Obama
and the Saudis have nothing to talk about
Obama’s
making a futile trip. The United States and Saudi Arabia no longer
see anything the same way.
By RAY TAKEYH
4/20/16, 5:44 AM CET
Barack Obama
traveled to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday in what could be his last — and
likely most futile — visit as president. It’s not just that
there’s bad blood over Congress’ effort to make Riyadh liable for
lawsuits from the families of 9/11 victims. These days, when the
United States and Saudi Arabia look at the region, they see two
completely different landscapes and conflicting sets of interests.
Riyadh sees a series of conflicts that the United States must resolve
and a series of failing states that it must rehabilitate. The Saudis
would like a commitment from Obama to defang Iran, change the balance
of power in the Syrian civil war to the detriment of Bashar Assad and
resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Washington’s gaze
is much more narrow and its ambitions more circumscribed. The United
States remains committed to its war on terrorism in the region with
its reliance on drones. It is seeking to degrade the Islamic State
and prevent it from taking over strategic cities of Iraq. And it is
hoping that somehow diplomatic meetings in Vienna can come to an
agreement easing the Syrian civil war.
Beyond that, Obama
comes armed with no real new U.S. Middle East policy, apart from the
latest developments in the Iran nuclear deal — which is not
anything the Tehran-phobic Saudis want to talk about. Obama, who
recently expressed his pique over U.S. allies he called “free
riders,” plainly is not eager to get any more embroiled in the
region than he already is; he has expressed a vague desire that Iran
and Saudi Arabia should “share the neighborhood” without saying
how he hopes that will be accomplished. And after much investment,
the administration seems disinclined to resume its peacemaking
efforts between Israel and the Palestinian entity. America has no
desire for nation-building even among nations it helped to destroy
such as Iraq and Libya.
As far as containing
Iran, while America may not go as far as resuming ties with Iran as
the Gulf regimes fear, it is not beyond reaching tactical
accommodations with Tehran in places such as Iraq and on issues such
as dealing with the Islamic State. For the Obama administration, its
nuclear agreement with Iran is truly a landmark achievement,
testifying to benefits of reaching out to an ideologically implacable
adversary. It is perhaps the first time that America does not seem to
object to the Islamic Republic’s aggrandizement in the
strategically vital Persian Gulf.
It is tempting to
ascribe these impulses to President Obama and King Salman
individually. Obama’s penchant toward diplomacy over force; his
skepticism of traditional allies and desire to mend fences with
historic adversaries and his disdain for the Middle East and dreams
of pivoting to Asia have stoked fears in the Arab world. The Saudis
see in the latest congressional effort to grant the families of 9/11
victims the opportunity to sue the kingdom as another indication that
Washington no longer values the alliance (despite a veto threat from
the White House). By threatening to withdraw their assets from the
United States in retaliation they are sending their own message that
they will be prone to act in a manner that shows as little disregard
for the alliance as that they feel America is demonstrating.
How did the
U.S.-Saudi relationship go so badly astray? It wasn’t that great to
begin with. There has always been something incongruous about an
alliance between a liberal democracy and a traditional monarchy
relying on austere Islam and petrodollars to sustain itself. During
the Cold War, the two sides’ antipathy toward the Soviet Union
concealed all these differences. In the post-Cold War period, the
Saudis’ massive oil reserves and the need to deal with Saddam
Hussein deflected attention from the core contradictions that long
bedeviled this relationship. The September 11th tragedy, and the
revelation that 15 out of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia,
jolted the relationship once again, but that too was soon forgotten
with America’s renewed focus on Iraq, as the long insurgency and
reconstitution of post-Saddam Iraq drained the United States.
Today, the Obama
administration does not see an adversary whose containment requires
Saudi support. Iran once would have filled that role, but Washington
is preoccupied with sustaining its arms control agreement with
Tehran. The resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once
caused the United States to seek out Arab stakeholders, but such
lofty ambitions no longer obsess Washington as they once did. And as
the global energy markets change, the United States grows more energy
independent, and Saudi oil becomes a less relevant staple crop, the
lure of petroleum is increasingly not enough to sustain an alliance
always built on a shaky foundation. Moreover, suspicions that the
Saudis have been two-faced in the fight against terrorism —
especially over the kingdom’s alleged support of Al Qaeda and other
Islamist extremist terrorists — are once again in the forefront.
Nor should the
Saudis take any comfort from the idea that changing the occupant of
the White House early next year will change this serious misalignment
of interests, or substantially alter America’s policies. Obama is
not a singular figure within the Democratic Party but reflects its
mood of disenchantment with the Middle East. And even in such a
turbulent year, the Republican Party electorate has demonstrated its
own war weariness, compelling its front-runners to denounce expansive
visions for transforming the political culture of the Middle East and
implanting democratic regimes in the heart of the Arab world. The
Republican Party today is a party of hawkish non-interventionists, as
its candidates commit themselves to destroying the Islamic State
without treating the underlying causes that nurture radical
ideologies.
As the Middle East
undergoes another vulnerable and violent transition, it will do so
largely without America. It remains to be seen whether the 21st
century will be an American century anywhere else in the world, but
it’s not going to be one in the Middle East. U.S. politicians on
both sides are tired of expending precious resources to stabilize a
region coming undone.
On the surface,
Obama’s summit with the Gulf rulers will generate its share of
declarations of friendship. An arms sales package is likely to
follow, as some of the most militarized and militarily incompetent
states in the world will want to add to their arsenal. Yet no talk of
historical alliances and arms sales can bridge the clash of
perspectives between the two sides.
Ray Takeyh is a
Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the co-author
of The Pragmatic Superpower: Winning the Cold War in the Middle East.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário