https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2022/12/26/biden-should-run-again-in-2024/

The 80-year-old president faces a momentous decision about his running mate.

The end-of-year holiday season is usually a retrospective time in Washington. But at the end of 2022, Americans appear tired of the rearview mirror and ready to look forward. Eyes are therefore starting to focus on 2024, and whether US President Joe Biden will run for re-election.

Mr Biden is, thus far at least, easily the most impressive American president since I moved to the US in 1980. His almost exactly two-year-old tenure has been extraordinary. He has quickly accumulated a small mountain of very significant and highly progressive domestic legislation affecting sectors ranging from child and health care to the tax code, to hard infrastructure and manufacturing investment, and, perhaps most significantly, climate change. It is the most masterful legislative performance since Lyndon Johnson in 1964-1965. Mr Biden did it all with a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives and none at all in the 50-50 Senate (although Vice President Kamala Harris was empowered to break ties).

On foreign affairs, he aced by far the biggest test of his, and any recent, administration: the macro-historic crisis posed to the international system by Russia’s calamitous invasion of Ukraine. He united the western alliance confronting Moscow and working with Kiev to ensure that Russia’s initial aim to eliminate Ukraine as an independent nation and distinct society was roundly thwarted.

The stated and correct goal is ensuring that Russia does not benefit from what President Vladimir Putin finally admits is a war without being able to launch another aggression against any of its neighbours in the foreseeable future. Nato is now stronger than in many decades, and is expanding to include two key new members, Sweden and Finland. Mr Biden impressively walked the fine line between mobilising the western alliance to defeat Russia’s aims in Ukraine without intervening directly.

As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a joint session of Congress in Washington last week, this support for Ukraine “is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way”. Even some of the most sceptical Republican right wing and Democratic leftist isolationists were eventually forced to their feet by the emotive intensity of Mr Zelenskyy’s words. The Biden administration’s framing of the war as a historic turning point for the global order is what prepared so many Americans and other westerners to acknowledge, however reluctantly, that the Ukrainian President’s narrative about the war is essentially correct.

Mr Biden has had his share of significant, sometimes embarrassing, failures. His legislation, however impressive, fell far short of his grandiose vision and promises from the campaign. Many liberals feel left out or abandoned.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan was an utter shambles. Although any US withdrawal was bound to be chaotic, the Biden administration erred in believing the Afghan government and military could hold on for months, or at least weeks, when they could not hold on for more than a few hours. This led to terrible failures like deserving Afghans being left behind.

Another serious flunk involves ongoing chaos at the US southern border. Like all his recent predecessors, Mr Biden has failed to find any solution, in part because Republicans don’t really want one, preferring to blame liberals for supposedly wanting “open borders”. But he has not done anything dramatic to even appear to be tackling the issue, thereby ceding ground to shameless Republican governors who grandstand, most recently by apparently bussing confused migrants to the Vice President’s residence in the middle of the night and the freezing dead of winter.

The President’s messaging has often been abysmal, featuring constant underselling, and literally as well as figuratively mumbling through key teachable moments. In his “major speech” on September 1, Mr Biden bungled dreadfully by conflating urgent efforts to preserve the US constitutional order with his own specific policies. And while he pulled his party very much to the center, and therefore to a historic triumph in the midterms, many Americans have been allowed to remain convinced that the Democratic Party is much more liberal than it actually is.

Finally, the President is definitely showing his age. So is the 76-year-old Donald Trump. But even though Mr Biden appears impressively fit, he looks and sounds every bit of his 80 years. I just made the case that he should definitely run again, given his remarkable record of success. But he will be on the verge of 82 in early November 2024, meaning he will be asking voters to trust him to lead the country until he is 86. A few countries have had chief executives that old, but for Americans, it would be a new watershed and one many, including plenty of Democrats, will not welcome.

Most importantly, he will have to be completely confident in his Vice President, absolutely certain this individual is ready to step into power with no notice whatsoever. Does Ms Harris fit the bill? Most of the country does not appear convinced yet. This may be another of Mr Biden’s most striking failures. He certainly has not given her a starring role, to say the least, except as the public face of the administration’s underwhelming border policies, the ultimate US political crown of thorns.

Her supporters think she had an excellent 2022, pointing to her role at the Munich Security Conference on the eve of the Ukraine invasion, barnstorming national condemnation of the Supreme Court’s repeal of abortion rights, and diplomacy in Asia. But it has not been enough to elevate her sufficiently to stand next to an 82-year-old running mate and say, “re-elect us with confidence”.

