The balance of peace in the Middle East has always been a precarious thing, and we’ve seen it periodically blow up.
However, under former President Donald Trump, we had a greater period of peace with the Abraham Accords, with Trump even bringing Saudi Arabia and Israel closer together.
Then came Joe Biden, who brought weakness and carried on in the Barack Obama tradition of playing footsie with Iran. As a result of that weakness and poor foreign policy, much of the world, including the Middle East, is blowing up, emboldening the bad actors. He made a deal with Iran last month, cutting loose $6 billion, and is being accused of giving other aid that may have helped Hamas.
We’ve seen not only the Hamas terror attack but fighting with Hezbollah on the northern border, as well as problems with people from Jordan trying to enter Israel to support Hamas.
Now there’s a troubling report that Saudi Arabia, which had been moving closer to Israel to normalize relations, has put that on hold and is reaching out instead to Iran, according to two sources who spoke to Reuters.
Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has already spoken with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in an effort to stymie potential further violence across the region.
One of the sources said that talks could not continue for now and that Saudi Arabia would need to prioritize concessions for the Palestinian people when discussion resumed.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan denies things are on hold. Of course, do we ever get any kind of a straight answer out of the Biden administration? They don’t want you to know they’ve made yet another foreign policy situation worse.
This was the description of the call.
A Saudi statement said the crown prince told Raisi “the kingdom is exerting maximum effort to engage with all international and regional parties to halt the ongoing escalation”, underling [sic] Riyadh’s move to contain the crisis.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters the call, made by Raisi to the crown prince, aimed to support “Palestine and prevent the spread of war in the region”.
“The call was good and promising,” the official said.
A second Iranian official said the call lasted 45 minutes and had the blessing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Now Iran is gloating about the situation, with their foreign minister saying the normalization with Israel is finished. They doubtless hoped they could upend things with the attack.
That is what they would say, and they’re pushing the most favorable view they can of the situation for themselves. However, it’s not clear yet if this is actually the case.
But it’s astounding how much the Biden team has blown this in such a short period and undercut what should have been a great peace agreement by playing to Iran. Biden has also alienated Mohammed bin Salman. Everything this administration has done seems to have blown up the situation even more, taking the peace and moving it into war and chaos.
