AMMAN — US
President Joe Biden’s visit to the Middle East last week was prompted by
Washington’s longstanding strategy to temper the growing influence of Russia
and China in the region, and display Israel’s relations with the US’ Arab
allies.
اضافة اعلان
“The visit was very
important because it is in line with the US strategy to face Russia and China,”
university professor Amer Al-Sabaileh told
Jordan News.
“Coming back to
this region in this way, as Biden talked about previous mistakes like
disregarding this region (Middle East), means that there is a desire to
rearrange the relationship with the allies within the bigger US strategy,”
Sabaileh added.
Biden visited Saudi
Arabia at the last leg of a regional tour, which also took him to Israel and
Palestine. In Saudi Arabia, the US president participated in the Jeddah
Security and Development Summit, which gathered GCC members, His Majesty King
Abdullah, and the leaders of Egypt and Iraq.
Sabaileh said that
the summit underlined a US desire to create a new vision for the region by
opening new doors for economic cooperation.
The Jeddah Security
and Development Summit, which convened Saturday, emphasized the leaders’
determination to develop cooperation, regional integration, and joint projects,
including an electrical interconnection agreement between Saudi Arabia and
Iraq.
The meeting also
emphasized the “main role” of the Hashemite Custodianship of holy shrines in
Jerusalem and the need to respect the historical status quo in the Israeli-occupied
city.
Political analyst
Labib Kamhawi said that there’s a slight shift in the US position, but he noted
that the “chemistry was not very good” in Jeddah. Arabs were also not
forthcoming in giving their approval to increased Arab oil production to meet
skyrocketing fuel prices, battering the US market, he added.
Kamhawi
specifically pointed to the lukewarm gestures by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad
Bin Salman towards Biden.
“So again, we are
back to square one, where the individual position of Arab leaders affects the
general policy of their respective countries,” Kamhawi said.
The main loser is
the US because they left themselves with no leverage or substance to give to
neither Arabs, nor Israelis.
Kamhawi explained
that Biden wanted to reintroduce American influence in the region and block any
Russian or Chinese attempts to infiltrate the area since Arabs have been
shifting slightly towards Russia and China.
Political analyst
Oraib Al-Rantawi wrote in an article that the US is no longer “omnipotent”,
adding that it was clear when the leaders of the nine Arab countries ignored
the “Middle Eastern NATO” project and did not mention it with any of its
different names, and they repudiated it before it saw the light.
Rantawi noted that
the surprise came out when the Arab leaders unanimously reminded Biden that the
Palestinian issue, which he sought to marginalize, is the centerpiece of the
region’s peace and that there is neither security nor stability in the region
without solving it according to known references.
“Israel is like a
cancerous growth, and they (Americans) want to make it a healthy organ in the
Arab body, which is impossible,” political analyst Hilmi Al-Asmar told
Jordan
News.
He added Biden’s
visit will increase the chasm and anger between Arab systems and their people,
exacerbate the feelings of rejection towards the “Zionist entity” and anyone
who normalizes with it. This ought to make the future filled with revolutions,
significantly that the economic situation will aggravate those feelings of
anger.
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