Jill Biden is reportedly convinced her husband should run for re-election. She’s right. No other Democrat, or Republican for that matter, is remotely as well positioned for victory. His more complex decision will be about Ms Harris. If he’s not convinced she’s completely ready, it is time to look for somebody else, such as governors Gretchen Witmer of Michigan or Jared Polis of Colorado.

Mr Biden should run again, but he needs to think very carefully about his confidence in Ms Harris. He can almost certainly win, even if he were to rile some Democrats by replacing her. But, if he thinks she’s up to the job, he must now invest far more attention and planning in preparing her to serve as president and the public to see her as ready for the White House.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/2022/12/19/musk-and-trump-are-at-the-centre-of-disunity-in-the-us/

Two recent public dumps of private communications reveal the pervasiveness of conspiracy theories dividing America.

Last week, two large dumps of what were originally assumed to be private conversations demonstrated the depth of discord among Americans. But the differences between the two sets of conversations and reactions to them are stark and revealing.

New Twitter owner Elon Musk sent private correspondence from within the company before he took over to several bloggers to try to prove it had been highly biased against the right and, especially, former US president Donald Trump. The political news website Talking Points Memo published 2,319 text messages to and from then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as Republicans sought to overturn the 2020 election, setting the stage for the January 6 insurrection.

The failed coup remains the biggest dividing line in a fractured American polity. That is likely to get worse as the January 6 Committee is expected to recommend serious criminal charges against Mr Trump at their final hearing on Monday. They plan to urge the Department of Justice to charge Mr Trump with obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the US, and, most significantly, insurrection.

It is just a recommendation, but it will further damage him. Mr Trump faces possible indictment in Georgia, related to the effort to overturn the election there. New York prosecutors are re-examining his payment of hush money to two of his former paramours. Mr Trump’s then attorney, Michael Cohen, who made the payments, was sentenced to three years in prison.

Mr Trump’s “major announcement” last week turned out to be an astonishingly cheesy offer of $99 virtual NFT “trading cards” depicting the former president in various pseudo-heroic poses. Even his closest allies expressed disgust at the demeaning spectacle, reminiscent of the worst late-night television.

In this context, Mr Musk released his “Twitter files” to several bloggers, urging them to demonstrate that the company conspired to support Democrats and harm Republicans, especially Mr Trump. Yet the messages don’t demonstrate anything of the kind. What they show is an overwhelmed company struggling, and often failing badly, to establish and enforce reasonable and consistent content standards. That much was already obvious.

The messages reveal the former Twitter leaders were liberals, made mistakes, and blundered by blocking tweets linking to a New York Post article about a laptop supposedly belonging to President Joe Biden’s son Hunter immediately before the 2020 election. Twitter even briefly suspended the Post’s account, demanding they delete all references to the story, which Twitter suspected might have been Russian disinformation.

Amid an enormous backlash, the ban was quickly lifted. Twitter admitted it was a huge error. The “Twitter files” show the messy, often unpleasant, sausage-making that went into that aggressively pursued mistake. The right is indignantly insisting the messages demonstrate that Twitter, and they imply all major social media before Mr Musk, was constantly conspiring against conservatives and plotting to promote a liberal agenda. That is a considerable exaggeration. These “files” don’t alter the essential narrative most sensible Americans have long ago concluded regarding these well-known Twitter controversies.

Moreover, the “files” are not being released in full, or with any transparency. They are being selectively published by certain bloggers selected by Mr Musk. The project would be a lot more credible if the public were shown the entire “files” rather than carefully curated titbits.

Mr Musk’s arbitrary and authoritarian content management is infinitely more biased and less systematic than his predecessors. He has welcomed back some of the worst bad actors and suspended the accounts of those who have apparently annoyed him. He was even threatened with EU sanctions because of these abuses.

Whatever their failings, his predecessors were at least trying to establish a system and a clear process. For Mr Musk, “le tweet c’est moi.” At least he seems to be having a jolly good time.

By contrast, the Mark Meadows text messages are deeply alarming. The former Chief of Staff provided them to the January 6 committee before he suddenly cut off all co-operation in December 2021.

Talking Points Memo and their investigative reporter Hunter Walker posted them in full, along with excellent analysis. The texts demonstrate a zealous commitment by numerous Republican notables and members of Congress to a coup and overturning the 2020 US Presidential election.

