https://agsiw.org/what-the-new-congress-means-for-u-s-gulf-relations/‘

2019 could be a tough year on Capitol Hill for Gulf Arab countries

With the monthlong shutdown of much of the federal government finally resolved, at least for now, the new Congress – especially the incoming Democratic majority in the House of Representatives – can begin to enact its agenda for U.S. domestic and international policy. Several Gulf-related issues are set to be prominent items at least through 2019, and possibly until the next presidential election in 2020. For Saudi Arabia, in particular, and also for its closest regional ally, the United Arab Emirates, 2019 will involve unusually intense and difficult relations with the House Democratic majority and also some internationalist Republicans in the Senate.

President Donald J. Trump has a low and declining approval rate, and many of his opponents sense a growing vulnerability as he begins the second half of his term. Many attacks will center on domestic issues, but foreign policy will be an important secondary battleground. U.S. politics have become intensely divisive, and the Cold War tradition of a consensus-based foreign policy is rapidly eroding. Some Gulf Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia, have been drawn into these partisan and political arguments in a manner that makes their interests unusually vulnerable and attractive targets. The upcoming challenge will therefore not merely be a matter of fending off criticism and restrictions but also one of rebuilding frayed relations and emphasizing broad national partnerships rather than alliances with specific politicians.

Because of the partial shutdown, few committee meetings have been scheduled beyond preliminary ones in late January. And most early attention will be focused on hot-button domestic legislative imperatives and political controversies, such as the deployment of the military at the U.S.-Mexican border. However, key Gulf-related issues are likely to make their way onto the legislative agenda, including the Yemen war, the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, new sanctions against Iran, domestic repression in Saudi Arabia, the boycott of Qatar, nuclear energy negotiations with Saudi Arabia, numerous high-level weapons sales to various regional allies, and possibly the patronizing of Trump’s private businesses, such as his Washington, DC hotel, by Gulf governments.

Three Hot Buttons: Yemen, Khashoggi, and Women Prisoners

The Yemen conflict has already become a congressional flashpoint. In mid-December 2018, the Senate adopted, by 56-to-41, a measure instructing the Trump administration to remove all U.S. forces from “hostilities” in Yemen in accordance with the War Powers Resolution. The measure exempts all counterterrorism actions aimed at al-Qaeda, generally undertaken in partnership with the UAE in southern Yemen. Yet the UAE, like Saudi Arabia, may face mounting criticism regarding its own counterterrorism and counterinsurgency activities in Yemen, especially the alleged torture of detainees in UAE-run prisons. The bill was also a historic reassertion of legislative prerogatives regarding war making and has far broader implications than just the war in Yemen for the use of U.S. forces in conflicts around the world. But Trump supporters in the Senate like Republican John Kennedy from Louisiana have warned against lawmakers “cowboying” the issue and admonished lawmakers to work through the White House. It remains to be seen how far Trump’s Republican allies in the Senate who want to more gently pressure him on foreign policy will be willing to go in siding with Democrats in the House who will be trying to attack the administration much more forthrightly. With the House set to consider its own resolution early in the year, that may be tested soon.

It is a testament to the mounting concern about U.S. involvement in the Yemen conflict that this issue could prove a turning point in Congress’ long-standing de facto transfer of war-making powers entirely to the White House. It’s possible that some senators, especially Republicans, who voted for the resolution did so because there was no real possibility of a similar bill being adopted in the House in 2018 because of a leadership maneuver that kept it from coming to the floor. Nonetheless, the resolution demonstrates a recent conflation of a number of concerns, including perceptions of the war in Yemen, the state of U.S.-Saudi relations (especially in the aftermath of the Khashoggi murder), growing doubts about the Trump administration’s handling of U.S. international interests in general, and even the fledgling reassertion of a range of congressional powers ceded to the executive branch in recent decades.

That same day, the Senate also adopted a nonbinding “sense of the Senate” resolution generally criticizing the Saudi government for the Yemen war, the boycott of Qatar, domestic repression, and the Khashoggi murder. Yet even such nonbinding bills affect the atmosphere of U.S.-Saudi relations and serve as a clear rebuke to the Trump administration, pushing it to adopt more traditional U.S. approaches, especially regarding human rights. Unsurprisingly, it was greeted with an unusually strong rejection and protest by the Saudi government, which clearly understands the stakes.

One of the bill’s sponsors, Republican Mike Lee from Utah, called attention to the interplay between the Khashoggi murder and the Yemen war saying, “What the Khashoggi event did, I think, was to focus on the fact that we have been led into this civil war in Yemen, half a world away, into a conflict in which few Americans that I know can articulate what American national security interest is at stake.” And several senior lawmakers, some with long histories of warm ties to Saudi Arabia such as Republican Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, after being formally briefed by the CIA have specifically held Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also the defense minister, responsible for the killing and implied that the United States should not deal directly with him on any issue from now on.

This confluence of issues is likely to continue throughout 2019, and possibly into 2020. A variety of factors ensured that the Khashoggi murder had a much larger impact in Washington than most comparable incidents, and there will be efforts to add Saudi domestic repression to this list of concerns. Already, efforts to pressure both the Trump administration and the Saudi government regarding treatment of detainees, especially women’s rights activists, some of whom have reportedly been tortured, is growing. Indeed, Khashoggi’s employer at the time of his death, The Washington Post, which has been leading a highly successful campaign to keep the issue in the public consciousness long after it might otherwise have faded, has explicitly attempted to link these issues. In an official January 26 editorial, The Post called on Congress to “stand up for imprisoned Saudi women” if the administration can’t or won’t.

