It's been a challenging few weeks for U.S. policymakers tasked with handling the Middle East. This week's detention of 10 American sailors by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps comes just as the diplomatic fallout from Saudi Arabia's controversial execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr seemed to finally be subsiding.
Exactly why the influential sheikh was executed remains a subject of debate, but few dispute that his killing was an unjust and imprudent decision by the Saudi rulers. Al-Nimr's execution sparked outcry from Shiite Muslims across the region, resulting in the torching of the Saudi embassy in Tehran, as well as an assault on the Kingdom's consulate in Mashhad. All of these incidents led to a rapid breakdown in diplomatic relations between Tehran and several Sunni governments closely aligned with the Saudi monarchy.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani moved quickly to condemn the two embassy attacks. Suspects were swiftly rounded up, but the damage had already been done. This left the United States in the unfortunate and all-too-familiar position of having to assuage Saudi concerns about Iranian involvement in regional affairs, while simultaneously working with both countries in its ongoing efforts to end strife and conflict in the region.
"[B]oth assured us that differences between them at this moment, expressed very publicly, will not interfere with their willingness to work cooperatively in an effort to resolve [the civil war in] Syria," said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this month.
Largely founded on its ability to safely and reliably deliver oil to the global energy markets, Riyadh's relationship with the United States developed throughout the Cold War into a security arrangement that would weather numerous wars and crises in the Middle East. However, the decline in global oil prices, coupled with the U.S. shale revolution, has diminished the rationale for this arrangement, and last year's nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers -- chiefly among them the United States -- has pushed Riyadh to lash out against its Shiite regional rival, most notably through its costly and controversial military campaign in Yemen.
"Countries that feel vulnerable sometimes do impulsive and counterproductive things, and that has been the case recently with Saudi Arabia," writes David Ignatius of the Washington Post.
The United States would no doubt prefer that Saudi Arabia remain a viable ally in the Mideast, and a partner in the long war against radicalism and terrorism, especially as the United States looks to reduce its footprint in the region following nearly a decade of war and military occupation in Iraq. The Obama administration's pursuit of rapprochement with Tehran has rattled Riyadh, however, pushing the Kingdom to engage in somewhat reckless behavior both at home and abroad.
"We try to assist with all the efforts carried out by the United States. We try to express our point of view and I can tell you that work between us and the United States is very strong and very magnificent," said Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in a recent interview with The Economist. "But the United States must realise that they are the number one in the world and they have to act like it."
That the Saudis would stand up for their own stake in the region and insist upon the status quo makes perfect sense; that American editorial writers and elected officials would so breathlessly oblige is another matter entirely. The Wall Street Journal:
"The U.S. didn't listen to Saudi Arabia about the Iran nuclear deal, which it believes signals a U.S. strategic tilt toward Iran and its Shiite allies in the Middle East. They see the administration backing down on sanctions against Iran for testing ballistic missiles that can reach Riyadh long before they get to New York. They feel under threat from an Iran liberated from sanctions, and they don't believe President Obama will defend them in a conflict. Why should they heed the U.S. now?"
Thus, the U.S.-Saudi relationship is best understood not as one built on measurable benefits for the United States, but rather one premised on assuaging and reassuring longtime clients in the region that Washington shares their specific interests. This formulation frames a recondite debate reserved primarily for pundits and political figures in the nation's capital, and it's a dynamic that the Kingdom spends millions of dollars each year in D.C. lobbying to preserve.
"Considering what we offer them in security terms, it's not unreasonable for the U.S. to ask the Saudis to not indulge in disastrous foreign adventures and to ask them to not execute large numbers of people on a regular basis," said Shadi Hamid, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The United States, argues Hamid, must re-engage the Mideast and develop a more comprehensive policy for the region, creating real incentive structures for problematic allies such as the Saudis. "Without actual consequences, we continue the cycle of one-sided bilateral relationships where the client acts like the patron, and the patron acts like anything but a superpower."
Iran, furthermore, seems determined to test the limits of U.S. diplomacy, as it too works to advance its own interests in the Middle East. This week's detention, albeit brief, of two U.S. Navy vessels and 10 American sailors is just the latest reminder that President Rouhani has very little control over the country's foreign policy apparatus, and possesses little ability to prevent the powerful Revolutionary Guard from challenging U.S. forces across the region.
The window of time to influence these two governments may be closing. While the oil price plunge has stretched thin the coffers of both regimes, energy analysts see the current glut of oil, and the toll it's taking on exploration projects and investment, likely leading to a tightening of the market in years ahead, and thus a spike in oil prices. Iran's more pleasant disposition in recent years isn't only attributable to its reform-minded president, but also to the price of oil. Bellicose former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had the benefit of oil barrels that sold at around $140; Rouhani must contend with barrels averaging around $30. Iran's amiable attitude may well change in the years ahead, however, as oil rebounds and its coffers replenish.
The Obama administration had hoped that the nuclear agreement with Iran would result in a safer and more autonomous Middle East, but events in recent weeks and months have severely strained that prospect.
"We thought that stepping back would allow our Arab allies to rise to the occasion and take responsibility for their own region," said Hamid, author of the book "Temptations of Power." "Instead, the ensuing power vacuum pushed our allies into a panic, and so they reacted -- and overreacted -- with more aggressive policies that only fueled the region's sectarian proxy war. Seven years [into the Obama presidency], we now should be able to empirically judge whether this effort to constrain our role in the region has actually worked. I don't see how anyone can argue that it has."
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