Congressman Ralph Norman, for example, demanded the White House invoke “Marshall Law,” a misspelling of martial law also used in the same context – to suspend the Constitution and keep Mr Trump in power – by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Some text messages are borderline deranged and manic, spilling out into many hundreds of words. They embrace and promote ridiculous conspiracy theories from sources as farcical as a dodgy Romanian YouTube account.

Such conspiratorial ravings are not new to anyone who has ventured down the rabbit hole of right-wing extremism. They have a consistent style and illogic. What’s new and truly shocking is that many Republican legislators appear to really believe them. Time and again they depict the country in an existential crisis or even war, often invoking a divine plan or the will of God to justify a coup.

When politicians spout conspiracy theories in speeches or on television, sensible people generally assume that they are just pandering and indulging in shameless political theatre. That’s bad enough, but the Meadows texts appear to demonstrate that many elected Republicans earnestly and fervently believe this balderdash. That’s incredibly frightening.

Some of them are actually being promoted. Representative Ted Bud, whose texts repeated preposterous theories about foreign manipulation of voting machines, has been elected senator from North Carolina, a major upgrade.

It’s all very revealing.

The “Twitter files” show often unpleasant liberals trying, and frequently failing, to create a workable standards system. Mr Musk is treating Twitter as a personal playground to settle his grievances and explore his issues. He’s making them look like the proverbial stable geniuses.

The texts disturbingly demonstrate that many politicians who spout conspiracy theories in public also seem to believe them in private. Mr Trump’s $99 virtual trading cards of himself as Superman and Rambo actually illustrate the depth of his diminishment.

Yet Mr Trump is the essential figure conjoining the Meadows and Twitter messages. The Great Divider is still the centre of national disunity and chaos. The January 6 committee’s forthcoming criminal recommendations bring him one step closer to the dock. It seems almost inevitable he will face criminal charges. That could drag American discord down to depths of acrimony Mr Musk can only dream of promoting.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-12-19/us-and-saudis-end-rift-over-oil-production-cuts-yemen-and-china?srnd=opinion&sref=tp95wk9l

The Biden administration has stopped complaining about oil production cuts and did the Saudis favors on Yemen aid and a Khashoggi lawsuit.

After weeks of recriminations between Washington and Riyadh following the Saudi-led OPEC+ production cut on Oct. 5, it appears that the longstanding partnership has weathered this storm and is quietly emerging stronger than ever.

The most recent indication of improved relations was an intervention by the White House, threatening a presidential veto, forcing Senators to put off a vote on a bill banning US support for Saudi military activities in Yemen.

President Joe Biden’s administration cited language that would define intelligence sharing and support operations as “hostilities,” saying this could severely damage US support for Ukraine and other partners such as Israel. This is pretty much sophistry: The proposed legislation deals specifically with US-Saudi relations. In truth, the White House’s objections just made the case for preserving the defense relationship with Saudi Arabia, including in Yemen.

There is a growing understanding in the administration and among some in Congress that the main obstacle to a lasting cease-fire in Yemen comes from Iran-backed Houthi militants rather than Saudi Arabia. More important, most of those serious about US global strategy have realized that a vital American competitive advantage depends on preserving security in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian and Red Seas — in particular, the chokepoints of the Suez Canal, Bab el-Mandab and the Strait of Hormuz.

Anger over oil pricing has also subsided. The most recent OPEC+ meeting, on Dec. 4, ended with an agreement to continue the reduced production quotas set in October. But this time there was no US backlash. That’s because the Saudis proved correct that production reductions would not cause prices to soar.

The current price per gallon at pumps around the US is politically and economically acceptable to the administration. Fears that the Russian economy would be unduly strengthened didn’t materialize. (Russia is the “plus” in OPEC+.)

The October quarrel was also linked to the midterm elections, with many Democrats suspecting, without evidence, that Riyadh was attempting to help Republicans. Given that the Democrats overperformed spectacularly, those misgivings became moot. The Saudis would have figured prominently in any blame game following a Democratic debacle, but that didn’t happen.

Even the much-ballyhooed state visit to Saudi Arabia by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, accompanied by a long list of mutual cooperation agreements between the two countries, appears to have done little to antagonize Washington. While the US rightly regards its presence in the Gulf region and surrounding areas as key leverage in great-power competition with Beijing, it doesn’t have a problem with its Gulf Arab partners strengthening ties with their biggest customer, at least to some degree.

