Each Arab country that has pursued a greater opening with Israel over the past year has had its own distinct agenda. The UAE sought, and is building, a broad-ranging partnership with Israel on countering regional hegemony by Iran and Turkey; developing commercial and scientific links (especially in the technology field); increasing defense cooperation, particularly on areas such as missile defense as well as cyber and electronic warfare; and obtaining sought-after weapon systems from Washington, particularly the F-35 fifth-generation fighter jet, as well as mending ties with mainstream Democrats in the administration of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Bahrain was mainly driven to make common cause with Israel due to the latter’s military heavy lifting against Iran’s regional network of violent extremist groups in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. Sudan sought aid and removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, both of which it achieved. And Morocco sought quiet recognition of its claims over Western Sahara, which it received from the administration of former President Donald J. Trump, and Biden is reportedly not planning to reverse this position.

Saudi Arabia’s aims for an opening with Israel would not be as extensive as the UAE’s multifaceted list of goals to form a deep partnership with Israel nor as narrow as Bahrain’s single-minded focus on Iran. Saudi Arabia would certainly be looking to strengthen the regional coalition opposing Iran’s quest for hegemony in the Middle East. It may even have an eye to staving off potential analogous Turkish ambitions, although it appears less alarmed about that than both the UAE and Israel.

But beyond regional strategic considerations, there is another potential issue that might induce Saudi Arabia, particularly under de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: repairing strained relations with Washington. During the Trump administration, U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Salman – with the exception of the president personally – cratered, arguably reaching an all-time low. Democrats were angered by the bear hug between the Saudi leadership and the new administration during Trump’s first overseas trip. They were further alienated by increased casualties from the war in Yemen, which also came to disturb many Senate Republicans.

But the biggest blow to Saudi reputations, especially that of Mohammed bin Salman, came with the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Khashoggi was well known and well liked in Washington, even by those who disagreed with many of his views, and was a regular contributor to The Washington Post. In addition, the overall circumstances of his killing – the brutality and setting in an overseas diplomatic mission – all produced an unprecedented level of shock and outrage in the United States among both Democrats and Republicans. Following Khashoggi’s killing, compounded with the Yemen war and various notorious human rights violations inside Saudi Arabia, the future Saudi king became radioactive in the United States.

There’s been a great deal of important and effective repair work done on these relations since Biden assumed the presidency, but because of the Khashoggi murder, it’s still impossible to imagine Mohammed bin Salman, whether as crown prince or king, being welcomed in Washington under the current circumstances. This is an impossible conundrum for Saudi Arabia. Current domestic political conditions suggest that Mohammed bin Salman is almost certain to become king. But the Saudi king cannot be unwelcome in the capital of Riyadh’s essential ally, guarantor, and protector. Saudi Arabia is not ready to stand alone in defense of its national interests, and it does not have an alternative partner, or set of partners, who could substitute for the United States.

Eventually, securing relations with Israel could prove a trump card for Mohammed bin Salman to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of much of Washington, including most Republicans and many senior Democratic centrists. That, combined with other considerations, such as potential strategic benefits regarding Iran and Turkey, could prompt Saudi Arabia to take the step to open ties with Israel after Mohammed bin Salman’s succession.

However, the decision will not be an easy one, as it has been for the other countries that risked little and gained a great deal by opening diplomatic relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia has a much larger, more diverse, and potentially volatile population and brittle political domestic equation than its smaller neighbors. It also has to protect a regional Arab leadership role that it has no choice but to perform given the vacuum left by traditional centers of power as well as a global Islamic leadership role that it has long fought to maintain. Normalizing relations with Israel could again make Saudi Arabia a focus of radical Sunni Islamist violence, increase domestic religious and nationalist opposition to Mohammed bin Salman’s rule, and be exploited by Iran and its allies to castigate Saudi Arabia. It is also especially awkward for Saudi Arabia to discard the principles of the Arab Peace Initiative, as its author and main sponsor, by normalizing relations with Israel despite a continuation of the occupation of Palestinian territories.

So, particularly after succession, Saudi Arabia is looking at a high-risk but high-potential gain scenario. Violence in Jerusalem over the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in May proved extremely uncomfortable for the UAE and Bahrain; although Hamas’ intervention, which changed the dynamic to another campaign of aerial bombardment between Israel and Gaza, eased the pressure considerably. But the Jerusalem tensions were a timely reminder of the kind of difficulty Saudi Arabia might face if it opens up to relations with Israel.

