks have been delivered out of recent commitments.
Perhaps I am old school, but I am pretty sure the Allies didn’t disclose how many landing craft they were sending to England before D-Day, much the less publicize debates among the Allies as to who was supplying what.
Admittedly, the US Defense Department of late has stopped identifying how many weapons are being sent in each package, but that’s apparently due to wanting to hide declining support and not out of concern about over-sharing with Russia.
However, Ukraine and its media friendlies have been actively talking up a counter-offensive, to the degree that Russian and Russia-friendly commentators have been spending an awful lot of time speculating when and where it might happen. Commonly-held views are it has to be pretty soon, particularly since Western experts are now admitting that Western ammo supplies will run dry sometime in the summer. But it can’t happen until mud season is over, and with a late snow re-softening the ground, that probably won’t happen till the end of the month at the earliest.
Given how appearance-driven Kiev is, another reason for launching the perceived-to-be-necessary-to-maintain-support counteroffensive sooner rather than later is to try to offset the demoralizing impact of the loss of Bakhmut, and potentially in the not-too-distant future, Avdiivka, which is near Donetsk city.
The war-watchers think Ukraine will try to cut the Russian land bridge to Crimea, most likely by striking towards Melitopol. This raises the question of what Ukraine thinks it will accomplish. Even if Ukraine were to perform way above expectations and somehow surmount the extensive fortifications that Russia started building when General Surovikin took over as theater commander last October (which would be a massive embarrassment to Russia), Russia still has the depth of forces and materiel to turn this around, particularly since Ukraine would be committing a lot of its remaining firepower to this last gamble.
Indeed, Ukraine has apparently moved toward the recommendation that got General Mark Milley in so much hot water last fall: that Ukraine should sue for peace, after of course Doing Something to improve its bad bargaining position. From the Financial Times:
Kyiv is willing to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reach the border of the Russian-occupied peninsula, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the Financial Times.
The comments by Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office, are the most explicit statement of Ukraine’s interest in negotiations since it cut off peace talks with the Kremlin last April.
“If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” Sybiha said, referring to Kyiv’s long-planned counteroffensive.
He added: “It doesn’t mean that we exclude the way of liberation [of Crimea] by our army.”
Towards the end, the Financial Times reports that a February poll found 87% of the Ukraine public is dead set against territorial concessions to Russia. Would the loss of Bakhmut and rumors of how many men died and were maimed trying to keep it, shake that support? Or say a Kiev propaganda push? Past studies have found that a mere six weeks of concerted messaging will generate big shifts in opinion.
Despite all this talk of a Ukraine attack, since Russia decided it needed to commit more forces to the special military operation after having to abandon Kharviv, the war has been generally going well for Russia. Ukraine has continued to play right into one of the comparatively few things Russia has made public about its intentions, that it is waging an attritional war. Ukraine has repeatedly fought tenaciously not to cede territory, typically at high cost in men and materiel, when Russia has the advantage in both categories.
And we are starting to see evidence of the degree of Ukraine depletion. For instance commentators have noticed that the Russian air force of late has been more active. That’s believed to be due to Ukraine running low on missiles for its Soviet S-300 air defense system (the Patriots the US is sending to shore it up are inferior and comparatively few in number)
Indeed, Russia has come to learn it is well positioned even compared to its NATO nemesis. As many have pointed out, NATO’s forces are set up for defense, in or very near their home countries. For instance, Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks are designed for use on good roads, despite being a tracked vehicle and with maintenance close at hand. The US and NATO spent 30 year optimizing their offensive capabilities for regional insurgent wars, not conflict with a major power, and in its backyard to boot.
NATO has at least three other problems. First, coalition of a large number of countries is not a great vehicle for unified action. It’s shocking to see that NATO members have balkanized weapons systems. What sense is it to have a zillion types of tanks and armored personnel carriers? The EU was able to agree on a single commercial airplane operator, the Airbus, and figured out how to divvy up parts manufacture and maintenance so as to keep everyone pretty happy. Why was there no similar effort for an EU-champion for far-more-essential-to-survival major weapons platforms?