Such calls are likely to grow throughout 2019 unless prominent women and other Saudi domestic prisoners are released. Indeed, the three most common complaints in Washington against Saudi Arabia – the Yemen war, the Khashoggi murder, and imprisoned women – are likely to be further conflated, or at least uttered in the same breath, by Riyadh’s critics in Washington. Both the House and Senate are likely to hold hearings on each of these three issues in 2019.

Weapons Sales

“Sense of” the House or Senate resolutions, or other pieces of nonbinding legislation, are obviously significant but primarily symbolic. Congress’ foreign policy powers are relatively limited, especially where significant foreign aid is not at stake. However, weapons sales need to be approved, or at least not blocked, by Congress to be successfully completed. Not only is this one area in which Congress could act effectively and pursuant to its traditional role, it would also demonstrate the legislature’s seriousness toward its two main audiences: the White House and the Saudi government. Trump has consistently emphasized U.S. weapon sales to Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, as the prime feature of U.S.-Gulf relationships. And there is no doubt that Gulf Arab countries would be extremely concerned to find their weapons purchases opposed by congressional action.

Among the most obvious potential targets are approximately 120,000 precision guided munitions kits that Saudi Arabia has been trying to purchase to replenish stocks expended in the Yemen conflict. These were temporarily blocked, first by the administration of former President Barack Obama, then by former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker, and most recently by Senate groups including Democrats. Because they are directly related to the conflict in Yemen, this sale is an obvious potential target. However, against demands not to contribute to this bloody conflict, the administration and others will argue that without precision guidance, coalition munitions are more likely to go astray, killing civilians. In short, an effort to block precision guidance systems for munitions could be self-defeating if the intention is to reduce the number of civilians killed. If, however, it is simply to communicate U.S. impatience with the Yemen conflict and desire not to contribute to it in any way, even by making targeting more precise, those messages would be sent.

In addition, there are several Yemen-related aircraft sale and service contracts that could be targeted, as well as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system. The latter is not only entirely defensive in nature and a huge, $15 billion, contract, the United States is also now in competition with Russia, whose S-400 system is touted as a potential alternative to THAAD in fending off incoming high-altitude missiles, presumably launched from Iran. Therefore, in the long run, THAAD is likely to be approved, and if it’s not, that will be the ultimate testament to a devastating deterioration in U.S.-Saudi relations, at least at the congressional level. For all the current disquiet, and even exasperation, this does not yet appear to be the case. But if Democrats in the House find that pressuring Saudi Arabia is an effective means of harassing the Trump administration, it could become an appealing potential strategy. The UAE may also face opposition to its long-standing efforts to purchase the cutting-edge fifth-generation F-35 jets, based on renewed concerns about human rights abuses in Yemen and the U.S. commitment to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge over any potential regional adversaries.

Positive Factors and Other Issues

But the news isn’t all bad for Saudi Arabia and its allies. These same forces in Congress, Democratic and internationalist Republican, show few signs of being inclined to disrupt or complicate the Trump administration’s new sanctions on Iran. Even many who opposed the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear agreement do not seem to want to come to Tehran’s aid and support, whether grudgingly or enthusiastically, the new campaign of “maximum pressure.” Israel’s backing for these policies is a key factor, but so is deep-seated suspicion of Iran throughout the U.S. political spectrum. These same concerns could mean that, insofar as it plays any role at all, Congress could seek to slow and even limit the U.S. withdrawal from Syria and any efforts to draw down further in Iraq. Therefore, the new Congress could serve as something of a brake on those aspects of the administration’s developing “America first” foreign policy.

There are many issues Congress does not appear inclined to embrace at this stage. There is no groundswell for pushing the administration to choose sides in the Qatar boycott controversy, where Washington has urged a resolution but not made relations with any of the principals contingent on any specific outcome. Saudi Arabia isn’t necessarily counting on the United States to be its primary supplier in efforts to create a fledgling domestic Saudi civilian nuclear energy program, so any continued congressional opposition to that won’t matter much.

Lawsuits pursuant to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which allows U.S. citizens to sue Saudi Arabia over the 9/11 attacks, appear to be thoroughly mired in the courts and will probably not be an issue again confronting Congress for some time, if at all. But Riyadh faces pressure from some lawmakers over allegedly providing help to Saudis fleeing serious criminal charges in the United States. Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley from Oregon say Saudi Arabia may have helped up to five Saudis flee their state of Oregon when facing trial for major offenses such as manslaughter. Not surprisingly, these legislators linked these complaintsto the Khashoggi killing and “a brazen pattern of disregard for the law” by the Saudi government.

Gulf Arab countries may find themselves drawn into congressional and other investigations into potential emoluments clause violations regarding foreign governments patronizing Trump’s hotels and other businesses. There have also been some media reports regarding interest by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation regarding a potential UAE role in what may have been back-channel meetings involving Trump campaign officials and Russian operatives. All this may be further investigated and become a growing headache for the administration, and poor publicity for the countries concerned, but ultimately not a major problem for Gulf governments that are not subject to U.S. laws and domestic political restrictions.

How Gulf Countries Can Adapt

Gulf Arab countries will probably want to work with Congress to cushion the ongoing, albeit slow, U.S. disengagement from the Middle East and the Gulf region that began under Obama and is continuing under Trump. Though the disengagement seems virtually irreversible, it could be intensified or attenuated, and Congress will play an important role. The Trump administration has thus far adopted a Janus-faced, confounding attitude toward the Middle East. On one hand, the president and his officials trumpet the restoration of U.S. leadership and paint pictures of the United States operating with new resolve and effectiveness, especially in the Middle East. But on the other hand, they emphasize burden sharing and self-reliance among allies even more than the Obama administration did. Trump’s apparent determination to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria will be viewed by many as another unmistakable indication that, rhetoric aside, Washington is continuing to draw down its Middle East presence and allow other actors in, notably Russia, which is resuming a regional role from which it was effectively excluded for decades.