As long as China-Gulf Arab relations are based on commerce, investment and even infrastructure projects that don’t have potential military or intelligence uses, such agreements are tolerable to Washington. Indeed, they help undermine the China-Iran partnership that’s a long-term concern to the US. And while we haven’t seen all the details, nothing that’s known thus far about the new Saudi-Chinese agreements touches any third rails.

There have been other signs of better relations. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reportedly played a key role in mediating the prisoner exchange that freed US basketball star Brittney Griner from a Russian prison. In early November, US jets were scrambled in an assertive flight toward Iran that apparently deterred a planned attack against Saudi Arabia.

And on Nov. 18, the Biden administration ruled that, as a foreign head of government, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has immunity from civil lawsuits in US courts — in this instance, regarding a suit related to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

In sum: Over the last few months US-Saudi ties have passed a series of significant tests, any of which could have done considerable long-term damage. But behind the scenes, the relationship is not only repairing, it’s being reconceptualized on both sides in a way that should make it stronger.

No longer is it simply a matter of trading oil for security, rendering Saudi Arabia, as some hostile members of Congress put it in October, a “client state.” Even if that was never fully true, there is a growing understanding among national security professionals on both sides that this is a relationship of partners seeking mutual goals, such as maritime security that benefit both, with significant burden sharing.

That’s a far more sustainable basis for cooperation in an increasingly multipolar era. Ironically, it has quietly taken root just when many thought the US-Saudi partnership was in its death throes.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2022/12/13/republicans-are-damned-if-they-dump-trump-but-damned-in-they-dont/

America’s once Grand Old Party is reeling from the midterm election results and unsure what to do with its leader.

The aftermath of the 2022 US midterm elections is proving as dramatic as the astonishing outcome. Congress is in a remarkable degree of tumult, and while Democrats are basking in the glow of a once-in-a-century performance, the Republican Party appears to be degenerating into ever-greater levels of chaos and dysfunction.

Democrats not only held Republican gains in the House of Representatives to a breathtaking minimum, but added a seat in the Senate. It was no surprise Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock defeated former football great Herschel Walker. Mr Walker was probably the most unfit Senate nominee from either party in decades, one in a long list of candidates foisted on the party by former president Donald Trump who were defeated in the election. Only JD Vance, an incoming Senator from Ohio, proved electable.

Even the tiny five-vote Republican majority in the House might prove more trouble than it’s worth. California Representative Kevin McCarthy is desperately trying to become House Speaker, but still doesn’t have enough votes and appears widely disliked by his colleagues. It’s unclear what he could do to win over hardliners such as Matt Gaetz of Florida, who recently described his would-be leader as “Cavin’ McCarthy”.

The venerable Democratic leader James Clyburn, probably in jest, suggested Mr McCarthy should seek a deal with Democrats to secure the Speaker’s gavel. But it underscores that not only do House Republicans lack a leader, their extremist wing is refusing to back down an inch despite the wholesale rejection of their politics by general election voters around the country.

The de facto leader of the hyper-extreme Republican House bloc just illustrated her willingness to go further than ever. Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to insist on “defunding the FBI” and absolutely halting all aid to Ukraine. Worse, at the New York Young Republicans Club’s annual gala on Saturday night, she boasted that if former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon “and I had organised” the January 6 assault on Congress, “we would have won. Not to mention, we would’ve been armed”. The only potential targets for gunfire would have been police officers, members of Congress and their staff.

Having campaigned on inflation, crime and budget deficits, incoming Republican Committee chairpersons are focusing on investigating dubious allegations regarding President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who has never been a government official or part of the administration, and, on behalf of Mr Trump, interrogating the work of the January 6 select committee, the Department of Justice and the FBI.

There is no visible effort yet to pull back from Mr Trump and his politics of grievance that just delivered such a huge defeat. Despite being the obvious author of the midterm fiasco, he remains the party’s de facto leader and most influential figure even in relative political decline.

Yet he seems to realise that the string of losses leaves him potentially vulnerable to future challenges and that, however quietly and behind closed doors, party leaders are growing more determined to find a way to move beyond his grip.

That’s undoubtedly why Mr Trump is being drawn to the most extreme right-wing fringes in the country. He welcomed rapper and fashion designer Ye to dine with him at his Florida hotel despite Ye’s notorious history of vitriolic and violent anti-Semitic remarks and professed admiration for Adolf Hitler. They were joined by Nick Fuentes, who is probably the most prominent young American neo-Nazi. Even though Mr Trump somewhat implausibly insists he didn’t know who Mr Fuentes was, he’s uttered no criticisms of either of his guests, and by all accounts was deeply taken with the young extremist.

