By Nie Shuyi
On July 17, local time, US President Joe Biden returned to Washington after his tour to the Middle East. President Biden had previously made a high-profile claim to open a new chapter in the US-Middle East relationship. However, this visit came to nothing whether in terms of "seeking oil" in Saudi Arabia or of winning over Middle East allies to form cliques and embrace bloc politics.
The death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul 2018 is one of the important reasons for the continued tension between the US and Saudi Arabia over the past few years. During his presidential campaign, Biden vowed to belittle Saudi Arabia on the international stage due to the murder of this Saudi journalist. In this regard, the announcement by the White House, which showed that Saudi Arabia was one of Biden’s destinations, caused huge controversy in the US. In particular, Biden's visit just coincided with the stubbornly high international oil prices and the persistent inflationary pressure in the US. Biden's visit to Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer in the Middle East, has made the world see more clearly the so-called "value" that the US has always had in words.
The US interest-oriented visit by President Biden is of no help to the Middle East in a complicated situation. Taking the Israel-Palestine crisis as an example, Biden's adoption of the previous administration's Israeli-Palestinian policy has kept the crisis difficult to resolve. Despite his visit to the West Bank, Biden failed to announce the reopening of the Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem, nor did he clearly mention his stand on the conflict, as former US Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton did.
The intractable Israel-Palestine conflict has also hindered Biden's efforts to improve Arab-Israel relations. On July 16, the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced that it would open its airspace to all airlines, paving the way for more flights traveling to and from Israel. While Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid referred to the move as the first official step in normalization with Saudi Arabia, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that Saudi Arabia will not fully normalize ties with Israel until a two-state solution with the Palestinians is reached.
To make matters worse, the US has also planned to bring the playbook of bloc politics into the Middle East. In the past few years, the US has tried to shift its strategic focus from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region. As the Middle East’s status in the US diplomatic layout has declined, now the US is expecting to push its Middle East Allies to the forefront in handling regional security issues, as well as in self-defending and safeguarding the US interests. Before Biden's visit, there were messages from the US media that the US intended to instigate Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries to build a so-called "Middle East version of NATO".
On the surface, the US is to make its Middle East Allies undertake more in defending their own and regional security interests through cooperation; as a matter of fact, it however, intends to instigate the building of such an alliance, which can be used as a tool for the US to contain Iran. Furthermore, these countries will be tied to the "chariot" of the US and then get involved in the US' rivalry against Russia and China in the Middle East. Biden declared directly at the Jeddah Summit on July 16 that the US will not leave any vacuum in the Middle East region to Russia, China, or Iran, fully exposing the US true intention in maintaining control and hegemony over the Middle East.
A country that has been provoking troubles and wars in the Middle East in the past few decades, having left countless messes and caused huge humanitarian disasters, and now bringing the fire of "bloc politics" to the Middle East, will only create more turmoil and chaos therein.
Editor's note: This article is originally published on haiwainet.cn, and is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
