Underlining just how far out of Europe Washington is came word that President Trump was planning to meet
with his Russian counterpart in Saudi Arabia to iron out the terms of a
peace deal. Neither the Europeans nor, it appears, the Ukrainians were
invited to the table for what looks set to be a carve up of Ukraine, one
that can only embolden Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions and send
shivers down European spines.
It was reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National
Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff
were headed to Riyadh to meet with their Russian counterparts ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting, one which undoubtedly will include the de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The question hangs in the air: why Saudi Arabia? For Trump it must
seem the ideal venue to pull off an extraordinary diplomatic triumph.
But another way to see it is as an opportunity par excellence
presented on a platter to both Putin and MbS to exploit Trump’s
arrogance and overweening ambition: before his election win he had
boasted that he would resolve
the Ukraine war in a day. The Middle East would be similarly sorted in
warp speed fashion. As he says repeatedly - while angling for a Nobel
prize - he is the peacemaker.
In heading to the kingdom Trump seeks to win the trifecta: a peace
deal in Ukraine, an end to the Gaza war and Saudi Arabia joining the
Abraham Accords. As unlikely as all that may seem it should be
remembered that in his first go round he moved the needle in the Middle
East in a way that his predecessors in the Oval Office had never done.
He brought four Arab states – UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan –into a
normalisation deal with Israel.
The critics have rightly said that, as happened with the Taliban deal,
the self-proclaimed world’s greatest negotiator gave up the key cards
before talks had even begun. He accepted Putin’s demand that Ukraine
would never join NATO and he conceded that most of the land the Russians
had seized they were perfectly entitled to hang on to.
But he also hammered home the point that Europe no longer matters to
America and that the politics and diplomacy of the Cold War era are dead
and buried. Vance and Hegseth’s contempt well and truly were their
master’s voice.
The Russian president, should the talks proceed, will walk away from
the table a very big winner, not just in Ukraine. With the sudden and embarrassing rout
of his ally Bashar al-Assad late last year in Syria, Putin after more
than a decade of carefully constructed hard and soft power moves in the
Middle East found himself without his most important chessboard piece.
Meeting Trump and MbS in Riyadh puts his Middle East game back into
play.
Perhaps the most intriguing manoeuvres will be those conducted by the
Saudi crown prince who has everything to gain and very little to lose.
His demands, before the Gaza war, were straightforward enough. In return
for joining the Abraham Accords and recognising Israel the US would
give him a comprehensive defence security deal, provide essential
support for his civilian nuclear programme and assist with getting FDI
up and flowing into the kingdom to put his Vision 2030 dream – already
struggling and saddled with massively expensive giga-projects - back on
track.
And with Trump’s proclamation to take over Gaza
and ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in the process – a project as
brutally audacious as it is mad – the crown prince can make the point as
he has done in the past that he personally has no interest
in the Palestinian cause but regrettably his people do. And now Mr
President you have made it just that more difficult for me. So the price
has gone up.
That’s not to say, his official position on a two-state solution
not withstanding, that MbS won’t soften his stance from the
establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders to a “pathway”
to statehood. But the offer from Trump will need to be an even sweeter
one for him to do so.
In all of this the Palestinians and the Ukrainians are treated as if
they are less than pawns in an emerging new power game, one that
erstwhile allies in Europe and Britain thus far seem incapable of
resisting.
Members can leave comments about this newsletter on the Arab Digest website