Another manifestation of the coalition problem is uneven willingness to commit forces. Even though hawks love talking up NATO manning up to show those Rooskies a thing or two, as Douglas Macgregor and others have pointed out, the only NATO members who might sign up are Poland, Romania, the US and the UK, who might muster among them 100,000.2
Second, not only had the Collective West learned that hollowing out our manufacturing base is at odds with having muscular armed forces, but we’d also need to get over our “just in time” practices and be able to stockpile inputs as well as outputs. Not only would it take, per Alex Vershinin, a decade for the US and NATO to catch up with Russia’s production levels, but we don’t even seem to be thinking very hard about how to get started in closing the gap.
Third is that in most NATO members, support for the war is falling, and in some important states, particularly Germany, protests are rising.
Now admittedly Russia’s silence on its military plans has sometimes been costly, witness when the government refused to ‘splain the Kharkiv retreat. Russia did learn a bit and communicated more when it pulled out of Kherson city. My sense is that Russian citizens would rather be told more but that may be why the government tolerates hyper-active commentary on Telegram: anything on it was presumably also observed by Ukraine, so no risk to the armed services.
In any event, with Russia well along with taking all of Bakhmut, Ukraine will have to create the appearance of success somewhere else. And if not that well-advertised counteroffensive, it would need to be a very big terrorist stunt.
____
1 German defense minister Annelina Baerbock famously said she’d keep backing Ukraine, public support be damned.
2 It would take the US nine months or so to send meaningfully more from our side of the pond and then we’d have to get our stuff to Eastern Ukraine, oh, and with not much air cover, since that theater is too far from our airbases.
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Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2023 16:28:52 -0400
Subject: [Salon] A Look Back at the American Experience in World War I Shows the Danger of Where We May Be Headed
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Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2023 16:28:58 -0400
Subject: [Salon] The first China-UAE gas deal in yuan: A new blow to dollar dominanceThe first China-UAE gas deal in yuan: A new blow to dollar dominance
April 6, 2023On 28 March, the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange (SHPGX) made history by announcing the first-ever deal on importing 65,000 tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the UAE, settled in the Chinese yuan currency. China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) and French TotalEnergies finalized the transaction, and TotalEnergies confirmed that the LNG imported was from the Persian Gulf state.
China’s Global Times in a report the following day, cited the chairman of the SHPGX, Guo Xu as saying that the deal is:
“A meaningful attempt to promote multi-currency pricing, settlement and cross-border payment in international LNG trading. It also provides a new channel for international players to participate in the Chinese market, helping to build a new pattern of dual circulation in China.”
Beijing pushes yuan for energy trade
The yuan settlement of international LNG trading is a “major event in China’s market-oriented oil and gas reform, which will help promote the docking of international and domestic markets,” the report quoted experts as saying.
The development comes after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced in December 2022, during a landmark visit to Riyadh, that his country should make “full use” of the SHPGX as a platform to carry out yuan settlement of oil and gas trade.
This deal represents a departure from the decades-long practice of conducting global oil sales exclusively in US dollars. A prominent economist, who spoke to The Cradle, speculated that “the French either resorted to the yuan due to the acute shortage of Russian gas supplies to the European continent, or they have reserves in the Chinese currency that they want to use.”
The deal came as a surprise, as French President Emmanuel Macron typically does not take such steps without the approval of the US. As for the UAE, the move is part of a larger trend of Persian Gulf countries opening up to China in the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Biden administration’s shift in regional policies.
The yuan payment also follows the global polarization taking place over the Ukraine war and further demonstrates the reluctance of Persian Gulf states to align with western hostility toward Russia, China, and other US adversaries. According to the same economist, “The Emirati move cannot be separated from the changes taking place in the world. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh sense the global imbalance of power, and decided to expand the margins of their international relations.”
Yuan’s growing acceptance
Given the current global geopolitical shifts, the yuan is gaining increased acceptance as an international currency. Since President Xi Jinping assumed office, China has settled agreements with several countries in its local currency in an attempt to challenge the dominance of the US dollar in global trade.
As a result, the yuan has become the world’s fifth-largest payment currency, the third-largest currency in trade settlement, and the fifth-largest reserve currency. According to the Global Times, the yuan today accounts for 7 percent of all foreign exchange trades worldwide and has experienced the most significant expansion in currency market share over the past three years.
Experts have noted that “with the recovery of the momentum of China’s economic growth and the further opening of the financial market, the investment and hedging function of the yuan has gradually increased.”
