The United States hopes to gradually change Iran’s “decision-making calculus” by signing a defense pact with Saudi Arabia and securing normalization of relations between Riyadh and Israel.
A US State Department spokesperson told RFE: “We continue to work with our allies and partners to strengthen our ability to deter and counter the Iranian threat, impose costs on Iranian actions, and slow the calculations of Iranian decisions. We aim to change this over time.” /RL.
The security package includes several elements, including a bilateral defense agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia aimed at strengthening the Sunni kingdom’s deterrent capabilities. However, no matter how close the US and Saudi Arabia are to reaching a bilateral agreement, the US government is adamant that its security policy cannot be realized without normalization of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Saudi Arabia has made a ceasefire in Gaza and the establishment of a credible path to a Palestinian state a condition for normalizing relations with Israel.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has announced that to ensure sustainable peace in the Middle East, a tripartite agreement that includes isolating Iran and the high costs for the Islamic Republic to maintain its current regional policy I think this will be the key.
“Iran’s isolation in the region and the international community is the result of its own policies,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement to RFE/RL.
Hamidreza Azizi, a researcher at the German Institute for International Security Studies, said a change in calculations would “definitely” occur, but not in the way the United States would like.
He added: “Any kind of coalition building will result in Iran turning against the coalition.”
But analysts argue that for Saudi Arabia, isolating Iran is not a core objective of its security agreement with the United States.
Saudi Arabia sees normalization of relations with Israel as a strategic tool to extract substantive security commitments from Washington and thereby balance Iranian influence without openly antagonizing Tehran. ”Azizi said.
On the other hand, securing a path to a Palestinian state could help Saudi Arabia assert leadership within the Islamic world and effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Iran has long opposed the normalization of diplomatic relations with Israel by Arab countries, and has strongly criticized the Abraham Accords in which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020.
On May 1, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei implicitly criticized Saudi Arabia, which is seeking to normalize relations with Israel in hopes of resolving the Palestinian issue.
Anna Jacobs, senior Gulf analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, argues that the UAE model of balancing relations with Iran and Israel suggests Saudi Arabia could do the same. did.
“Riyadh seems confident that normalizing relations with Israel will not have a major impact on relations with Tehran,” she said. “Saudi Arabia’s current strategy toward Iran is one of both containment and engagement.”
By RFE/RL
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