Finally, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others will need to move quickly to repair frayed ties with Democrats and some Republicans to ensure that Washington at large views their alliance as one with the United States rather than the Trump administration. All these specific legislative and policy challenges must be secondary to the broader task of reminding a bipartisan swath of U.S. leaders why the United States and Gulf Arab countries have had such an important and long-lasting partnership and how dangerous the alternatives would be for both sides. In the current atmosphere of hyperpartisanship, traditional, broad-based U.S. foreign policy consensuses can be misread as merely reflecting the imperatives of one specific domestic political orientation to the exclusion of others. What used to be a bipartisan agreement on Middle East policy – alliance with Gulf countries, opposition to Iranian ambitions, etc. – might now be recast as just “liberal,” “conservative,” or “America first” policies that others feel a need to repudiate whenever possible, and especially if they regain power. That may be the greatest danger currently facing U.S.-Gulf relations, and one that certainly supersedes all the more tactical policy battles.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/venezuela-s-failings-look-a-lot-like-those-of-some-arab-nations-1.818334

The one thing mercifully missing in the South American country so far is a major outbreak of terrorism, or ethnic or sectarian conflict

Arabs should readily recognise much of the drama now unfolding in Venezuela, no matter how geographically and culturally distant it may seem.

On Wednesday, legislative leader Juan Guaido declared himself president, instead of Nicolas Maduro, the hand-picked successor of the late president Hugo Chavez.

Most key western hemisphere states, including the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina have recognised Mr Guaido, because the election recently won by Mr Maduro was plainly fraudulent.

However, Mexico, Cuba and other regional leftist governments continue to stand behind Mr Maduro. More importantly, the Venezuelan military shows few signs of abandoning him either.

Venezuela’s role as a major oil exporter is just the start of it. The bane of the contemporary Arab world is state failure, especially in countries shaken by the Arab Spring uprisings, and space for non-state and terrorist groups remains all-too common throughout the region.

Venezuelan misrule under Chavez and Mr Maduro has many echoes of the crisis of the Arab state. Not surprisingly, the Venezuelan regime is a close ally of Iran and Bashar Al Assad in Syria. It also never wavered in its backing of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

So far, Venezuela has been able to avoid the bloodshed that laid waste to Syria, Iraq, Libya and other Arab states.

However, the tragedy of Venezuela centres on the political corruption or replacement of national institutions by a ruthless and self-serving new political class, who hoarded power, and then money, for themselves and their cronies. By now they have managed to plunder the entire country.

It’s a stunning national collapse.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Venezuela’s oil wealth, relative sophistication and dysfunctional but tolerant democracy made it the wealthiest South American country per capita, and one of the more advanced in the developing world.

But the traditional Venezuelan elite squandered popular support through endless petty infighting, government deadlock and indifference to vast and unacceptable social, economic and ethnic inequalities amid the nation’s growing prosperity.

These conditions presented the perfect opportunity for a demagogue.

After Chavez came to power as a populist outsider, a new political elite centred around him systematically ransacked a national economy more dependent on petroleum exports than any Arab state.

In the name of the poor, institutions such as the state oil company were looted and used mainly for political patronage.

Venezuelans rely heavily on access to foreign currency. But Chavez restricted access to extremely low official exchange rates to a favoured few, while an enormous, murky and immensely costly black market developed for US dollars. That deliberately created, in effect, two currencies, one for the regime and its cronies and another for everyone else. Regime insiders have exploited this two-tiered system to, almost literally, wrench every crumb from ordinary people on an endless and daily basis.

As long as oil was highly priced, they were just about getting away with it.

But under Mr Maduro, the Venezuelan kleptocracy gambled that oil would keep rising to about $200 a barrel. Now, however, prices stand at around $53.

Added to all of that is a tightly controlled marketplace with absurdly low, government-mandated prices for basic goods, and many other disincentives for local production.

It’s a recipe for economic collapse and the worst hyperinflation in modern history, which Venezuela is experiencing.

No Arab country has mirrored this precise scenario, but most of these elements have cropped up in various parts of the Arab world in recent decades.

Venezuela’s experiment with dismantling existing institutional structures and replacing them with new ones that are strictly subservient to a new, narrow political leadership – all in the name of the nation and the people – is starkly reminiscent of many Arab republics, including Nasserite Egypt and Baathist Syria and Iraq.

Disastrous consequences follow inevitably from such folly and mendacity, both here and there.

The one thing mercifully missing in Venezuela so far is a major outbreak of terrorism, or ethnic or sectarian conflict. However, there is a nefarious foreign power involved: Cuba.

In a depressingly familiar blunder, the new Venezuelan political elite have outsourced much of their most important decision-making to Cuba, with the bizarre consequence that the weaker and poorer of these partners has control bordering on hegemony over the other

Today, Venezuela stands on a precipice.

It will either begin to reconstruct itself with the help of regional and international powers, or it will stick with Cuba and continue to devour itself, driving millions more impoverished refugees into the same neighbouring states that once supplied Venezuela’s cheapest labour.

The most disturbing scenario, of course, is that the military and police could split, starting a protracted battle for power.

Much of the military is close to the population. The rank and file, and the middle levels must, like their families, be desperate for change.