In an article earlier this year for The Cradle, Pakistani analyst F. M. Shakil cited the Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which shows that:
“The percentage of US dollars in central bank reserves has decreased by 12 percent since 1999, while the percentage of other currencies, particularly the Chinese yuan, have shown an increasing trend with a 9 percent rise during this period.”
Shakil also noted that the “cumulative cross-border yuan settlement handled in Xinjiang (western China), the financial hub between China and Central Asia, exceeded 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) as early as 2013 and reached 260 billion yuan in 2018.”
He concluded that “dollar reserves are dwindling and the influence of the United States of America is receding in the global economy, which represents an opportunity for regional powers’ currencies and alternative payment systems.”
Rise of the petroyuan
Since 2009, Beijing has implemented a policy to reduce its reliance on the US dollar in commercial transactions. This policy includes settling the majority of its goods in foreign markets in its local currency, establishing mutual lines of credit with several central banks worldwide, and negotiating with West Asian and North African countries to conduct trade using the yuan. These efforts have started to show results recently, with a number of Asian governments partially adopting the Chinese currency.
Iraq is one of the countries that have partially adopted the yuan in trade. In February, the Iraqi Central Bank announced plans to allow direct settlement of trade from China in yuan to improve access to foreign currency and compensate for the dollar shortage in local markets, largely due to measures imposed by the Federal Reserve on money transfers leaving Iraq to prevent them from reaching Tehran and Damascus. Egypt also announced its intention to issue yuan bonds last August.
Russia has played a significant role in changing the course of the yuan by signing the Eastern Natural Gas Pipeline Agreement from Russia to China and converting the currencies of gas payments from the US dollar to the Chinese yuan and the Russian ruble.
According to the latest data from the Russian Central Bank, the yuan has become a major player in Russia’s foreign trade, with its share of import settlements increasing from just 4 percent in January 2022 to 23 percent by the end of the year. The yuan’s share of exports rose from 0.5 percent to 16 percent in the same period.
During his trip to Saudi Arabia, the Chinese president encouraged Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to use the SHPGX for yuan-based energy deals. The visit also saw China and Saudi Arabia sign over $30 billion in trade deals, which some analysts believe marks the rise of the petroyuan.
According to US-based Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela – all allies of China – account for 40 percent of OPEC+’s proven oil reserves, with the GCC making up another 40 percent. If these three states alone settle their energy exports in yuan, the petroyuan is here to stay.
A response to US policy
In a January interview with Bloomberg, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said that “the kingdom is open to trading in currencies other than the US dollar in order to improve trade.”
Interestingly, despite being a stalwart US ally for decades, Riyadh is deepening its ties with key trading partners, including Beijing, as China imported over 500 million tons of crude oil and over 100 million tons of natural gas, including 63.44 million tons of LNG, in 2022.
Middle East Briefing suggests that this shift towards national currencies in global trade “is partly due to Washington’s sanctions policy against Russia.” Riyadh is now “following an increasing trend of hedging against US dollar use in trade” amid concerns that the US may use its currency as a weapon for trade and sanctions.
The trend towards using national currencies in global trade chains has continued to mature, with recent developments, including the announcement of two large-scale investment plans in China by Saudi oil giant Aramco.
The first plan involves building an integrated refining and chemicals plant in Liaoning Province, while the second plan involves Aramco’s acquisition of 10 percent of the shares of Rongsheng Petrochemical Company.
Meanwhile, the emirate of Dubai has opened its door to dealing in the Chinese currency in its global financial center, and Brazil and China have agreed to ditch the dollar and use their local currencies in their commercial dealings. In addition, Brazil and Argentina have announced the start of work on launching a common currency in their commercial dealings, dubbed “Sur.”
The petrodollar under threat
Petrodollars refer to US dollars used to purchase crude oil following a 1974 deal struck between Washington and Riyadh. The agreement not only ensured the military defense of the kingdom through US guarantees but also secured a steady stream of foreign purchases of US Treasury bonds and debt, which is a strategy of recycling the petrodollars back to Washington through Saudi Arabia’s reserves.
This transformed the ability of oil-rich Arab states to weaponize their vast energy resources against malign western policies – into a powerful economic weapon for the Americans, who, overnight, became the masters of the oil market. Today, however, with China’s rapid steps to challenge this entrenched system, there is a global spotlight on the rise of the Petroyuan versus the decline of the Petrodollar.
