What exactly is the game that Saudi Arabia is playing and how is it trying to reshape the situation in the Middle East?
A new order of things is emerging in the Middle East mediated by Beijing and leads to the upgrading of the Emirate, but also to the return of Iran to the international stage, irritating Washington
On March 6, representatives of Iran and Saudi Arabia met in Beijing for talks under the auspices of China. This suggestion not long ago would have been laughable. Nothing about it would feel right, like trying to put all the odds of international diplomacy together. Four days later, however, Tehran and Riyadh officially announced that they had decided to restore relations, reopening their respective embassies in their capitals. Some in the world froze at all this, some are smiling. Given the rift between the Arab world and Iran, and China’s attempt to emerge as the US’s ultimate adversary (as Putin has gone dark with Ukraine), just what game is Saudi Arabia playing and how is he trying to reshape the situation in the Middle East?
Looking east
Washington watches on seemingly cool, but very numb. The developments are a big defeat for the US, on many levels. In 2021, the Americans had urged Iran and Saudi Arabia to start talks, hoping to stabilize the situation in the region and end the bloody war in Yemen. In July 2022, Biden had gone to Riyadh and one of the issues very high on his agenda was the inclusion of Iran in the Gulf Cooperation Council. And after all that, which seemed to be going great, Saudi Arabia ditched Biden and turned to China, seeing him as a much better mediator between Tehran and Riyadh. In December 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping went to Riyadh, met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and in February invited Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi to Beijing. Things developed rapidly from there. Saudi Arabia is already very suspicious of its traditional ally, the US, and relations between them are at an all-time low. That doesn’t seem likely to change as long as Joe Biden is in office. Despite his honorable efforts, the Saudis do not forget the way he blew up the regime after Khashoggi’s assassination and while he was still in opposition.
This does not mean that Saudi Arabia has stopped needing the US. What the latter discover with surprise, however, is that it does not need them in order to maintain its “foot” in the Arabian Peninsula, but in order to emerge as a local superpower and regulator of the situation in the wider Middle East. Which it has the ability to do, mainly because of its leadership role in OPEC+ and the fact that it is one of the world’s largest oil producers and largely a regulator of global black gold prices. Riyadh believes that the US has not supported it enough in its interests in Syria and Yemen – something the rest of the world sees, of course, as the complete opposite – and sees Washington as having other priorities than maintaining its alliance. But mostly, Saudi Arabia believes that the US can no longer provide the guarantees it needs for its security and defense. Saudi Arabia is rich and huge, but strategically lags behind its hostile neighbors.
In the past decade, this anxiety of Riyadh, on the verge of paranoia, became obvious, through the strategic alliances it pursues, such as the recent one with China, but also through the rapprochement it attempts with its traditional enemies, Iran, Turkey and Syria. In this context, Saudi Arabia is now in conflict with US policy in the region, which wants to isolate Iran and control the region from afar. Oil and economic power are no longer enough for the Saudis. They want – and have declared that they will do it – to develop into a more modern country, to limit their isolation, to become a technologically and culturally and touristically advanced country. All these require money, which they have, but also require stability, which they do not have. And in order to obtain it, they mostly seek to get along with everyone; in degrees and according to their own interests. The tenet of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US until now has been “cheap oil for arms and support”. Now Riyadh is on the one hand turning to other partners, on the other hand aiming to create its own strategic autonomy. An autonomy that will allow it to have equally good relations with the USA, China and Russia, without depending on any of them. In 2022, Saudi Arabia restored its relations with Turkey and is now doing the same with Iran. Then, it’s Israel’s turn. Because if he is on good terms with Tehran, he will be able to reach out to Israel without fear of being accused of creating a regional alliance against another Muslim country.
In the midst of all this, Saudi Arabia announced its intention to invite Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to an Arab League summit in Riyadh next May. This move will officially mark the reintegration of the “bad boy” of the Arab world, after a decade of isolation. The summit will take place on May 19 and will follow the re-opening of the Syrian and Saudi embassies in Riyadh and Damascus respectively. All this is being done in the context of the “normalization” agreement, the terms of which Saudi Arabia imposed on Syria, during a visit by Macher al-Assad, Bashar’s brother, to Riyadh in mid-March. Assad is gradually returning to the arms of the “brother” Arab states, he had visited Oman last February for the first time since the start of the civil war in his country and the United Arab Emirates shortly after, but none of this can give him the legalization he wants as much as the Saudi “stamp” of approval. And Saudi Arabia is assuming the leadership role it so desperately wants. The US strongly opposes “normalization” and Assad’s return to prominence, with some of the countries in the region on its side, such as Qatar. But no one seems to pay attention to them.
The oil game and the movement of OPEC+
The ambassador of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the UN, Princess Rima bint Badar Al Saud, had said, last October, that “this kingdom is not the kingdom it was five years ago nor the kingdom it was ten years ago. So any analysis that was done then about Saudi Arabia is no longer relevant.” She added, however, that Saudi Arabia’s alliance with the US is “far-reaching and robust, although it needs to be reviewed.” The convergence of the broader strategic interests of China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia undoubtedly lays the foundation for a new geopolitical reality in the Middle East.
The US is facing a huge challenge. It is clear that they are losing the upper hand in the region, as they can no longer make any demands from their allies in the Arab world. As one Saudi official put it, “The US does not understand that our alliance with them cannot come at the cost of our own interests.” And these interests do not include either the war with Iran or the confrontation with China. Many analysts believe that the Middle East is unlikely to turn into a battleground between the US and China, mainly because the latter is not particularly interested in playing regional political games, more concerned with cornering the US. And the economy.
The game is more in the hands of Saudi Arabia itself, which is also the main exporter of oil to China. And China in turn is the largest buyer of oil from Saudi Arabia. These transactions, however, are made in dollars, a currency with which the Saudi Arabian economy is currently completely linked. Saudi Arabia wants to gradually disengage from the dollar, but also from oil as a mainstay of its economy, knowing that in the long run it will be forced to do so anyway. The war in Ukraine has given her extra time, but that too will end someday. To do this, in addition to alliances, he needs a lot of money, which he collects from oil, often creating artificial crises in their prices, as he did a few days ago.
The announcement that it is cutting production, like the other OPEC+ countries, raised the price of oil by 6%. The US also reacted immediately to a related panic as it wants to keep energy costs down and contain inflation, one of its main problems at the moment, if not the main one. OPEC+ has about 40% of global oil production, with Saudi Arabia being the largest producer and considered the group’s de facto leader. The cut in production caught everyone by surprise, as oil prices were already high and their rise is certain to put a lot of pressure on inflation in Western countries and risk leading to another financial crisis. And all this while Biden is already under pressure and has elections next year. In addition, a day before the meeting of OPEC+ member countries, in which the reduction was decided, representatives of the countries hinted that they will keep production as it is. Then, they changed their minds. It is the second time in six months that OPEC+ has ignored US calls and cut production. The first was last October. At the time, Biden said he was “disappointed by this short-sighted decision”. Now he is probably too confused to make any comment.