However, senior military officers and institutions are deeply implicated in organised criminal activities, especially vast drug-running enterprises, and may fear exposure and punishment, or even just the loss of their lucrative rackets, if they turn on their civilian partners.

A Venezuelan ISIS is unlikely to emerge, but a conflict between regime loyalists and disaffected groups is alarmingly plausible and may soon become unavoidable.

The countries recognising Mr Guaido are correctly encouraging Venezuela – and especially its military – to avoid such a catastrophe. Recent Arab experiences confirm that, for all their suffering, Venezuelans have yet to experience the cruellest scenarios that heinous misgovernment can inflict.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/donald-trump-doubling-down-on-the-us-government-shutdown-is-a-highly-calculated-move-1.815369

Insisting on funding for his border wall plays to his nativist base – his fallback as controversy mounts over possible Russian collusion.

This weekend, the US government shutdown – the longest in history – will enter its fifth week. As public outrage grows, many elected Republicans are becoming markedly distressed that their party, and especially US president Donald Trump, are being blamed.

Mr Trump originally claimed that he would be “proud” to force the shutdown if Congress refused him $5 billion for his border wall and pledged not to blame the Democrats. Yet as soon as the shutdown began, he was quick to accuse them of being responsible –but Americans aren’t buying it. A Reuters poll earlier this month found more than half blamed him for the shutdown while only one in four backed his stance.

Both the wall and the shutdown are generally unpopular. So why is Mr Trump insisting on this dangerous and apparently self-destructive showdown?

Most explanations focus on his personality. He is stubborn and does not want to accept defeat. He is also politically naive and got into this stand-off without a viable strategy for winning or ending it.

But in fact, this political highwire act reflects Mr Trump at his most canny and calculating.

Senate Republicans are furious because they voted for a politically hazardous budget compromise with Democrats after Vice President Mike Pence assured both sides the president would support it.

But when far-right commentators excoriated Mr Trump for backing down on wall funding, he refused to sign the interim spending bill and initiated the shutdown.

Mr Trump is convinced that his anti-immigrant stance, through which he poses as the champion of white American nativist interests, was key to his 2016 victory and will be critical to his re-election in 2020. But he needs his political base to stand firmly behind him, not just in two years but in the coming weeks.

The president is looking increasingly exposed, legally and politically. Questions about his relationship with Russia are intensifying. This weekend, the plot thickened when the news site Buzzfeed reported that the president allegedly ordered his former lawyer Michael Cohen, currently serving three years in prison, to lie to Congress by denying that work on a skyscraper project in Russia continued well into the 2016 campaign. Special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the election, took the rare step of issuing a statement to dispute the story’s accuracy.

Suspicions are growing about the nature of the relationship between the president and Moscow. Mr Trump seriously discussed withdrawing the US from Nato last year, Russia’s ultimate strategic goal. Meanwhile his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who was convicted of financial crimes last year, is now accused of passing campaign data to Russia. Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani denied Mr Trump colluded with Russia but suggested others in the campaign might have done so. Most perturbingly, the FBI initiated an unprecedented counter-intelligence investigation into whether the sitting president was a national security threat acting on behalf of Moscow.

The investigation began after Mr Trump fired then FBI director James Comey in May 2017, saying he was fed up because “this Russia thing” was a “made-up story” and reportedly telling senior Russian officials, according to the New York Times, that he had been under “great pressure” but now “that’s taken off”.

Mr Mueller’s statement in response to the Buzzfeed story was exceptionally vague and could mean that the story is false – or that his office wants to distance itself from the leak, thought to come from two anonymous law enforcement sources. Buzzfeed has not identified its sources but they could be New York prosecutors rather than part of the Mueller team.

If Mr Trump suborned perjury before Congress, his presidency would be effectively over. More than just a serious crime, obstruction of justice was central to the articles of impeachment tabled against both Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat Bill Clinton.

While Mr Mueller’s statement casts significant doubt on the specific claim, many legal and political walls still seem to be closing in on Mr Trump.

Impeachment is no longer a far-fetched scenario. Indeed, Mr Trump could find himself in the dock in 2021 rather than back in the Oval Office.

Even if he never faces such extreme legal jeopardy, his political vulnerability is only going to intensify as Democrats in the House of Representatives begin investigating his activities with the vast congressional oversight powers that Republicans have so far failed to deploy.

So Mr Trump needs his base to stick with him. He must ensure that they and extreme right-wing pundits continue to regard him as an indispensable leader and hold Senate Republicans in line.

The issue that cements Mr Trump to his nativist base is opposition to immigration, as symbolised by the wall.

Mr Trump appears to be preparing to propose a compromise to the Democrats. But he has also threatened to declare a national emergency as an autocratic way to bypass the political process and fund the wall, despite Congress’s otherwise absolute power of the purse.

Even if he ultimately fails to secure funding for the wall, as seems likely, as long as his base believes he is doing everything possible to fight tooth and nail for it, he can probably retain their devotion.

For Mr Trump, that’s not just a re-election strategy. It is a survival strategy for the here-and-now.

https://agsiw.org/gulf-re-engagement-with-assad-regime-signals-new-phase-in-the-struggle-for-syria/

With the war over, Arab countries re-engage with the Assad regime to ensure their interests in the future of Syria.

On December 27, 2018, the United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus, which had been shuttered for almost eight years during the bitter and bloody civil war that has torn Syria apart. Kuwait and Bahrain quickly announced they would follow suit. But these were only the most dramatic in a series of Gulf and other Arab moves to re-engage with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, signaling the initiation of a new phase in the seemingly endless regional “struggle for Syria.”