Yet Saudi Arabia has been careful to keep the option open. It has signaled tacit support for the Emirati and Bahraini moves, the latter of which was almost certainly greenlighted from Riyadh. It has allowed unprecedented access to Saudi airspace for Israeli commercial planes. And there are reports about several high-level meetings, including one between Mohammed bin Salman and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister made it clear in August that his country has no intention of joining the Abraham Accords anytime soon, if ever, and reasserted Riyadh’s strong support for Palestinian rights and statehood. Diplomatic pronouncements, particularly in public, need to be taken with a grain of salt. However, most evidence suggests this is in line with Saudi Arabia’s current assessment about a diplomatic opening with Israel. It is keeping its options open but does not appear to be getting closer to yes.

The post Wary But Intrigued, Saudi Arabia is Still Weighing Potential Ties to Israel appeared first on AGSI.

Both views have merits, but each misses a crucial point: that China’s growing economic influence in the Gulf region is best measured indirectly. China consumes an outsized share of the Gulf’s oil and gas exports, actively invests in state-linked entities, and provides sleek digital services to the region’s large youth population. The coronavirus pandemic and oil price rout of early 2020 afford China the opportunity to deepen and expand these dimensions of economic influence, especially over the medium and long terms.

The oil and gas sector alone accounts for more than 70 percent of government revenues in most Gulf Arab countries, and China is a primary consumer of the Gulf’s oil and gas exports. While Gulf countries are trying to diversify their economies, government spending and the interrelated hydrocarbon industries remain the primary drivers of economic growth in the region. Thus, Beijing does play a key—albeit indirect—role in the ability of governments in the Gulf to allocate capital expenditures, create job opportunities, promote entrepreneurism and launch economic initiatives that attract investment.

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The post How China Is Quietly Expanding Its Economic Influence in the Gulf appeared first on AGSI.

Defined at the 1996 World Food Summit as a situation “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food”, food security relies on four pillars: physical availability, economic and physical access, food utilization, and stability over time.

At first glance, food insecurity does not come across as a burning issue for the Gulf Cooperation Council member states, as their wealth usually ensures abundant and stable access to food supplies. In fact, four of them (Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia) are in the top 5 countries in the MENA region and in the top 30 countries worldwide in the 2019 Global Food Security Index.

However, the Gulf region has poor agricultural conditions, that is it is “[an environment] characterized by high temperatures, poor soil quality and low annual rainfall, and regarded as most vulnerable to water scarcity, salinity and climate change”. Having great environment constraints and high demand, the GCC countries import more than 80% of their food. Their main vulnerability thus stems from their extreme dependence on international markets for supplies and this is what the COVID-19 pandemic has come to threaten.

As it began to disrupt the global food system, with restrictions on internal and international movement affecting supply chains, the coronavirus outbreak spurred fears of food insecurity in the Gulf. These find roots in the experience of the 2008 global food crisis, when the Gulf states discovered their vulnerability, “not because they [could not] pay for their food imports, but because countries were not willing to sell”. In late March, these memories were stirred as onions temporarily disappeared from Kuwaiti grocery stores, with the so-called “onion crisis” spreading to Saudi Arabia in April.

Apart from these somewhat anecdotical instances, however, it seems that no major disturbance occurred on Gulf food markets as a direct consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. As it turns out, this, too, might have a lot to do with the 2008 global food crisis. Lessons learned from then led the FAO, IFAD, WFP and the World Bank to issue a joint statement urging countries to not give in to “panic-driven policy responses” that would increase stress on international markets, for example. Gulf countries have nevertheless taken targeted measures to address these issues.

The pandemic is forcing a reprioritization of people-centered challenges that Gulf leaders seem to be willing and ready to undertake both at home and abroad. When it comes to food security, they had already ramped up their efforts after the 2008 global food crisis. For instance, the FAO notes that they have significantly reduced risks linked to food security by holding large food reserves. In addition to their enhanced storage capacity, governments increased financial assistance and subsidies to boost local agricultural production. It was, however, quickly established that, because of water scarcity, this would not be sustainable without endangering the environment and that self-sufficiency was an unattainable goal. Consequently, most Gulf countries turned to a diversification of their food suppliers and, crucially, to investments in arable land abroad – in Africa, as well as Europe and the US.