Asia Financial describes China’s deal with TotalEnergies as a “step forward in China’s long-term battle to reduce the power and reach of US dollar hegemony,” adding that “further such moves appear to be in the winds.” Importantly, according to Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at Kpler:
“While the dollar will likely remain the dominant global currency in the near future, the rise of a so-called petroyuan will gain momentum as China leverages its status as the world’s largest oil importer.”
Saudi Arabia is reportedly considering accepting payment for its oil exports to China in yuan. However, any such shift is likely to be marginal, as most West Asian currencies are pegged to the US dollar, and accepting payments in other currencies increases foreign exchange risk.
Researcher P.S. Srinivas opined last year that oil deals with countries in West Asia “do not constitute a threat to the US dollar,” and the likelihood of the yuan replacing the US dollar as the benchmark currency for pricing is even more remote due to China’s capital controls and the yuan’s lack of convertibility.
While the possibility of the yuan gaining greater prominence in the global oil trade cannot be ruled out, it is unlikely to replace the US dollar as the primary currency for pricing in the oil and gas industry in the short term.
Most West Asian nations continue to maintain a vested interest in preserving the strength of the dollar, and any shift towards accepting payments in other currencies is likely to be minimal, at first. In the next few years, it will be important to keep an eye on China’s slow but steady ascent to global economic dominance and the growing usage of the yuan in international trade.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
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Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2023 16:37:30 -0400
Subject: [Salon] https://www.indianarrative.com/opinion-news/after-the-saudi-iran-agreement-has-west-asia-entered-a-de-americanised-era-128891.html After the Saudi-Iran agreement, has West Asia entered a de-Americanised era? China’s state councillor Qin Gang with Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Beijing (left) and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan (right) (Photo: @SpokespersonCHN/Twitter) Talmiz Ahmad Published: April 6, 2023 The agreement announced in Beijing on 10 March between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore diplomatic ties after a seven-year estrangement marks the first period in forty years when there is no ongoing conflict in any part of West Asia and North Africa.During the last few years, there has instead, been a remarkable diplomatic churn across the region – with new engagements, new players and new alignments – whiAfter the Saudi-Iran agreement, has West Asia entered a de-Americanised era?
The agreement announced in Beijing on 10 March between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore diplomatic ties after a seven-year estrangement marks the first period in forty years when there is no ongoing conflict in any part of West Asia and North Africa.
During the last few years, there has instead, been a remarkable diplomatic churn across the region – with new engagements, new players and new alignments – which have not involved the regional hegemon, the US. Besides the Saudi-Iran dialogue, Turkey has reached out to former rivals – the Hossein Amir-Abdollahian UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Egypt, Jordan and Iraq have set up an economic and political cooperation platform, while Egypt itself has become active in pursuing ties with African countries in the Horn of Africa and East Africa.
In terms of the Saudi-Iran agreement, the two Gulf neighbours will reopen their embassies at ambassadorial level within two months. They have also agreed to shape their ties on the basis of the 1998 agreement relating to economic, cultural and technological ties, and the 2001 security cooperation agreement.
The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, has said that the kingdom “hoped to open a new chapter with Iran and bolster cooperation that would consolidate security and stability and push forward development and prosperity” not just for the two countries but for the entire region. The agreement has been welcomed across West Asia and by most foreign offices in Asia and Europe; even the US State Department has given it a positive response.
The dramatic announcement of this “tripartite agreement”, which has China as its guarantor, has surprised policy-makers and commentators, as it marks China’s first diplomatic foray in the politics of the troubled region. Again, most western observers had taken the long-term rivalry between the kingdom and the Islamic Republic for granted. In fact, this had been the basis for the US-Israeli calculus to expand the so-called Abraham Accords by including Saudi Arabia in the anti-Iran coalition without conceding anything to Palestinian aspirations.
Now, there is an ongoing scramble in chancelleries and academia to take a fresh look at the West Asian security scenario – one that accommodates the Saudi-Iran engagement, places China at the centre of regional politics and economics, and promises – for the first time in over four decades – the prospect of a peaceful region, where diplomacy and economic cooperation reign supreme.
West Asian security scenario
Since 1980, in West Asia every decade has been defined by a raging conflict. The 1980s, in response to the Islamic Revolution in Iran, witnessed the Iran-Iraq war and the “global jihad” in Afghanistan. These conflicts had numerous countries playing a behind-the-scenes role to prolong the wars and serve their interests.