Now, rather than seeking to influence the outcome of the conflict, which was, in effect, determined at the national level by the regime’s victory in Aleppo in January 2017, outside players such as Gulf Arab countries will need to pursue their interests exclusively by political, diplomatic, and economic means. Since the fall of Aleppo, it’s been clear that the Gulf Arab countries would have little choice but to re-engage with the Assad regime. But, they could attempt to replicate the relative success they have had in Iraq undermining Iranian hegemony through positive inducements such as aid, trade, and political support, with an eye toward the reintegration of Iraq and Syria into the regional Arab orbit by emphasizing their Arab identity and heritage.

While a few years ago the Iranian position in most of Iraq may have appeared unassailable, today Iran is struggling to maintain its influence and keep various clients from adopting more independent stances. The formation of the new government in Iraq has been acceptable but hardly optimal from an Iranian point of view, and U.S. and Gulf interests seem to have fared relatively better than Iran’s in recent political developments in Iraq. In Syria, too, there should be much to work with, but re-engagement with the Assad regime is a bitter pill for many Arabs because of the hundreds of thousands of people killed and millions displaced, mainly by the regime, in the brutal civil war over most of the past decade.

It’s not surprising that the UAE took the lead in re-engaging with the government in Damascus. The UAE was always more skeptical than some of its Gulf Arab partners of the “Arab Spring” uprisings, even when directed against such brutal regimes as those in Syria and Libya. Qatar, in particular, partnered with Turkey to support a range of rebel forces, including some hard-line Islamist groups, although not those faithful to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant or al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia funded and armed moderate and nationalist rebel groups such as the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, but also some rebel factions that were too Islamist for the UAE as well as the United States. Instead, the UAE mainly worked with U.S.- and Jordanian-led elements in southern Syria that were primarily engaged in humanitarian and intelligence work.

Not long after the fall of Aleppo, the UAE recognized that a re-engagement with Damascus was inevitable, and the only way for Gulf countries and their allies to pursue their interests in the postwar environment. The downfall of the ISIL “caliphate” remained an overriding mission, and for that and other reasons, the United States urged the UAE not to reopen its embassy in Syria. However, with the sudden U.S. decision to pull out of Syria, which has reportedly already begun, U.S. objections effectively vanished and the UAE announced its diplomatic move at the end of December, followed by Bahrain and Kuwait.

The UAE’s decision was plainly a turning point, but a broader process of Arab re-engagement with the Assad regime was already underway. Earlier in December, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir became the first Arab League head of state to visit Damascus since 2011. Jordan reopened trade ties with Syria, and Tunisia resumed direct flights to the country. Several major Arab countries had never fully broken with the Syrian regime, most notably Egypt and Algeria. The UAE itself had laid the groundwork for re-engagement throughout 2018, including preparing for new investments last summer followed by significant trips by Emirati businesspeople in August and September, resuming medical collaboration, issuing visas to Syrian tourists, and studying new real estate developments. In addition to reopening the embassy, the UAE is preparing to resume direct flights to Damascus for the first time in six years, has increased aid to Syrian refugees, and says it will send a high-level delegation to Syria soon.

The Gulf and broader Arab re-engagement with the Syrian regime is driven by more than the need to ensure that Iran does not emerge as the big winner from the Syrian civil war. Arab concerns, particularly in the Gulf and especially in Riyadh, are growing about the emergence of Turkey as a new regional hegemon. After the 2015-16 joint Russian-Iranian military intervention that saved the Assad regime from collapse, Turkish goals in Syria shifted from regime change to countering Kurdish power in northern Syria and using Syria as a crucial staging ground for an enhanced, broader regional profile. Turkish officials have increasingly said their country is the “only logical leader” of global Muslims, and have strongly hinted that Turkey, rather than Arab states or Iran, should be the dominant regional power in the Middle East.

A school of thought in the region is emerging that holds that Turkey, which is more stable, powerful, and technologically sophisticated than Iran, and possibly as ambitious, is becoming a more significant regional threat to Arab countries, and even to Israel. Iran is seen as overextended, beset by sanctions, and internally fractious, while Turkey has none of these problems and a range of other advantages, not least its membership in NATO and traditionally close ties to Washington. Therefore, the Gulf re-engagement with Syria is intended to constrain both Iran and Turkey. With the broader national Syrian civil war effectively decided, and the United States clearly pulling back from the country, the only way to do that is to establish a positive working relationship with Russia and the Assad regime. The focus would be to provide incentives to Syrian actors, especially the government, to think in terms of their own, independent, national interests, with Russia as their primary patron rather than Iran or Turkey.

This dual focus on Iran and Turkey in Syria also brings the Gulf countries closer to Israel’s regional agenda. Israel, too, has sought to limit the use of Syria by Iran and Hezbollah, especially within 40 miles of its southern and western borders with Jordan, Lebanon, and the occupied Golan Heights. Israel has backed that up with numerous airstrikes and other military actions to enforce these emerging red lines. The Israeli role in Syria is critical for Gulf Arab interests as the most direct and powerful brake on Iran’s use of Syria and a final barrier to the creation of a military corridor from Iran to Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea should the United States fully withdraw from eastern Syria.

Both Israel and Gulf countries will also continue to separately cultivate Russian influence in Syria as a counter to Iranian and Turkish dominance of key areas and to limit their future role in Syria. Meanwhile, increased Gulf Arab support for armed Kurdish groups in northern and eastern Syria, especially in crucial battlegrounds such as Afrin and Manbij, with or without direct U.S. engagement, and reconstruction aid to these areas have become crucial aspects of the quest to contain Turkish and Iranian hegemony in Syria, Iraq, and beyond.