On these bases, some new national initiatives since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak include the formation of a dedicated Food Security Council in the UAE in January and renewed efforts to support farmers and facilitate food imports in Saudi Arabia. To strengthen its food security, Kuwait turned to increased international cooperation and investment in agriculture technology (agri-tech), notably in a start-up based in the UAE, Pure Harvest. As for Qatar, it has arguably found itself in a better situation than many, having drastically increased its domestic output since the beginning of the diplomatic spat with its neighbors in June 2017 and the air, land and sea blockade imposed by them. On this note, it is worth mentioning that at the regional level, the pandemic led to an encouraging cooperation initiative amid the GCCin mid-April, with the six members adopting a Kuwaiti proposal to establish a joint network to protect food supplies.

Going forward, as policymakers in the Gulf look to redefine national security, the spotlight the pandemic has put on these aspects might accelerate other policy changes. On the domestic front, this could include serious budget rebalancing to support mounting investment in research and development pertaining to food and water security. On the international front, this could push them to “strike a balance between fostering a highly diversified pool of food providers while maintaining a strong but more limited pool of strategic agricultural partnerships”. This could be a starting point to inject new, greener energy into traditional cooperation schemes, for instance between Europe and the Gulf.

While Gulf security always encompassed much more than ensuring regime survival and defending the integrity of the territory against potential aggressors, the COVID-19 pandemic comes as a reality check for governments in the region and beyond, urging them to shift their focus onto human-centric dimensions of security. Maintaining food security, in particular, is “a matter of state policy linked to both national security and social stability”.

As they embark on the journey to safeguard their security in an all-encompassing way, Gulf leaders can perhaps find solace in the idea that this is a challenge that is bound to be faced by an increasing number of countries around the world as climate change continues to impact populations. Showing up early to this field as a model of marginal environment having tackled these tests could thus become a new, sustainable, and constructive method to boost their status and influence on the global stage.

The post Covid-19, Diversification and the Future of Food Security in the Gulf appeared first on AGSI.

The State Department maintains a list of formally designated FTOs, the main purpose of which is to criminalise dealings with those groups by Americans. The operative law from 1996 was intended to make otherwise lawful activity criminal, if it in any way benefited designated organisations, including charitable and educational efforts, and any kind of advice, even about how to stop being a terrorist group.

When the US wants to directly punish a foreign individual or group with sanctions, that is mainly done by the Treasury Department. This State Department FTO list is political and often symbolic. It brands contact with entities such as Hamas and Hezbollah as unacceptable, under penalty of law.

It is easy to see the appeal of designating the Muslim Brotherhood, since it is indeed the main source of ideology behind almost all Sunni Islamist terrorism. There would be no Al Qaeda or ISIS, if not for the Brotherhood.

It is also accurate to compare the Brotherhood to a gateway drug for terrorism. If only one in 10 Brotherhood members graduates to Al Qaeda, that is one too many.

And while it has become easy for young radicals to bypass a Brotherhood phase, the group’s ideology is still the fount of many of the basic ideas and aims, such as the restoration of a caliphate, that animate the most violent Sunni extremists.

But that doesn’t make this a good idea. The Brotherhood, writ large, isn’t an organisation at all, but a loose network that encompasses entities with many different orientations and conduct within a broader context.

So, the practical meaning of the designation of a monolithic Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation would be up for grabs, unless the specific standalone, vertically integrated groups were clearly defined. Lack of such clarity will ensure endless confusion.

The US government could designate the Egyptian Brotherhood, the oldest Brotherhood group, but that organisation itself hasn’t engaged in much recently documented violence. It makes more sense to single out breakaway factions or groups with ties to the Brotherhood that have unquestionably conducted systematic mayhem, such as Harakat Sawa’d Misr (HASM) and Liwa Al Thawra, both of which the State Department made Specially Designated Global Terrorists last year. That allows the Treasury Department to freeze and block their assets, along with other sanctions, but its less far-reaching than an FTO designation.

If the Egyptian Brotherhood itself was designated without significant new documentation of direct responsibility for violence, that might undermine the credibility of the entire list and make it appear not just political but arbitrary.

A blanket designation of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in general would also cause no end of legal headaches.

Who, precisely, would it include? How could it be enforceable? Would it target all those who acknowledge being Brotherhood affiliates? What about those who deny that? What happens if a group insists they no longer are, or never were, affiliated with the Brotherhood? Who judges that? What’s the standard?

More importantly, there are Brotherhood-influenced or purportedly formerly Brotherhood-affiliated parties in some aspect of the governments of numerous US allies.

Would the US extend the Lebanon model in which it deals with the government, but not individual Hezbollah ministers?

