From time to time, America deceives one of its allies in the Middle East. “Who lost Iran?” they asked in 1979, as the shah’s regime was on the sidelines, the answer was Jimmy Carter and the State Department. “Who lost Egypt?” asked in 2012, when the Muslim Brotherhood took power, the answer was Barack Obama and the State Department.
“Who lost Israel?” will soon be added to this perplexed tornado. The answer will be President Biden and the State Department.
But this time, America will lose the region in general, to its historic rival, Russia. Iran’s misdeeds will escalate again and Washington’s Arab and Israeli allies will move on without anyone losing much sleep of what the White House thinks about anything. This is a deliberate strategic choice and will lead to the collapse of American influence in West Asia.
The Biden team seems determined to regain the agreement with Iran at all costs. Costs include completing the Jewish state Democrats’ section and thoroughly alienating Sunni Arab customers in the United States. By reactivating the nuclear deal, moreover, Washington will repeat a failed experiment in hopes of having different results.
The Iranian regime will not accept a tougher deal than the 2015 deal and the Biden administration is Obama 3.0: the same team seeks to rehabilitate its reputation and not guarantee the national interest. The Obama-Bidenites will accept any humiliation of Tehran and call it a diplomatic advance.
The Obama-Biden Mideast squad, which favors much of Washington’s foreign policy connoisseurs, is about abandoning American allies and perversely empowering the Tehran regime, putting it in what Henry Kissinger called “a flat road.” towards a nuclear weapon “.
Former President Donald Trump rejected this staff. He knew bankruptcy when he saw it and told Americans what the rest of the world already knows: his experts are crazy, his Middle East policies are a catalog of failures.
Trump withdrew the deal with Iran and chose restraint. And it destroyed the “land for peace” paradigm between Israel and the Palestinians and forged peace agreements between the Jewish state and four Arab states.
Fortunately, much of Trump’s legacy is closed. The Biden team cannot recover the Abraham Accords or return the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv. Now no one imagines the total Israeli withdrawal from the disputed territories known as the West Bank.
The only area where Trump’s legacy is not closed is the deal with Iran. Don’t believe the new Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, when he says the administration wants an expanded deal or the administration will consult with U.S. allies. The Biden team is a revival of the Obama administration and inherits the ignorance and arrogance that caused Ayatollah Khamenei to blow his nose at Obama in the desert sands.
Biden’s team has already indicated that it wants to re-evaluate relations with Saudi Arabia and has removed Yemen’s Hutis from the terrorist list as a soup in Iran. The Prime Minister of Israel has had to wait for his call from Biden.
The Bidenites could imagine putting the most serious and needy allies in the United States in their place. But in reality, the Biden team is only accelerating the arrival of a post-American Middle East.
The Israelis have reported that they assassinated Iranian nuclear planner Mohsen Fakhrizadeh without any US involvement and with minimal warning in Washington. The Saudis are moving towards open relations with Israel, as the anti-Tehran front hardens.
Russia has already replaced America as the region’s main foreign power, and Netanyahu would probably prefer to deal with Vladimir Putin over Biden. Turkey pushes Syria and Iraq.
Meanwhile, Chinese investment is pouring. If the United States loses control of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf in particular, it loses control of the most valuable waterways in the world.
So the question is not so much, “Who lost Israel?” like “Is the United States losing the entire Middle East?” And the answer must be yes.
This prospect alarms American Jews and evangelical Christians, but Israel will be fine without Washington. His new friends need his technological and military power, and his new bosses don’t share the left-wing boutique fetish for Palestinians.
However, the United States will not be well: it will be reduced to a decaying and irrelevant power, capable of blocking only small movements, and will remain outside the world of the 21st century.
Dominic Green is the American assistant editor of The Spectator.
Twitter: @DrDominicGreen