Moreover, the intention behind regional support for the uprising and the expulsion of the Assad regime from the Arab League seven years ago was not the permanent excommunication of Syria from the Arab fold. It was rather based on the expectation that the regime was likely to eventually collapse and was a symbolic and diplomatic expression of revulsion at the brutal tactics it was using to forestall that possibility. Few anticipated the decisive intervention by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah that began in the fall of 2015, and which reversed the battlefield momentum in favor of the regime and led, ultimately, to the decisive victory in Aleppo.

Even Saudi Arabia has indicated that it would not necessarily oppose the early reintegration of Syria, despite the persistence of the Assad regime, into the Arab League. Moreover, Bahrain is unlikely to have moved to reopen its embassy in Damascus without a green light from Riyadh. The Gulf countries had already largely concluded during the presidency of Barack Obama that the United States did not intend to be a decisive force in Syria and that, for that and many other reasons, strengthening ties with Moscow was essential. This broad calculation has not shifted under President Donald J. Trump, and, indeed, has been reinforced by his insistence on the removal of all U.S. forces from Syria. But, like many influential Americans, Gulf officials will urge that this be done in a careful and gradual manner that does not play into Iranian or Turkish strategic designs. Senior U.S. officials, including the secretary of state and national security advisor, appear to agree with this, and so managing the U.S. disengagement will be an important part of the new Gulf approach to Syria.

Yet the Gulf countries have been expecting that they would sooner or later have to emphasize an arrangement with Russia, and therefore also the Assad regime, to prevent Iran and Turkey from being the primary beneficiaries of the war and hegemonic outside powers in postwar Syria. The groundwork for such a strategic transition has already been laid both with Russia and with the Assad regime. Now it is being put into practice in earnest and in the open. As with Gulf strategy in Iraq, on the surface it appears that Iran is in a dominant and an unassailable position that Gulf countries will be ill-equipped to challenge, especially by nonmilitary means. But in Iraq, the encouragement of independent national interests and identities and the resurrection of Iraq’s Arab character and need to be part of the Arab world have proved effective in undermining Iranian dominance.

There is much to work with in Syria as well. There is no reason to believe that the Assad regime wishes to remain beholden to Iranian and Hezbollah forces, or that Moscow has any interest in seeing Iran and Turkey emerge as dominant outside players in postwar Syria either. Moreover, reconstruction will be extensive and expensive and the still relatively deep pockets in the Gulf states can be put to good use in Syria, as they have been in Iraq, to offset Iranian dominion. Moreover, there are still likely very large numbers of Syrians who are alienated from their government, angered at its depredations, and totally opposed to their country being under the undue influence of Iran and Hezbollah. Better relations with the broader Arab world may be essential for the regime to reconcile with this huge segment of the Syrian population.

Gulf countries could be effective in Syria through a new strategy based on diplomatic, political, and economic re-engagement with the country and the regime. Besides, there are few if any other options. With U.S. fetters now removed, this re-engagement may proceed more quickly than many would have suspected. Indeed, it would not be surprising to see the Syrian foreign minister visiting Gulf and other Arab capitals in the near future, and possibly even attending the upcoming 30th Arab League summit in Tunis in March, though such a full rehabilitation may take longer. The Gulf Arab governments have already indicated they find a rapprochement with the Syrian regime distasteful but necessary and indeed unavoidable.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/there-is-a-disconnect-between-what-donald-trump-says-and-what-foreign-policy-hawks-think-1.812342

Syria confusion and Pompeo’s Cairo speech illustrate the vast philosophical rift rending Trump’s foreign policies

Donald Trump likes being unpredictable. He said as much many times during the presidential campaign in 2016 and three years on, he still touts the virtues of throwing others off balance.

But two recent developments in the US’s Middle Eastern policy again demonstrate that the unpredictability of his administration often arises more from incoherence and capriciousness than calculation or a strategic attempt at surprise.

Recent twists and turns in the US policy in Syria are the most dramatic examples of this. In mid-December, Mr Trump announced, via Twitter, that all US forces would be withdrawn from Syria, adding that it would happen soon.

It was something he had long signalled he wanted to do but his principal officials had spent the fortnight prior to this sudden announcement reassuring everyone – not least US allies, especially the Syrian rebel forces who had been the main ground troops in the battle against ISIS – that Washington was definitely not going to withdraw.

Some had said the US wouldn’t leave until ISIS was thoroughly defeated. Others added Washington would demand protections for its Syrian allies. And national security adviser John Bolton insisted the US wouldn’t leave Syria until Iran and its proxies had also gone.

Hence, the president’s announcement was astonishing and, as I noted at the time, it was possible and imperative that he change his mind.

Since then, he has apparently been persuaded that the withdrawal should at least be slowed and that the US must try to make sure that ISIS is further crippled and that Turkey does not massacre Washington’s Kurdish and Arab allies in Syria.

However, no one – including Mr Trump’s inner circle – really knows what the American policy in Syria really is, other than that the president is determined to go and is willing to insist that the US will eventually do that, somehow.

So anyone who wants something different from US goals in Syria simply has to wait it out, and probably not for long. Washington will most likely make a complete withdrawal and the US military says that process has already begun. Over the weekend, the US military began moving materiel out of Syria – but crucially, no troops – yet.

Had Mr Trump told his subordinates to lay the groundwork for such a shift quietly, they could have taken steps to ensure that crucial US goals regarding ISIS, Turkey and Iran were somewhat protected. They could have extracted concessions, made deals and secured strategic arrangements. But with the sudden announcement surprising even them, that opportunity was utterly squandered.

