Biden’s torpedo against MBS to justify the reset with Riyadh and the rapprochement with Tehran

27 February 20213 years ago babelfish

As is well known, Middle Eastern balances are changeable, everything changes, in an infinite game of reflected mirrors. There is something that does not change, however, and it is the rivalry between the Shiite and Sunni world, in particular between Iran and Saudi Arabia. While the third actor in the field, the United States, always swings like a pendulum, a little here and a little there. Barack Obama, with the JCPOA, the 2015 agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, had opted for rapprochement with Tehran.

President Trump has led the US pendulum to swing back towards Riyadh and towards the other actor, Israel, deciding to leave the JCPOA and restore the sanctions against Tehran, and in agreement with the Saudis, starting that process of regional detente that it goes by the name of "Agreements of Abraham". The geopolitical victim of all this could only be Iran. Before pandemic hell broke out, with the killing of Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, the Trump administration had struck a heavy blow to the Iranian regime, which had had to suffer the setback.

But now there is Biden in the White House, and the new US administration has made it clear that it wants to bring America back into the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, and perhaps be able to improve and integrate it, moving the hand back four years and half, and to want to "recalibrate at all levels" instead, as reiterated yesterday by the White House, relations with Saudi Arabia, trying to downsize the role of Mohammed Bin Salman. In short, the American pendulum is preparing to move back to Tehran, to the great concern of both the Israelis and the Saudis.

Biden's intentions towards Riyadh were clear already during the electoral campaign, when he clearly stated that it was necessary to ensure that the Saudis "pay a pledge" and, in fact, remain the pariahs they already are. Not a particularly friendly approach. Within a month of his arrival at the White House, Biden announced the withdrawal of American support for the Saudi-led coalition's military offensive in Yemen, suspended arms sales to Riyadh, and snubbed Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, refusing an interview. direct with him.

In recent days, in fact, the US president wanted to speak only with King Salman, with whom according to sources of the White House he would have addressed the issues of security in the region. In reality, Biden wanted to warn King Salman of the US intelligence report on the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi declassified and disclosed yesterday.

According to the report, the Saudi Crown Prince "authorized" an operation to "capture or kill" Khashoggi. MBS, also according to the report, saw the reporter as a threat to his kingdom and broadly supported the use of violence, if necessary, to silence him. The report identifies 21 people that US intelligence believes with "high confidence" to be accomplices or responsible for the journalist's death, even if it is unable to conclude if they knew in advance that the operation would end with his killing.

The disclosure of the intelligence report pointing the finger at Riyadh's strongman, Prince MBS, is another cartridge fired by the Biden administration to justify the cooling of relations with Riyadh and the rapprochement with Tehran in the wake traced by the Obama presidency – even if it will take months and probably little or nothing will move before the Iranian presidential elections in June.

Also yesterday, Biden ordered a raid on Syrian territory, on the border with Iraq, to target pro-Iranian Shiite militias ( Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada ) in retaliation for the recent attack on American civilian and military personnel stationed. in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. A necessary reaction to the provocations of the Iranian regime through its proxies in the region. But this is not a sufficient reaction, because the proxies serve Tehran precisely in order not to suffer direct (political and military) reprisals, and because it does not herald any rethinking in Washington regarding its intention to resume dialogue with Iran. And it is this intention, well known in Tehran, that makes Biden extremely weak and subject to Iranian provocations.

The post Biden's torpedo against MBS to justify the reset with Riyadh and the rapprochement with Tehran appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/siluro-di-biden-contro-mbs-per-giustificare-il-reset-con-riad-e-il-riavvicinamento-a-teheran/ on Sat, 27 Feb 2021 05:01:00 +0000.