These conflicts bled into the 1990s: propelled by hubris (and miscalculation), the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, saw in the occupation of Kuwait a just reward for the sacrifices made by the Iraqi people to stem the tide of the Iranian revolution. This triggered the first Gulf War in 1991, the destruction of the Iraqi armed forces, the decade-long sanctions-inspections regime, the no-fly zones over Iraq, and the US-led “dual containment” of Iraq and Iran.
The “global jihad” in Afghanistan had its own unexpected consequences: as the US turned away from this obscure theatre of Cold War conflicts, Afghanistan became the arena for the emergence of a local extremist group, the Taliban, and, from 1996, witnessed its affiliation with the transnational extremist group, Al Qaeda that had emerged triumphant from the jihad of the previous decade. Al Qaeda used its Afghan sanctuary to prepare for its assault on the “far enemy”, the US, that had itself spawned this lethal grouping, with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, against its Cold War foe.
The Al Qaeda attack on the US homeland on 9/11 and the subsequent US-led “Global War on Terror” defined West Asian politics through the 2000s. Stung with fury, the US unleashed its full military might on Afghanistan and Iraq, though the latter had no involvement with the 9/11 attacks. The US’ two-decade long wars in these West Asian theatres provided no strategic advantage to the Americans – instead, it spawned the virus of sectarianism in Iraq and created a new organisation committed to extremist violence.
These bled into the next decade: the 2000s witnessed the fury of sectarian conflict in Iraq that divided the Islamic world into warring camps as also the lethal rage of a new transnational extremist group that emerged from this sectarian divide – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
In the second decade of the new century, West Asia not only provided the arena for Islam’s primeval feuds, but it also unleashed a few basis for war – the demand for wide-ranging reform unleashed by the Arab Spring uprisings led the Gulf monarchies – Saudi Arabia and the UAE – to confront the threat from political Islam and the attendant popular participation in governance. They mobilised domestic and regional support through the demonisation of Iran for its sectarian agenda and hegemonic designs and confronted it in the arenas of its influence – Syria and Yemen. Thus, these two West Asian nations now became the theatres for murderous fraternal violence that raged through most of the decade.
Towards engagement and accord
We now know that conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq caused a half a million deaths during US occupation over the last two decades. The occupation also witnessed gratuitous violence by the occupation forces engendered by fear and hate – the criminal conduct at Abu Ghraib and mindless killings of ordinary people by frightened foreign soldiers, thousands of whom returned home permanently traumatised by their own villainy and abuse.
At the heart of West Asian conflicts was the United States. While the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s was part of ongoing Cold War confrontations, the wars of the next three decades were the product of the hubris of the unchallenged hyperpower that was flush with state-of-the-art weaponry which increasingly distanced the soldier from his or her target, thus replaying the technological divide between western militaries and native armies in the colonial period.
The hyperpower was not a neutral presence – the US was animated by two deep emotive responses to the region: visceral hatred for Iran and deep affection for Israel. These approaches became an integral part of the US’ domestic politics, making it impossible for any president to contemplate a new approach to the region.
Donald Trump pandered to both these wellsprings of US policy with vigour and enthusiasm. He also garnered sections of the GCC monarchies to his cabal: as Saudi Arabia and the UAE cheered from the sidelines, Trump manufactured numerous occasions to provoke Iran – naval skirmishes in the Gulf waters, periodic attacks on Iranian targets in Iraq and Syria, and finally the public assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. The US ally Israel complemented the aggressiveness of its senior partner with attacks in Syria and Iraq and assassinations of Iranian scientists in Iran itself.
How did US hegemony wither away? It was apparent to the US’ Gulf allies that, for all its bravado, their partner had no appetite for a serious regional conflict. GCC policy-makers concluded that the Americans were not credible regional security-providers and, indeed, could not be relied to come to the aid of their regional allies when their security was threatened.
Their analyses went back a decade: they recalled the cavalier “pivot” to the East to confront China in the West Pacific; this was seen as an abandonment of the US’ commitments to West Asian security. The Obama administration had also failed to protect the Hosni Mubarak regime in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings, though Mubarak had been a longstanding ally of the US. In fact, the administration poured salt into GCC wounds by initiating negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue, without any consultations with regional leaders. The engagement culminated in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in January 2016; it eased sanctions on Iran and created the basis for freedom of action in the region by the Islamic Republic.