Defence secretary Jim Mattis and ISIS coalition chief Brett McGurk were shocked and aghast by the decision. Both resigned in protest.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a policy speech on Thursday at the American University of Cairo, apparently rebutting an earlier address by then-president Barack Obama at the same university eight years earlier.

Mr Pompeo criticised the “misjudgments” of the previous administration. “America hesitated”, he claimed, and as a result, terrorism flourished, Tehran’s regime sought to spread its influence to Yemen, Iraq and Syria, and Hezbollah grew in size and power in Lebanon. The US, he said, had learned from its mistakes and was once again ready to assert its power as a “force for good in the Middle East”.

Unfortunately, that is far from reality, as the unfolding fiasco in Syria plainly demonstrates. The most truthful part of his lengthy speech was noting that US choices will have significant consequences for other nations.

And notwithstanding their many differences, Mr Obama and Mr Trump have more in common than either would admit. In office, they both had the goal of reducing the overall US footprint in the Middle East. Both took significant steps to advance that aim.

Certainly, Mr Trump has imposed stinging new economic sanctions against Iran and repudiated the nuclear deal that his predecessor had negotiated. But if he completes a US withdrawal from Syria, as seems likely, Iran might be left impoverished but in a strengthened strategic position, despite the sanctions. Its regime would then surely dominate key strategic areas, including both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border.

This thoroughgoing incoherence in policy stems from a fundamental philosophical disconnect within the Trump administration and Republican Party.

Most administration officials and Republican foreign policy practitioners are interventionist hawks. They speak Mr Bolton’s and Mr Pompeo’s language of unapologetic and aggressive American leadership around the world, in the American interest and for the greater good.

Mr Trump and many of his supporters in the Republican populist base view realities very differently. They regard the global order the US has led since the Second World War as a nuisance and an indefensible burden and waste of resources. They perceive alliances as irrationally limiting American options. They only care about trade and the narrowest forms of military self-defence.

Foreign policy hawks and neo-isolationists like Mr Trump see the world in starkly different and often incompatible ways.

This dichotomy was evident in the National Security Strategy issued in December 2017. The document begins by insisting it is “guided by outcomes, not ideology” but then declares that “American principles are a lasting force for good in the world”. The contradictions embedded in the document continue throughout its text.

Trump administration officials can often only feel confident about advancing their foreign policies when the president isn’t paying close attention. But when, as with Syria, he unexpectedly takes notice for some reason, he can unexpectedly overturn the applecart.

Such incoherence cannot serve a global power seeking to secure and promote the international status quo. That is still the goal of both liberal and conservative US foreign policy experts. But Mr Trump and his nativist supporters want no part of it.

US foreign policy has not just become unpredictable. It has developed a split personality that might be useful to a rogue regime like North Korea or Iran. But for Washington and its allies, that is a disaster.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-11/saudi-arabia-and-trump-are-friends-but-the-u-s-is-the-ally


The royal family likes the president, and vice versa. That sets a dangerous trap for both sides.

Saudi Arabia has been pleased by its reinvigorated partnership with the U.S. during the administration of President Donald Trump. But the Saudi leadership has put itself in danger of becoming a partisan flashpoint in U.S. politics, which would be disastrous for both countries.

Democrats taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives seem set to use several controversies involving Saudi Arabia to attack Trump’s foreign policy.

The murder by Saudi agents of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in October, the devastation inflicted by war in Yemen, and a government crackdown on Saudi activists, including women’s-rights advocates, are all likely to be topics for Trump’s Democratic critics in coming months.

Some Republicans have expressed objections, too. Trump allies like Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida have used criticism of Saudi Arabia to try to push the president to adopt a traditionally internationalist foreign policy.

As a result, a sturdy alliance between two countries based on mutual global interests is turning into a bond between partisans fighting for political advantage. The danger is that changing political circumstances in either country could weaken an alliance that both countries need.

Trump’s first trip overseas, in 2017, began with several days in Riyadh, in which the Saudi government successfully appealed to his vanity and love of pomp.

Since then, Trump has often boasted about billions of dollars in new Saudi weapons contracts, while Saudi leaders celebrate Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal with their arch-enemy, Iran, and tough new sanctions against Tehran.

Both sides have contrasted their warm relationship with the chill that characterized former President Barack Obama’s second term.

To understand what’s at stake, it’s helpful to recall the alarm that some Israelis have expressed about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s similar bear hugs with Trump.

Netanyahu’s strong affiliation with U.S. Republicans and his hostility to Obama challenges the traditional credo that the U.S.-Israeli relationship should never be cast as partisan.

That’s why the main U.S. pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has recently cultivated Democrats in an effort to offset Republican efforts to cast their party as Israeli’s only true friend, and to push back against criticism of Israel on the left wing of the Democratic Party.

But Israel is protected by powerful U.S. political constituencies on both the left and the right that value the partnership.

Saudi Arabia doesn’t enjoy that advantage. Oil companies and defense contractors may push for exchanges like weapons sales, but no one could confuse those initiatives with an abiding commitment to Riyadh’s well-being.

And with House Democrats and internationalist Republicans preparing to pile on in the coming months, 2019 is likely to be a rough year for Saudi Arabia in Washington.

Wisdom would counsel reaching out to Democrats, as some of Israel’s biggest American supporters are.

While there have been some Saudi efforts to do that, others are falling right into the trap of seeing conservative Republicans as allies and liberal Democrats as threats.

Some prominent Saudi media organizations even took the bizarre step recently of attacking two young Muslim women, both liberal Democrats, who were just elected to U.S. House of Representatives.