Republican leaders could see Mr Trump was laying yet another trap for them, so they debased themselves, as usual, by harshly criticising Ye and Mr Fuentes, but, with the exception of former vice president Mike Pence and Utah Senator Mitt Romney, declining to criticise, or even name, the former president. Indeed, Mr Trump appears to be on an inexplicable and quixotic campaign to test what, if any, limits he faces in maintaining respectability and viability within the Republican Party.

He even suggested “terminating” the Constitution to restore himself to power, a mockery of the oath taken by every president, and every serving official, to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. Many oaths of office continue, “against all [its] enemies, foreign and domestic”, which must surely include anyone who calls for it to be terminated. The cherry on top was Mr Trump’s most audacious piece of national gaslighting yet, insisting, although his statement remains online, he’d never said any such thing and it was all just more “disinformation and lies” from the “Fake News”.

Again, timid and limited pushback came from most Republican leaders. If he faces any functional limits to his conduct, they are not apparent. They clearly have no idea what to do about a party leader with whom they cannot win general elections but who they cannot defeat within the party. Were someone else to clinch the party’s 2024 nomination, he would almost certainly launch an independent candidacy that would ensure an even bigger Republican defeat.

Their conundrum could get even worse. Mr Trump’s business was just convicted on all 17 counts in a criminal tax fraud trial. Although he was not the defendant, charges against him seem to be looming regarding pilfered government documents and, very possibly, his extensive efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But there’s nothing in US law to prevent someone running for, or even winning, high office while being prosecuted, or even convicted, of a serious offence.

By comparison, Democrats’ woes seem trifling. After the Georgia Senate victory that finally secured them an outright majority, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who has for the past two years exasperated fellow Democrats by refusing to vote with them on key legislations, announced she was leaving the party. But since she wants to keep her committee assignments, nothing in the Senate practically is likely to change. It appears to set up an independent bid for re-election in 2024, since she’s become increasingly unpopular among Democrats.

Republicans can only dream about such minor irritants. Their party leader and his extremist faction just engineered a fiasco, yet they appear neither weakened nor chastened. To the contrary, judging from the conduct of Mr Trump and Ms Greene, they are becoming considerably more radical and, for now, there doesn’t appear to be any way to moderate or marginalize them. As things stand, they appear intent on dragging the Grand Old Party, to the cheers of its base, into the gutter and towards political oblivion.

https://agsiw.org/president-xis-visit-to-saudi-arabia-doesnt-look-like-a-threat-to-u-s-saudi-partnership/

Saudi Arabia’s expanding relationship with China signals its attempts to emerge as a mid-level international power, but that shouldn’t threaten the partnership with Washington.

The long-awaited state visit to Saudi Arabia by Chinese leader and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping is an important moment in Riyadh’s ongoing emergence as a more dynamic player on the global stage. It’s also a significant test of Saudi Arabia’s ability to balance its ambitions and other interests with the imperative of maintaining its paramount security relationship with the United States. To some Americans, the optics of the lavish welcome may contrast significantly with the low-key reception of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Jeddah in July, even though the White House itself wanted to keep pomp and ceremony to a minimum. More important will be the U.S. reaction to the deliverables, which reportedly will focus on energy and infrastructure deals, possibly involving sums up to $30 billion. There is no sign yet of any arrangement that will raise particular hackles in Washington, but this may be the most dramatic test yet of the ability of the United States’ Gulf partners, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to balance building closer ties with the emerging power in China while maintaining strong relations with the United States. Both Saudi and UAE officials have repeatedly stressed that one of their biggest foreign policy goals in the coming decades is not to be drawn into a new cold war between Washington and Beijing or to be asked by one side, or both, to shun the other.

My Customer is My Friend

The Chinese-Saudi relationship has been, and still largely is, a commercial one. Saudi Arabia is one of China’s biggest suppliers of energy resources, and China reportedly relies on Gulf energy exports for about 30% of its annual energy needs. China is one of Saudi Arabia’s best customers, and the two countries have a keen interest in developing investment and other commercial relations that go beyond buying and selling oil. Saudi Arabia has been expressing a keen interest in joining China’s infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative, and “harmonizing” it with Riyadh’s own Vision 2030 development plans. The State Grid Corporation of China has been actively seeking Middle Eastern contracts for the generation and distribution of electricity and a potential free-trade agreement between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council is reportedly at an advanced stage.

