Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is a bad man.
He was shunned by the Arab League and most of the world for the past 12 years, as he turned his country’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising into one of the region’s most brutal civil wars. His government is accused of widespread torture, the use of chemical weapons against its own people and a bloody campaign of oppression — including the targeting of hospitals, schools and other protected sites — that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead and forced the displacement of half of the country’s population.
Syria’s Arab League neighbors have long been concerned about the strategic and military assistance alliance Assad developed with regional rival Iran, and with the significant regional burdens of waves of refugees who have fled the brutal regime as well as a steady flow of illegal drug production and traffic from Syria. Nonetheless, Assad was warmly welcomed back without any preconditions to last month’s Arab League Summit hosted by Saudi Arabia in Jeddah.
The Arab League’s embrace of Assad and efforts to reestablish ties with Syria is at odds with existing U.S. and European allies’ policy of isolation and sanctions against Assad. And yet, reports indicate that notwithstanding U.S. refusal to reduce its own sanctions program, the Biden administration supported the overall goals to reengage with the Assad regime and encouraged Arab League countries to get something in return for reengagement. But what they got may be quite different from what the Biden administration expected.
Assad’s ability to survive more than a decade of political banishment has been enabled by, among other things, support from Russia and an expansion of Iranian military power on NATO’s borders. Assad’s alliance with Russia and Iran is of significant concern to the U.S., but doesn’t appear to trouble Arab leadership in their current rapprochement efforts. In fact, it appears to be just the opposite.
The new wave of Arab diplomacy is being led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He is actively pursuing regional rapprochement and seeking to take on an international diplomatic role. First, with help from China, MBS orchestrated the restoration of Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic ties with Iran and ended the kingdom’s yearslong war against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen. Then he led the push for Syria and Assad to return to the Arab League, along with an implicit nod to Syria’s friends in Russia and Iran. And finally, MBS arranged a visit at the Arab League meeting by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with MBS expressing support for “whatever helps in reducing the crisis between Russia and Ukraine,” and offering “to exert efforts for mediation.”
The moving parts of these diplomatic developments are dizzying. And the potential ramifications of the efforts are significant. But the moves do not directly involve the U.S. and its European allies. As a result, the United States is watching the rollout of what could be a significant political realignment in the Middle East along with the rest of the world.
We don’t doubt that the U.S. will get involved at some level. We wait to see what comes next.
Hard not to notice the movers and shakers in the new Middle East. Its no longer the once world leader, the United States. Its now China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, not exactly our nor Israel’s allies. This is not a coincidence, its a result of Joe Biden ‘s weak and foolish policy decisions starting off with his bizarre pullout from Afghanistan leaving behind a very important base, tons of weapons and thousands of U.S. citizens and allies. The Democrats and their national media sycophants hid Biden’s growing senility before the 2020 election, cashing in their reputations in exchange for their hatred of Donald Trump. We’re now all paying the price for this duplicity and abandonment of our country’s influence. Israel is now going to have to deal with these new Middle Eastern powers as the United states slumbers and retreats from the arena. Don’t expect any level of U.S. influence under Biden.