Saudi articles, talk shows and tweets condemned the new congresswomen, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, as sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is part of the religious right of the Islamic world and opposes the Saudi royal family.

The logic appears to be that those who are not with Trump are in the thrall of Saudi Arabia’s two main regional antagonists, Iran and Qatar, and should be seen as threats.

If this line of attack spreads, it could well become a self-fulfilling Saudi prophecy.

The Obama administration did not abandon the alliance with Saudi Arabia in favor of a partnership with Iran, as is sometimes alleged. But Trump seems driven to do the opposite of whatever he thinks his predecessor championed.

If he’s able to persuade Americans to think of the alliance with Saudi Arabia as a link to his own administration rather than as the continuation of six decades of consistent U.S. foreign policy, Democrats may take the same attitude in the future when it comes to Riyadh.

A nightmare for Saudi Arabia would be for Democrats to start mistakenly believing that their own foreign policy agenda, supposedly inspired by Obama, would mean rejecting the partnership with Riyadh and opening up a new cooperative dialogue with Tehran.

That would be a disaster for the U.S., too. Yet serious people on both sides are inadvertently promoting it, and what was once an absurd scenario is becoming disturbingly plausible.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/republicans-will-face-tough-choices-in-a-turbulent-and-decisive-year-for-us-politics-1.809617


The chaos of a government shutdown, Congressional deadlock and a president under increasing pressure set the stage for major upheavals to come

If you’ve found the Donald Trump presidency tumultuous thus far, brace yourself – 2019 is likely to include numerous turning points with profound implications for both US domestic politics and foreign policy.

As a Democratic majority takes control of the House of Representatives, Mr Trump will face a set of challenges for which he seems completely unprepared.

Republicans controlled all branches of US government for the past two years, but did extremely little with that rare opportunity. In addition to some judicial appointments and deregulation, their sole major “achievement” was an indefensible and highly unpopular tax cut for corporations and the wealthy.

That’s all.

They didn’t even manage to repeal or replace the increasingly popular Obamacare health law.

Now Democrats and Republicans can block each other legislatively almost completely.

With the Democrats controlling the House and Republicans the Senate, and the constant prospect of a presidential veto, any new legislation must be acceptable to both parties.

This checkmate was in full effect even before the transfer of power in the House. The ongoing partial federal government shutdown illustrates the gridlock and bitter confrontation we can expect from now on.

Engineering the shutdown was hardly irrational, and it’s easy to see what the president thinks he’s doing.

He gets to rain on the House Democrats’ parade and start them off mired in a governance crisis, rather than anything positive.

Moreover, he’s forced the conversation on to the topic that best distinguishes him from most other major US political leaders, and that he believes delivered him the White House and control of the Republican Party: immigration and, implicitly, white Christian communal power.

But the risks are obvious and grave.

It’s much easier to blame a single person than several hundred, especially when Mr Trump deliberately initiated the shutdown after publicly promising to take responsibility for it.

The president now blames the Democrats but current polling indicates that most voters blame him.

But while Mr Trump clearly feels the “the wall” and associated racial issues propelled him to power, he evidently fears that if he can’t make any progress on building it, his base may turn on him, sinking his chances for re-election.

He doesn’t want to back down and “look foolish”, and therefore insists the deadlock could drag on for weeks if not months.

Yet the president has painted himself into a tight corner, with little wiggle room or leverage.

While the wall gives him a more clear-cut single issue than the House Democrats have, it is not a popular one.

Most Americans know the idea is idiotic. Empty bluster about “national security” and “terrorism” won’t change that, so it’s hard to see how he can win the stand-off.

Starting this week Democrats will use House committee powers to investigate Mr Trump and his associates, and there’s plenty to scrutinise.

The grand jury for Robert Mueller’s probe has just been extended, probably for six more months, but his work will likely conclude in 2019.

The dozen criminal investigations into the president and his associates are almost certain to result in major indictments, and, if the evidence is damning enough, raise the prospect of impeachment.

As I have repeatedly noted, Mr Trump is trying to deinstitutionalise American politics, raising his personal stature above conventional norms and accountability.

But with a Democratic House exercising the constitutionally mandated oversight Republicans carefully avoided, and several key investigations concluding in 2019, Mr Trump’s bluff will be called.

Republican leaders will then be forced to choose between political and personal loyalty to the president, versus upholding traditional standards for the rule of law, constitutional accountability and the independent authority of national institutions.

US democracy itself would be at stake in such a pivotal confluence of contradictions.

With rare exceptions, most Republicans have slavishly kowtowed to Mr Trump. But there are indications, especially Mitt Romney’s damning broadside in The Washington Post, that some conservative Republicans sense an emerging opportunity to push back.

In foreign policy, internationalist Democrats and Republicans will keep pushing Mr Trump towards a more conventional approach to US global leadership, but he has purged his administration of anyone who might effectively champion that from within.

The war in Yemen will be a key issue in Congress. That should be another crucial reminder that Gulf Arab countries need to ensure their relationships with Washington don’t become partisan political footballs, and that current enhanced partnerships are not perceived as a Trumpian mistake.

The urgent need for them to reach out to Democrats and internationalist Republicans has been evident for over a year, and it should be clearer now than ever.

In 2019 Republican leaders will finally have to make the fateful choices they have been so carefully avoiding between Mr Trump’s personal interests and the rule of law and democratic accountability.

And the country at large must continue to confront a yawning gulf between US national interests in global leadership and a strong, growing public antipathy to that role, given that the political establishment hasn’t convinced ordinary Americans it’s good for them.

Already, 2019 looks like a pivotal year for Washington’s foreign policy and, especially, the US political system and its embattled institutions.