None of this is likely to particularly bother Washington. What the United States is looking for are any signs that Saudi Arabia is deliberately giving China an undue strategic foothold in the Gulf region. This will focus on the delicate issue of telecommunications technology, in particular, with Chinese companies like Huawei, which is heavily sanctioned by the U.S. government. Dealings with Huawei have already proved a significant point of contention between the United States and the UAE, and if Saudi Arabia were to enter into significant agreements with such Chinese companies, Washington is likely to be deeply rankled. The fear is that Chinese telecommunications technologies could involve techniques of intelligence gathering and surveillance that are so deeply buried in the system that they are virtually undetectable and, therefore, effectively invulnerable. Beyond that, one of Biden’s few major takeaways from his July visit with the Saudis was a memorandum of understanding between the two countries on telecommunications technology, which many Americans interpreted as a commitment to seek such technology from the United States and other Western firms, rather than Huawei and other Chinese corporations.

In addition, the United States will be looking closely at infrastructure projects in the Gulf involving China that could potentially have dual-use purposes. In November 2021, Washington urgently pressed the UAE to halt construction on a secret Chinese port being built near Abu Dhabi that the United States maintained could have served as a naval base or other military facility for China in the heart of what has traditionally been a part of the Gulf region exclusively friendly to the United States. Abu Dhabi apparently complied with the demand and construction was reportedly halted. This incident involving the UAE provides an example of the myriad possibilities of Chinese or joint infrastructure projects in the Gulf region that might alarm Washington, believing that Saudi Arabia has been duped or is colluding with China to give Beijing a strategic or military toehold in a region in which it has precious few.

Finally, Chinese-Saudi cooperation on nuclear energy is a delicate matter between Saudi Arabia and the United States. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said that if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, it will do so as well. Saudi Arabia has a relatively fledgling nuclear energy program, but it also has an obvious incentive to use nuclear power generation to sell rather than use its domestic oil production. The complication is that nuclear technology development follows the same path for both legitimate energy production and potential military projects for a significant part of its development. It is only at a later stage that the military aspect would branch off, if it ever does, from a legitimate energy production project. China has a long-standing agreement to help Saudi Arabia develop its nuclear program. In early October, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and China’s director of the National Energy Administration, Zhang Jianhua, had a virtual video conference to discuss energy cooperation. Among the many topics discussed was how to implement the existing agreement between the two countries to help develop Saudi Arabia’s nuclear energy program.

This is a thorny subject between Washington and Riyadh. Saudi Arabia has every right under the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to develop its peaceful nuclear energy program and every reason to do so. However, given the threat from Riyadh to develop its own nuclear deterrent if Iran becomes a nuclear weapons power, coupled with the breakdown in nuclear negotiations with Tehran, Washington’s concern about nuclear proliferation in the Gulf region is becoming acute. If it appears that Saudi Arabia will be using China and Chinese technology in a dash to parity with Iran, or anything that strongly suggests such a move, the United States will react badly. But if the two countries keep nuclear cooperation at a relatively slow pace and in a manner that better reflects a focus on energy generation rather than a clandestine fledgling weapons program, Washington may have little choice but to grit its teeth and monitor developments closely without making this a significant bilateral irritant with Saudi Arabia. The only alternative would be to offer Saudi Arabia better technology on better terms, which may be politically impossible and strategically unwise, and at any event is unlikely to be a U.S. policy initiative in the near future.

The Friend of My Enemy is … My Friend?

In addition to the Saudi Arabia-China-United States triangle, there is also, and arguably more significantly, a Saudi Arabia-China-Iran triangle at play as well. China has developed a strong partnership with Tehran, but it does not want to be tied exclusively to Iran among all of its potential friends in the Gulf region. Just as Saudi Arabia is interested in reaching out to China as part of a strategic diversification initiative to gain a wide array of alternatives to simply relying on the United States as a security guarantor, China has the incentive of embracing Saudi Arabia in order to diversify its own alternatives in the region that provides so much of its all-important energy supplies. Saudi Arabia does not want the only Gulf voice in Beijing, as China emerges as a more important global power, to be one speaking in Persian. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi want to add a significant Arab presence in China to offset the potential for exclusive Iranian access to China as it begins to extend its influence strategically as well as commercially in far-flung areas like the Gulf region.