Though Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA and reimposed sanctions on Iran, the president signally failed to protect Saudi interests when Iranian proxies attacked its oil facilities in 2019 and stopped the production of half its oil for a week. This increasing disenchantment with the US as a security-guarantor culminated in the ignominious US withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021 by the Biden administration – an obvious abandonment of an old ally.
Throughout his election campaign and in the early months of his presidency, Biden affirmed his disengagement from West Asia, even as he referred to Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” state, refused to engage with its crown prince, criticised the war in Yemen, and did not provide the kingdom with weapons for this war.
Thus, the stage was set for the kingdom to look at new policy options and new partners to serve its interests.
Run-up to the Beijing accord
By 2021, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had been the effective head of his country’s political, economic and social affairs for nearly six years. He had stamped his authority over all aspects of national governance. He had committed the kingdom to radical socio-economic and cultural transformation through the “Vision 2030”. He had built a solid base of support among the country’s youth – over 50% of the national population – with dilution of the country’s Wahhabi ethos and norms and robust appeals to Saudi nationalism, and had liberalised public spaces to allow gender-mixing, free movement for women, and opportunities for leisure and entertainment.
But he also embroiled Saudi Arabia in war in Yemen from March 2015. Expecting the Yemeni Houthis to quickly succumb the kingdom’s relentless bombings, the crown prince saw with concern that, while the country was devastated, the Houthis continued to control the capital, the port of Hodeidah and large swathes of the countryside; more seriously, they refused to surrender either their arms or their aspirations to re-emerge as legitimate role-players in their country.
The war cost the kingdom several billion dollars every month, draining valuable resources from the “Vision” agenda. The destruction wreaked in Yemen also discredited the country in global public opinion, encouraging scrutiny of the kingdom’s human rights record at home and in Yemen. Periodic missile and drone attacks by the Houthis on Saudi targets also demoralised the civilian population. Saudi Arabia’s principal interest now became to end the war in Yemen, without loss of face or its core strategic agenda. It needed to work with Iran on this, given that the latter was the principal benefactor and weapons-supplier for the Houthis.
As the US lost credibility as the regional security-provider, what
several western commentators failed to note was that Saudi Arabia had also begun to assert strategic autonomy and adopt policy positions in its own interest, without looking over its shoulder at US views or concerns. As Maria Fantappie and Vali Nasr have pointed out in Foreign Affairs, the kingdom now saw itself “not as a security vassal of the United States but as a regional power capable of playing an independent role in world politics”.
Thus, it refused to align itself with the US against Russia in the Ukraine war, nor did it accept Biden’s plea, in July last year, to increase oil production to bring down prices. It also did not join the US-led coalition of Israel and the Arab states ranged against Iran, or ally with the US in confronting China in a new Cold War. The kingdom has signalled that it will maintain ties with the US, but on its own terms; these will include defence purchases, buying of US equipment, machinery and technology, and cooperation with the US on matters of mutual interest. Saudi Arabia, as Jon Alterman has noted, “has agency over its own future”.
Iran, on its part, was devastated by the US sanctions that had shattered its economy and engendered widespread national discontent. This was expressed periodically through national agitations that the government had to put down with harsh and coercive measures. In the region itself, Tehran also saw that the US was building a regionwide coalition with Israel and the Arab states under the rubric of the so-called Abraham Accords: in August 2020, the UAE had normalised ties with Israel, followed quickly by Bahrain and later by Morocco and Sudan. This was based on highlighting the security threat from Iran; hence, it only a matter of time before Saudi Arabia too joined the grouping.
Thus, by early 2021, both Saudi Arabia and Iran had strong compulsions to engage with each other.
At this point, Iraq, under Prime Minster Mustafa al-Kadhimi, stepped forward as the facilitator of dialogue between the Gulf neighbours. Five rounds of discussions took place in Baghdad in 2021-22 at the level of intelligence officers, as also three rounds in Oman. Their focus was on regional security. A sixth round could not take place in Baghdad as Iran sought an economic package to ease its sanctions burden; Saudi Arabia however insisted that the focus remain on security.
According to the commentator Banafsheh Keynoush of Middle East Institute (MEI), Iran is believed to have used this lull to engage with Egypt and Jordan and obtain assurances that they would not join a regional coalition against Iran. In June, al-Kadhimi succeeded in obtaining Iranian support for a truce in Yemen, which remains in place. In August, Iran informed the European Union of its readiness to renew discussions on the nuclear agreement.