So, it is unlikely that a blanket designation will be issued, and, though it is possible that the Egyptian Brotherhood in general could be designated, it is wiser to add groups such as HASM, with a sustained record of terrorism.

But this debate again raises the issue of how to deal with political Islamism. The Brotherhood is unquestionably a radical movement, and hardly pacifist.

History shows it is prepared to engage in wholesale violence when it finds that useful, as Hamas in particular has shown. But most Brotherhood parties have preferred a political to a violent approach to gaining and holding power, because they believe that will be more effective.

Yet the ultra-religious do exist and there should be an acceptable role for them in national politics. Otherwise, some will surely take up arms.

The traditional Brotherhood model has three primary characteristics that are strictly incompatible with law, order and stability: it is revolutionary, conspiratorial and transnational.

Some increasingly post-Islamist groups, such as Ennahda party in Tunisia, maintain that they are no longer any of those things. They say they are not revolutionary, because they accept the existing constitution. They are not conspiratorial because they obey the law and do everything in the open. And they are no longer part of any transnational agenda.

If true, such transformations should be welcomed.

Mainstream Arab politics should be open to religious conservatives, and even former Brotherhood parties and members, who are not violent and are genuinely no longer revolutionary, conspiratorial or transnational.

Any group that truly adopts such changes does not belong on a list of terrorist organisations. It belongs in the political process of its own country, according to national laws and, hopefully, always in the loyal opposition.

The post A Strategic US Approach is Required to Counter the Muslim Brotherhood appeared first on AGSI.

Occasionally, though, there is a dramatic twist and the whole constellation is suddenly rearranged.

Sometimes it’s obvious, as with the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. In other cases, the full significance only becomes clear over time.

The fall of rebel-held portions of Aleppo to pro-regime forces in Syria in December 2016 is the most recent Middle Eastern example of a subtle political tremor that, perhaps surprisingly, has repositioned many key tectonic plates underneath the strategic landscape.

At the time, most observers understood that it was a big deal, signalling the practical end of the major fighting in Syria and, therefore, the comprehensive victory of Bashar Al Assad’s regime and its Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah backers.

But the aftershocks have reverberated so powerfully that it is now hard not to begin many conversations about Middle Eastern strategic realities without saying: “After the fall of Aleppo…”

Perhaps the most far-reaching impact has been the significantly transformed regional role of Turkey.

Ankara was already moving away from a commitment to regime change in Damascus and focusing on containing Kurdish gains in northern Syria. But Aleppo made Turkey’s altered profile practically irreversible.

From then on, Ankara no longer saw Tehran as a fundamental adversary, but reconceptualised Iran, along with Russia, as a necessary partner in ensuring an acceptable post-conflict stabilisation in Syria.

This intensified and accelerated the emergence of Turkey as a fully committed, leading regional power with its own distinctive orientation. And after the boycott of Qatar began in June 2017, it became clear that the Ankara-Doha axis was emerging as a third regional bloc, simultaneously competing with both the pro and anti-Iranian camps.

Aleppo was, therefore, the decisive turning point in transforming the Middle East from a binary to a ternary competition, a new reality that is close to pervasive, albeit sometimes subtly, from Morocco to Iraq.

And because Egypt is so categorically opposed to the pro-Islamist orientation of this Turkish-led third camp, Cairo has increasingly emerged from its crisis-induced introversion and back into broader regional engagement.

As the victorious parties – Russia, Iran and Turkey – established the Astana conferences to try to negotiate the arrangements necessary to consolidate their gains, Ankara and Moscow, in particular, developed new levels of co-operation.

However, as Syria has more firmly entered into a post-war era, it is obvious that both Turkey and Russia are beginning to wonder if, and even when, Iran’s more far-reaching ambitions in Syria will begin to undermine their own, vital but more limited, goals in the country.

In other words, the long-term impact of Aleppo and the end of the war could, however counterintuitively, signal at least a gradual erosion of the Russian-Iranian alliance that secured that victory in the first place.

Aleppo was also decisive in harmonising Arab and Israeli threat perceptions regarding Iran.

Before then, Israel largely saw Iran as a nuclear threat, while Arabs were more focused on Iran’s destabilising regional policies, hegemonic ambitions and support for non-state actors, such as militia groups.

The fall of Aleppo confronted Israel with its own, immediate version of the same threat, with pro-Iranian and other militias far too close for comfort, Iran trying to establish itself as a dominant power in post-war Syria, and Hezbollah transformed from a Lebanese paramilitary organisation to the regional vanguard of the network of pro-Iranian militia and terrorist groups throughout the Middle East.