But, again, this raises potential difficulties with Washington. The United States has no problem with Saudi Arabia dealing with China as a customer for oil and even an investment and infrastructure partner. But it is protective of its role as the head of a large and increasingly equitable coalition that maintains security and stability in the Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Red Sea and, in particular, protects the three key chokepoints in the region: the Strait of Hormuz, Suez Canal, and Bab el-Mandeb. A vast amount of global commercial shipping passes through these three vital chokepoints and a huge percentage of the seaborne energy exports on which the global economy depends. In the immediate term, Iran is seen as the biggest threat to such crucial maritime security. In the long run, maintaining security dominance in these waters by a U.S.-led coalition is seen as a key strategic advantage for Washington over Beijing, one that the United States is working hard to maintain.

So once again, it is a delicate balancing act for both Saudi Arabia and the United States as Riyadh and Beijing work to build closer ties. At a certain level, the United States would welcome any move that loosens, complicates, or undermines the partnership between China and Iran – although there is no clear reason to think better relations between China and Saudi Arabia would do that. However, great power competition with China is typically conceptualized in the United States as a long-term global rivalry that involves projecting power and adopting key security roles in crucial areas like the Gulf region. Therefore, Saudi Arabia will have to tread lightly when it comes to the Chinese presence in the region, and Washington, too, must try to strike a balance between tolerating or even welcoming closer Chinese-Saudi relations while working to ensure that they don’t undermine core U.S. interests.

The U.S.-Saudi Friendship is Quietly Rallying

The Chinese-Saudi cooperation meetings and the visit of Xi to Riyadh come at a time when U.S.-Saudi relations are on a quiet but definite uptick from the anger and mutual recriminations following the October quota reduction announcement from the OPEC+ alliance of OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers. U.S. anger has subsided for several reasons. Saudi Arabia’s contention that production cuts would not result in price hikes at the pump in the United States and the West proved correct. Moreover, the dispute was linked to the United States’ midterm elections, and because the Democrats, currently in power, fared better than expected, Saudi Arabia has avoided being, as it would have been had things gone badly, fairly high on the list of suspected guilty parties in the ensuing blame game. In brief, neither nightmares entertained by the White House and congressional Democrats materialized. Oil remains reasonably priced at the commercial and retail level, and Democrats did not take a beating at the polls.

The Xi visit, and in particular the still unknown associated deliverables, is the last obvious source of contention between the United States and Saudi Arabia on the immediate horizon. But overall, the recovery of the U.S.-Saudi relationship looks solid and does not appear to be threatened by the Chinese-Saudi partnership fest. The December 4 OPEC+ meeting maintained the status quo on oil production, but this time the White House was relatively comfortable with the decision as gas prices haven’t risen as a consequence. Meanwhile, the technical level defense cooperation between the United States and GCC states continues to develop as the relationship is reconceptualized on both sides as a more mutual partnership rather than U.S. protection for supposedly vulnerable “client states.”

Without doubt Saudi Arabia is using the Xi visit and the growing relationship with China as part of a series of moves to effectively announce itself as an emerging mid-level power in an increasingly multipolar world. The United States appears to be adjusting to this new reality by emphasizing the benefits of burden sharing and cooperation on mutually shared goals rather than a protection plan based on security for oil. That’s a far healthier and sustainable approach to the relationship than trying to persist with outmoded notions of how the relationship works. The downside is that Gulf countries that are trying to assert themselves as mid-level international powers will have more independence and agency than Washington was, perhaps, happy to embrace in the past. But all this means that the U.S.-Gulf Arab relationship will start to look more like the U.S. partnership with allies in NATO. And since there are at least as many burden sharing and other benefits to this new model, its emergence – even with much closer relations between Saudi Arabia and U.S. rivals like China – shouldn’t pose any threat to the bilateral relationship and probably ought to make it considerably stronger.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/2022/12/06/us-gulf-maritime-surveillance-co-operation-heralds-a-new-era-in-defence-relations/

Task Force 59 promotes the region’s countries as full partners with their western allies.

When Dr Anwar Gargash, senior diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, recently called for “clear, codified and unambivalent [security] commitments” from the US, he spoke for many in the Gulf. At the Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate in November, he reaffirmed that “our primary strategic security relationship remains unequivocally with the United States”, but added we need to “find a way to ensure that we can rely on this relationship”.

