Trouble in the Gulf will require more than arms

Here are the speaking notes I used yesterday at the Third Annual Conference of the Gulf International Forum:

1. The Gulf today is engulfed with multiple dimensions of conflict and instability.
2. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are still at odds with Qatar as well as with Turkey and Iran about leadership in the region and the role of political Islam in the Muslim world.
3. The US is pursuing a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran that has repercussions throughout the Gulf and the Levant, especially Iran and Iraq.
4. Iran is responding with “maximum resistance,” which includes continued support for the wars on their own people by Bashar al Assad and the Houthis as well as shifting Iranian foreign policy in the direction of Beijing and Moscow.
5. Global warming, declining oil prices, youth bulges, sectarian resentments, and COVID-19 are challenging the ability of Gulf states to maintain their social contract: authoritarian stability and material prosperity in exchange for political quiescence.
   US Interests and Disinterest in the Region
6. US priorities in the Gulf have shifted. Oil is far less important economically and politically than it once was, and America’s main terrorism threat is domestic, not international.
7. Higher priority in Washington now goes to countering the spread of weapons of mass destruction and limiting the influence of rival powers in the Middle East.
8. The problem for the United States is that none of its interests in the Gulf are well-served by coercion, but neither are they well-served by withdrawal, which hurts partners and allies, even giving them incentives to develop nuclear weapons, while opening new opportunities for rivals.
9. Whoever is elected President next month, the US interest in reducing its commitment to the Gulf will continue, but it needs to be done without endangering friends and encouraging adversaries or unleashing a regional arms race.
10. Biden and Trump should be expected to behave differently in pursuing US goals.
11. President Trump is impatient and transactional. He will likely pull the plug on US troops in places not prepared to protect or pay for them (Iraq and Syria). The “Abrahamic” agreements are transactional: Israel gets recognition in exchange for its help in sustaining Gulf autocracies.
12. Biden did not invent this idea, but he isn’t opposed to it.
13. Where the candidates differ is on Palestine and on governance in the Arab world. Biden continues to favor a two-state outcome for Israel and Palestine, whereas Trump and his Israeli partners seek to eliminate any possibility of creating a viable Palestinian state.
14. While safeguarding Israel’s security, Biden would push for a better deal for the Palestinians than the one Trump has offered. He would also be less tolerant of Gulf human rights abuses.
15. Biden and Trump also differ on the value of the Iran nuclear deal, but it is important to recognize that they share the same goal: to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
16. Trump’s approach is “maximum pressure,” mainly through unilateral sanctions but also including the threat of kinetic action. He aims to force Iran back to the negotiating table to negotiate a “better deal” that would include regional issues, missiles, and extending and expanding the nuclear agreement.
17. Biden wants to negotiate with Iran on the same issues but is prepared to lift some sanctions to incentivize a return to the status quo ante: Iranian and US compliance with the nuclear deal. Whichever candidate wins, Iran is unlikely to change course before its June election, if then.

A Much-Needed Regional Security Framework

20. Neither Trump nor Biden rules out war with Iran, which would be catastrophic for the Gulf states. Doha has the most to lose.
21. But war is not an attractive proposition for Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Manama either. Israel and the Gulf states don’t want Iran to get nuclear weapons and will cooperate to prevent it, but the Arabs will not want to risk joining Israel and the US in an overt conventional war with Iran whose winner may be predictable but whose consequences could be catastrophic for the Gulf.
22. President Trump has been a welcome figure in the Arab Gulf, especially in Saudi Arabia. He has shielded the Kingdom and its Crown Prince from accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and continued the Obama Administration’s support for the Yemen war, despite growing bipartisan discomfort in the US.
23. Because of his human rights commitments, Biden will be less favored in the Gulf. He will not be sword dancing in Riyadh or cheering the war in Yemen.
24. But the differences should not obscure the similarities. The two candidates share the desire to reduce US commitments in the Gulf and the interest in preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Several of their predecessors also had these goals and failed to achieve them.
25. The reason is all too clear: the Americans have relied too heavily on coercion and too little on diplomacy.
26. The United States has enormous destructive military, political, and economic power. But that alone cannot build what is needed: a regional security network that will reduce threat perceptions in all the Gulf states, Iran included, decrease incentives to develop nuclear weapons, and prevent encroachments by rival powers.
27. This framework will require a stronger diplomatic nexus of mutual understanding, restraint, and respect. Continued low-intensity and gray zone conflict, or a real war, will make that much more difficult to achieve. The Gulf is not a military challenge, but rather a diplomatic one.