By Helen Clapp
Although President Donald Trump has yet to concede the election, President-elect Joe Biden has launched a transition team and website, prompting analysis and speculation about his upcoming administration’s policy priorities. Within the foreign policy realm, Biden will use his political capital to counter China, rejoin multilateral agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement, and rebuild relationships with traditional US allies around the world left damaged by Trump, most prominently in Europe. That said, no American president can afford to ignore the Middle East. Biden’s top policy priority in the region will be to re-negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran. He will likely reverse some of the most damaging aspects of Trump’s policy towards the Israel-Palestine conflict, but return to a status quo ante. Biden’s election also marks an end to the US government’s coddling of leaders like Saudi Arabia’s Mohamed bin Salman.
The Iran Deal
Biden will rejoin the nuclear deal with Iran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), so long as Iran also comes back into compliance. As a result of the JCPOA implementation in 2013, the time it would take Iran to enrich enough uranium for a bomb—its “breakout time”—increased from 2-3 months to about 12 months. Iran again began enriching uranium in 2019 in response to Trump’s 2018 withdrawal from the deal, bringing its breakout time back down to a few months.
Biden has advocated “a smarter way to be tough on Iran”, indicating that he favors diplomacy over the erratic, confrontational, and dangerous path Trump has pursued. Rejoining the JCPOA will be easier said than done, however, due to the difficult domestic political situations in Iran and the US. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani faces tough elections in June 2021 and will demand high compensation for returning to the deal. His conditions will likely include the lifting of US sanctions and repayment for the resulting economic damage. Even if Rouhani is able to convince the hardliners in his government to rejoin the deal, Biden may be unable to convince the Republican Party to do the same. Ultimately, re-negotiating a deal is in both countries’ best interests and so a deal may well emerge, but Trump has done irreparable damage. His withdrawal from the original deal weakened the United States’ negotiating position and decreased American credibility with both its European allies and Iran. Any deal Biden is able to negotiate will be on less favorable terms for the US than the original deal.
Israel-Palestine
While Biden will take a harsher tone towards Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his policy toward Israel-Palestine will likely continue on the same trajectory as Trump’s. The Biden administration will return to the traditional US foreign policy stance of formal opposition to Israeli settlement expansion and annexation of Palestinian territory. Although the cold personal relationship between Netanyahu and former president Barack Obama lingers in the air, Biden is at heart a pro-Israel Democrat and will almost certainly pursue policy accordingly. Biden acknowledges that Trump should not have moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem but plans to keep the embassy in Jerusalem.
Indeed, the United Nations considers a negotiated solution to the status of Jerusalem as a “prerequisite for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Although the 2020 Democratic Party platform professed to support a two-state solution, including a negotiated solution to the status of Jerusalem, it is unclear how the Biden administration plans to do this in good faith while maintaining the US embassy in the Holy City. While Biden will give the Palestinians a little more breathing room and not offer Netanyahu a blank cheque, he will most likely place the Israel-Palestine conflict on the backburner, returning to the traditional US policy without taking any drastic steps.
Saudi Arabia
Along with Netanyahu, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) of Saudi Arabia is one of the leaders most unhappy about Biden’s victory. Trump’s enabling of MBS and his ruthless actions is most egregiously exemplified by his refusal to condemn the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Trump has also refused to hold Saudi Arabia to account for its role in the war in Yemen, its jailing of activists, and other human rights violations. The Biden administration will take a tougher stance towards MBS as it looks to reassess the US-Saudi relationship. Saudi Arabia remains an important regional ally the US cannot afford to lose, however, so we are unlikely to see anything close to a rupture between Washington and Riyadh.
Biden’s election means a return to a more predictable and stable US policy in the Middle East and a renewed discourse on human rights in the region. Americans and Middle Easterners alike can expect increased security resulting from more stable relations between the US and key Middle Eastern countries, most prominently Iran. Biden’s preoccupation with domestic priorities and other foreign policy arenas including confronting a rising China means that we should not expect the new president to invest his political capital in transforming the Middle East.
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