Even in its period of lame ducks, the Trump Administration has not finished pushing diplomatic agreements in the Middle East. In December, Morocco moved to normalize relations with Israel and now Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain will end their blockade of Qatar for three and a half years. If the Biden Administration is wise, it will take advantage of the greatest unity among American allies in the Middle East as a bulwark against Iranian regional misdeeds.
Qatar, an oil-rich nation in the Persian Gulf that hosts a U.S. air base, has been at odds with neighboring monarchies for years. In June 2017, four Arab countries announced a boycott, which halted air travel and disrupted trade. Qatar was barely an irreproachable victim in the dispute, as it supported the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist causes in Libya and elsewhere. As we wrote then, perhaps the calculation was needed to send a warning to Doha.
But in a new agreement signed in Saudi Arabia, and negotiated by Kuwait and Trump’s tsar in the Middle East, Jared Kushner, the blockade of Qatar is largely over. Flights between neighboring Arab states and countries expressed goodwill will resume. Trade and investment can also recover.
It seems that the agreement aims to match deeper ideological fissures between Qatar and the conservative Gulf monarchies, rather than heal them. Doha agreed to withdraw legal claims against the countries, but made no public commitments to reduce their disruptive behavior. However, the risk of continued division in the Gulf was that Qatar would move closer to Turkey and, above all, to Iran, with which it shares a maritime border.
Some members of the Biden Administration may be eager to punish Saudi Arabia given its human rights record, but the move shows Riyadh is making concessions to improve stability in its neighborhood. Biden’s team has shown its eagerness to rejoin Iran’s nuclear deal, but Tuesday’s deal shows that Arab monarchies are coming together in part to balance Iran.