From September 2022, Iran was overwhelmed with the anti-hijab agitations, even as it continued it nuclear enrichment programme, signalling to western governments that their efforts to obtain regime change was not going to be successful. By November, Iran had succeeded in controlling the nationwide demonstrations.
The reopening of dialogue was facilitated by three developments taking place in quick succession: the visit of President Xi Jinping to Riyadh in December when the Saudi crown prince sought a revival of the discussions with Iran under Chinese auspices. This was followed by a meeting of the foreign ministers of the two countries in Amman on the sidelines of the Baghdad II conference of regional states; it was clinched by the visit to Beijing in February of the Iranian president.
Talks in Beijing began on 6 March: the Iranian side was led by Ali Shamkhani, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and a close confidant of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei; the Saudi side was led by Minister of State and National Security Adviser, Musaad bin Mohammed Al-Aiban. After five days of substantial discussions, the agreement was announced on 10 March.
China in West Asia
China’s principal bond with West Asia is its import of oil. It is the largest trade partner of Saudi Arabia and the largest buyer of Saudi crude, with oil imports accounting for nearly half of the $87.3 billion bilateral trade in 2021. In 2022, Saudi Arabia imported more than $30 billion worth of goods from China, with trade being dominated by technological and communications equipment.
Again, in 2022, Sino-Iranian trade amounted to $15.8 billion, with China’s exports increasing by 14% to $9.44 billion. Despite US sanctions, Iran remains one of the major oil exporters to China: Iran saw an increase in exports in the last two months of 2022, on higher shipments to China and Venezuela; according to analysts, Tehran has increased oil exports to more than 1.2 million barrels per day.
China is also a major investor in the region: between 2005-2022, China’s overall investment in the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) region was $273 billion; the bulk of these investments were in Saudi Arabia, about $43.5 billion.
Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are also important role-players in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Now, following the agreement, Saudi oil reserves and its ports on coastline of the Gulf can be linked with Iran and, using a multimodal transportation corridor, they can connect with China. These linkages will enable China to bypass the Hormuz and Malacca, which are the principal routes for Chinese energy and trade shipments between China and the Gulf, and supplement the existing 3200-km railway link from Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, to Tehran.
As the Indian scholar, Sujata Ashwarya has said, China “has integrated the BRI into the GCC countries’ development strategies for infrastructure growth and non-oil expansion, including Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030”. She has pointed out that the kingdom is the largest recipient of China’s BRI investments in the first half of 2022 at $5.5 billion.
Besides valuable economic and logistical connectivity, China has built substantial political links with the region as well. Last year, China formally concluded the 25-year comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with Iran which has political, security, energy, economic and logistical connectivity components valued at $400 billion. In line with this, in March this year, China and Russia participated in their fourth naval exercise with Iran since 2019, projecting a show of collective force against western powers in the region. Iranian sources have described this naval cooperation as “a new centre for maritime security”.
In December 2022, President Xi Jinping visited Riyadh and participated in three summits – bilateral, the GCC and the Arab League. Thus, its footprint extended beyond the Gulf to rest of West Asia: on 24 March, Egypt announced Chinese entities would be investing $2 billion to build a cast iron pipe and steel production facility in the Suez Canal zone.
China also has close economic relations with Israel: in September 2021, the $1.7 billion transportation and industrial centre was inaugurated at Haifa port; it will be operated by Shanghai International Port. Israel’s transport minister noted that the port would promote “realisation of opportunities and a genuine contribution [to building ties with] our neighbours in the Middle East”.
In West Asia, China has one significant advantage that the US does not have – it has close ties with all regional states. It has therefore been able to take advantage of the region’s war fatigue and bring estranged countries together through diplomacy – something the US is not capable of doing. As Fareed Zakaria has pointed out in Washington Post, the US has lost the “flexibility and suppleness” that would enable a diplomatic engagement with regional powers in contention with each other; Washington’s rigid postures and “grand moral declarations”, Zakaria says, evoke “an aging empire” that has little sense of the real world around it.
By facilitating the Saudi-Iran agreement and injecting itself as its guarantor, what China has done is to fill the diplomatic vacuum left by the US that has for several decades dealt with regional issues largely through military means.