For Washington’s key strategic partners in the Middle East – the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel – American reliability has become the key question. The strength and power of the US military force posture in the region, especially in and around the Gulf, is beyond doubt and hasn’t changed much over the past 20 years. However, for at least the past decade, a series of US decisions have raised doubts about American reliability and Washington’s long-term commitment to the region, particularly given rhetoric about a “pivot to Asia” and “great power competition” with China.

The failure in 2012 of the Obama administration to enforce its red line against the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, the Trump administration declining to respond to the Iranian attacks against Saudi Aramco facilities in 2019 and, most recently, a belated and insufficient response by the Biden administration to deadly Houthi rocket attacks in Abu Dhabi in January were all discernible inflection points promoting these misgivings. And there were many others.

But in the wake of the Ukraine war, and what amounts to a new campaign of containment and deterrence against Iran given the failure of the nuclear negotiations, the Biden administration has sent much more positive signals. In early November, Saudi Arabia alerted the USto a potential Iranian plan to strike the kingdom to distract from continued unrest in Iran. US fighter jets were scrambled in an aggressive show of force that appears to have succeeded in deterring the attack.

But beyond such prompt and robust responses, questions about the long-term US security commitment in the Gulf region are most persuasively answered by a game-changing military surveillance system that is being developed for and rolled out in the Gulf, and relies on regional partnerships.

Fifteen months ago, a dramatic breakthrough in unmanned surveillance systems made this possible. In addition to well-established aerial and underwater unmanned systems, ground-breaking surface-level technology has enabled the establishment of an unprecedented complete, three-dimensional and real-time maritime surveillance regime.

The US military has created “Task Force 59” to spearhead the project. As detailed by Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of the US Naval Forces Central Command, at the recent UAE Security Forum, it will involve combined unmanned surveillance systems in the air as well as underwater and on the water’s surface to survey and track any vessel or object in the Gulf. Using artificial intelligence, the data produced by high-tech cameras and other sensors will be continuously processed. If anything unusual is detected, further investigation by other drones would be triggered, and humans would be quickly brought in to judge what is being detected.

The system being developed in the Gulf is hardly just American. It is also regional and international. Gulf countries will be deeply involved, as will the UK and France. The plan is that by the end of summer 2023, at least 100 unmanned systems will be operating on the surface waters of the Gulf at any given moment – 20 percent US and 80 percent regional or international. These systems will all be linked in real time via satellite and the American systems will be controlled by operators in California.

The US interest in the region isn’t altruistic. Strategic calculations are always based on national interests. But the US focus on the Gulf region, plus the Arabian and Red Sea areas, certainly should help to address many of the doubts raised by so many about the sustainability and reliability of the long-term US security commitment.

Three of the world’s most crucial strategic chokepoints lie in these waters: the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal and Bab El Mandeb at the mouth of the Red Sea. Maritime security connected to those chokepoints involves a staggering percentage of the world’s commercial shipping and, of course, seaborne energy exports.

Indeed, as the US begins to focus on “great power competition” with China, one of its biggest points of leverage is the fact that – along with its regional and international partners – the US has the ability to maintain security in the waterways that provide over 30 per cent of China’s annual energy consumption.

The US military has been clear that this technology will be developed and deployed first in the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea, but is likely to be utilised in a similar fashion in key maritime security areas around the world where possible and as needed.

The political and strategic implications of this project are huge.

First, it demonstrates that the US is in the region to stay. It is preparing for a long-term, abiding and potent regional presence, and is certainly not in the early stages of a “long goodbye”, as so many argue.

Second, it demonstrates how central its regional partners have become to US strategic thinking. It is no longer a matter of the US maintaining a military presence in the Gulf to protect supposedly dependent and vulnerable allies. The relationship is being mutually reconceptualised, and this ground-breaking project foregrounds and depends upon regional partners in a co-operative venture that is far more mutual and equitable.

What Task Force 59, based in Bahrain, heralds is a new era in which Gulf countries come into their own as medium-level powers and full partners with western allies such as the US, the UK and France. It’s no good yearning for the fully developed equivalent of a Nato Article 5 trigger that guarantees that any attack on a Gulf Arab country will be treated as equivalent to an attack on the US. While that’s not going to happen, a new strategic framework agreement that adds greater clarity to the commitment is being seriously discussed and would be extremely useful.

Seeking greater clarity about what would trigger a US military response is wise. But it’s also necessary to recognise what on-the-ground developments, such as Task Force 59, signify: Washington is in the region to stay and is quietly building a coalition, with ground-breaking technology and unprecedented co-ordination, that’s dedicated to Gulf security and stability.