US doesn't need Saudi Arabia to sign the Abraham Accords

Having failed to blackball Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from the high council of international affairs, President Joe Biden is now desperate to get Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler into the world's most exclusive club. White House officials have told journalists they are hopeful MBS, as the prince is known, will sign the Abraham Accords by the end of the year. That would bring his kingdom into a small circle of Arab states — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — that have normalized relations with Israel.

The Biden administration's optimism is predicated on three ill-conceived conceits: that MBS wants to join the club, that membership requires U.S. approval and that expanding the accords is crucial to U.S. security interests. (A fourth fallacy might also be at play — that this would amount to a major foreign policy success to show off during the president's reelection campaign next year.)

The prince has blown hot and cold over Israel. Relations between the two countries waxed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit with MBS in 2020, but they have since waned.

After repeated entreaties from Washington — carried by emissaries ranging from White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham — MBS set conditions for joining the accords, including US guarantees for Saudi Arabia's security, know-how for a nuclear power program and the removal of restrictions on arms sales to the kingdom.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who will visit Saudi Arabia this month, will presumably convey Biden's response. It is unlikely the president can meet all of MBS's demands before the end of the year, not least because of opposition from fellow Democrats in Congress. The Saudis know this and may have deliberately set the bar too high.

MBS's priorities are very different from those of the club's other members. Unlike the UAE and Bahrain, which saw Israel as shield against a belligerent Iran, Saudi Arabia has already arrived at an accommodation with the Islamic Republic. And he is not seeking special consideration from the U.S. — unlike Morocco, which got Washington's recognition for its claim to Western Sahara, and Sudan, which was removed from the State Department's list of sponsors of terrorism.

The crown prince is also mindful of the wishes of his father, the ailing King Salman bin Abdulaziz, a longtime advocate of Palestinian statehood, who is said to oppose a diplomatic opening with Israel. Saudi analysts say that MBS has decided he won't sign the accords while the king is still alive.

If the situation changes, Riyadh can easily normalize relations with Israel without U.S. assistance. With the other signatories having already broken that taboo, MBS needn't fear opprobrium in the Arab world. He could choose to sign the accords, or arrive at an entirely different diplomatic agreement.

If MBS hasn't forgiven Biden for the "pariah"' comment, he might derive some schadenfreude from denying him the credit, or even a photo-op at the White House. The Israelis wouldn't care, and the president could hardly cavil, as long as the deal got done.

And what if MBS decided to preserve the status quo indefinitely? The Biden administration's position, articulated by Sullivan, is that bringing more Arab and Muslim states into the accords is "a declared national security interest of the United States." But this airy claim doesn't bear scrutiny.

The US interest in securing Israel from hostile Arab states was substantially achieved decades ago, when Egypt and Jordan established relations with the country. The threat posed by Iran and its proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq requires military assistance and intelligence cooperation, rather than diplomatic exertion. And Saudi Arabia, even without normal diplomatic relations, can hardly be described as hostile to Israel.

Nor would having the kingdom in the club greatly change the U.S. security calculus for the region. If they keep pursuing a separate peace with Iran, the Saudis cannot be expected to participate meaningfully in any confrontation with the Islamic Republic. They are unlikely to have any restraining effect on the Iranians or their proxy militias.

For now, it is sufficient to U.S. purposes that Israel and Saudi Arabia cooperate surreptitiously on a wide range of military and intelligence initiatives. They could certainly benefit from more open association, especially in trade. But the Biden administration should leave it to the Saudis and Israelis to get there in their own time.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Bobby Ghosh is an Indian-born American journalist and commentator. He is a columnist and member of the editorial board at Bloomberg Opinion, writing on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world. Starting in 2016, Ghosh was editor-in-chief of the Hindustan Times and TIME Magazine's World Editor.

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