So, Iran’s victory at Aleppo brought its major Arab and Israeli antagonists closer together, despite major ongoing divisions regarding Palestinian rights, which cannot be to Tehran’s benefit.

Because terrorist groups thrive on war, chaos and state failure, the fall of Aleppo was bad news for ISIS in the short run. It removed the final obstacle to a concerted international campaign to destroy its self-declared “caliphate.”

And while the regime victory in Aleppo meant that affiliates of Al Qaeda would dominate larger portions than ever of the remaining armed Syrian opposition, it might eventually mean that the terrorist organisation will find itself largely driven out of Syria.

In the longer run, however, after so much wanton violence, the regime is likely to find it difficult to rule Syria in peace and quiet. If it cannot and will not find a way to reconcile with so many of its own citizens, terrorist groups, including ISIS, may be back with a vengeance.

By signalling the end of the Syrian war, the fall of Aleppo also set in motion ongoing Arab efforts to re-engage with Syria, most notably illustrated by the recent reopening of the UAE Embassy in Damascus.

As in Iraq, most Arab states will now have to rely on political and economic outreach, soft power, and the gradual reintegration of Syria into the Arab fold, in order to secure their interests.

These are just a few of the major transformations that the fall of Aleppo set in motion or greatly accelerated. But they irrefutably establish that, over time, it has proven a historic Middle Eastern turning point.

The post The Aftershocks of Aleppo’s Fall Continue to Shake the Region appeared first on AGSI.

Many Arab governments, including those of Egypt and Algeria, never really broke with the Syrian regime. But for those that did, hopes of regime change effectively ended with the fall of Aleppo to pro-Assad forces in January 2017.

That was the culmination of a massive joint intervention launched in September 2015 to save the Syrian dictatorship by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. The intervention left the regime in control of what it deemed “necessary Syria”, as opposed to areas it viewed as relatively marginal and still held by rebel groups or ISIS. The Syrian war was effectively over at that point.

Then it was simply a matter of when and how Arab countries that had backed the rebels and demanded the removal of the Assad regime would come to terms with the practical necessity of dealing with the government in Syria.

It is not surprising that the UAE has taken the lead in this process.

Unlike Turkey and Qatar – and even, to some extent, Saudi Arabia – the UAE was never enthusiastic enough about the Syrian uprising to support armed rebel groups. It preferred to work with Jordan and the United States, mainly on humanitarian and intelligence undertakings, in the south of the country.

While everyone agreed on the need to combat ISIS, the UAE was always sceptical of the Arab Spring uprisings, even when directed at regimes such as those in Libya and Syria. Those doubts persisted even as UAE forces participated in the international intervention to prevent a massacre in Libya in 2011.

Over time, a series of disastrous developments doomed the Syrian uprising.

The administration of Barack Obama abandoned any serious US effort to engage with, and influence the outcome of, the conflict.

The Assad regime, nonetheless, appeared on the brink of collapse, but then Russia, Iran and Hezbollah charged to the rescue and flipped the momentum back in its favour.

For this and other reasons Turkey abandoned its efforts to promote regime change in Syria and focused instead on combating Kurdish groups near its southern border.

The final blow, as if one were needed, was US President Donald Trump’s announcement that all American forces will be suddenly withdrawn from Syria in coming weeks.

The few voices in Washington who support this move dismiss the efficacy of the American presence in the north and east of the country.

But while the US base at Al Tanf and troops near Al Bukamal may not have much impact on power in Damascus, they do effectively block the creation of an Iranian military corridor to the Mediterranean at the two major crossings from Iraq into Syria.

Mr Trump’s backers claim Israel can block Iran on the other side of Syria, towards the south-west. But that could allow Iran to get within 60km or even less of the Lebanese border – just waiting for a chance to complete the circuit.

Even if Washington goes through with the colossal folly of abandoning Al Tanf and other highly strategic areas – of limited importance to the regime, but strongly coveted by Tehran – that is indicative of the situation in Syria, post-Aleppo and post-ISIS.

The battles now are over Kurdish areas in the north and sparsely populated zones in the east, which have more strategic significance regionally then nationally. All this underscores the fact that the main war in Syria is, and has long been, over.

Few Arabs will be happy about re-opening embassies in Damascus, given the hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced by the regime – a perfect example, if ever there was one, of a rogue government’s war against its own people.