Challenges to regional peace
Following the agreement, there have been several positive developments: the Saudi finance minister has said his country is looking at early investments in the Iranian economy. There are indications that Bahrain will establish diplomatic ties with Iran shortly (the last member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to do so). The Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers have had two telephonic conversations on taking ties forward. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is expected to visit Riyadh very soon. It has been announced that China would be hosting an Iran-GCC conclave in Beijing in two months.
Saudi Arabia has also announced the establishment of diplomatic ties with Syria, joining other GCC countries that already have embassies in Damascus. Finally, on 28 March, the Saudi crown prince had a telephonic conversation with President Xi Jinping; the Saudi foreign office said he expressed his country’s appreciation for China’s support for the development of “good neighbourly relations” between the Gulf countries.
However, while the agreement has restored bilateral engagement and improved the regional security climate, the settlement of outstanding differences is fraught with challenges.
The Saudi-Iran divide is now more than a decade old and includes differences that have security and sectarian dimensions, amidst deep-seated rivalries relating to regional partners, indeed, even the shape of regional security arrangements themselves. These differences, due to the near-total absence of mutual confidence and trust, have even acquired the shape of “existential” threats. Obviously, the path of negotiations ahead will be thorny and deeply contentious, with periodic setbacks and even acrimony.
Yemen will be an immediate challenge. Even if Iran were to reduce its military support to the Houthis (not likely in the immediate future), the principal problem before the Saudis will remain: how to accommodate the marginalised Houthis in the national political and economic mainstream? This was the original issue that had led to six wars by former president Ali Abdullah Saleh on Houthi militants in the 2000s, and later caused the Saudi military intervention in March 2015.
Since then, Yemen has become a broken state, riven with tribal, sectarian, geographical and military faultlines, and has no leadership that carries credibility among its diverse factions. The scenario has been complicated by the UAE pursuing its own geopolitical adventures – taking control of Yemen’s ports on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, having bases on the strategically important island of Perim in the Bab al-Mandab and Socotra island.
Bringing stability to this war-torn land and ensuring its unity calls for statesmanship and commitment that have not been apparent for several years. Even if Saudi Arabia and Iran work in close harmony – a tall order, given their recent history – peace in Yemen is still quite far away.
The same is true of Syria. Though there is no ongoing military conflict between the government and rebel militants, a decade of war has resolved none of the outstanding issues; in fact, new problems have emerged.
Even if the regime-change project has failed, there remains the matter of Turkey’s military presence deep inside Syrian territory across the northern border and its ongoing effort to disrupt Kurdish aspirations for their ‘Rojava’ (Homeland). Will the Kurds accept the Russian suggestion that their destiny lies in a unified Syrian state? Will Turkey accept this solution? And, what of the 900 US soldiers that are spread across the northeast, ostensibly to protect Kurdish interests?
Finally, even if some solution is found for the Kurdish problem, we still have the 50,000-strong Hayat Tahreer al-Sham in Idlib, the successor of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Nusra that has not accepted Turkish control? These extremists are also not likely to accommodate themselves into Al Assad’s Syrian order. War on them may be the only answer.
Though the Beijing agreement has been touted as a “tripartite” accord, there is considerable uncertainty about what role China will play in promoting regional harmony. Linked with this is whether China is equipped to play an activist role to resolve deep regional differences. As of now, we can expect, in general terms, that China will pursue a “quasi-mediation” role, ie, it will leave the addressing of contentious issues to the principal parties themselves, while using its economic clout, its regional status and credibility, and the improved climate for inter-state cooperation, to nudge the parties towards accord.
What of the future of the JCPOA and Iran’s nuclear programme? The Saudi side are anxious to see the revival of the agreement. Recent reports on this have been positive in that the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been given free access for monitoring and verification activities in Iran. But doubts remain about the US posture – given the fraught and polarised domestic political scenario, it is doubtful that Biden, facing elections next year, will sign off on a deal that will ease sanctions on Iran.
This brings up the Israel factor. From 2020, the centrepiece of US-Israeli diplomacy has been to broaden the Israel-Arab coalition against Iran, without the Arabs seeking any concessions for the Palestinians. The Beijing accord firmly ends this expectation, leaving the US and Israel with a policy vacuum.
Given deep divisions in Israel and the extreme groups that make up Netanyahu’s government, the obvious expectation is that Israel will opt for a tough posture and look for a quick opportunity for an attack on Iran to destroy