But the struggle for Syria, like that in Iraq, must now be pursued at political and diplomatic registers. Re-engagement in Syria is essential, because the goal now must be to split the Astana talks partnership of Russia, Turkey and Iran, and to even draw the Assad regime away from Iran and Hezbollah.

Recent developments in Iraq suggest that serious diplomatic and political efforts based on positive inducements, promoting Arab identity, and leveraging specific national interests, rather than dependency on Iran can be effective even under circumstances where Tehran once seemed to be in complete control.

The realities of Syria’s dictatorship may make this task even more complex than the fragmented politics of Iraq did. But there is no way Russia or the Assad regime wish to remain forever at the mercy of Iran.

There is much to work with already, and such fissures can and should be widened and exploited. In an abstracted moral universe, no one would ever again deal with such a blood-soaked regime. But in the real world, everyone is going to have to. They may as well get started now.

The post Dealing with the Syrian Regime is a Sad but Inevitable Reality appeared first on AGSI.

Meetings in Riyadh last week with senior Yemeni and Saudi officials offered little hope that the war that has wracked Yemen for over two years and spawned one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises is anywhere near its end. Admittedly, the picture we were able to develop is incomplete. Still, some themes emerged from our conversations with these senior officials that may prove useful to U.S. policymakers wrestling with options the Administration can pursue to bring Yemen’s destabilizing war to a conclusion.

Today, there appears to be no viable path to peace in Yemen. While our interlocutors all agreed that only a political solution will end the war, they also seemed determined to continue fighting, arguing that sustained military pressure is needed to bring the Houthi insurgents back to the negotiating table. Meanwhile, the UN-sponsored peace process seems to have completely stalled.

Senior officials in the Saudi capital assess that Yemeni forces and their Saudi-led coalition partners are grinding out modest progress in several areas – in Taiz, along the Marib road east of the capital Sana’a, and on the Red Sea coast (Yemen’s western border). Yet, the Houthis continue to control much of the country’s strategic and populous highlands. The Saudis – now led by Major General Fahd bin Turki bin Abdul Aziz – are focusing on clearing their border and establishing a buffer zone inside Yemen. The Yemeni officials we met asserted that their ground forces have moved west from Marib and are now 30 miles from the capital, within artillery range. Similarly, they underscored progress in encircling Hudaydah port, Yemen’s lifeline to the outside world, on the Red Sea coast.

Yet, next steps in each case are deeply problematic. An assault on Hudaydah would likely accelerate the famine that is now gathering momentum in the country. Similarly, an attempt to liberate Yemen’s capital of nearly 2 million people could lead to calamitous bloodshed, although Yemeni officials continue to make longstanding arguments that popular dissatisfaction with Houthi rule inside Sana’a is ever growing and weakening the rebel’s grip on the city.

Further complicating the situation, both sides of the conflict are fraying internally, in particular, the Houthi alliance with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. There was consensus in Riyadh that Saleh is at his weakest point yet in this conflict, and some asserted that army units once loyal to him have defected to the Houthis. Yet, Saleh seems unable to act against the Houthis or exit the alliance. He remains driven to guarantee his family’s continued influence in Yemen’s political life.

Meanwhile, the alliance of Yemeni, Saudi and Emirati governments is also under considerable stress and, in May, a trilateral committee was formed in an effort to minimize discord and coordinate decision-making. Yemeni Vice President Ali Mohsen chairs the group, which includes Saudi General Intelligence Presidency deputy Ahmed Asiri, and Ali bin Hamad al-Shamsi, the Deputy Secretary General of the UAE’s Supreme National Security Council.

Not surprisingly, Saudi and Yemeni officials repeatedly claimed that the unwillingness of the Houthi insurgents to engage in serious negotiations is the principal obstacle to ending the war in Yemen. These officials complained that the Houthis’ religious zealotry and fealty to Iran make political compromise all but impossible. Whether or not these assessments are fair, the Houthis have never clearly defined their political demands, nor have they honored any of their major political commitments – including even their power-sharing arrangements with Saleh.

Before the war started, the Houthis sought greater representation in Yemen’s government and access to the Red Sea. However, during the negotiations, the Houthis left largely untested the Yemeni and Saudi governments’ claims that they could play a significant role in a new national government. The Houthis’ only significant credible act was to endorse the UN Roadmap for Yemen as a basis for negotiation. However, President Hadi rejected the UN Roadmap, and thus this effort foundered.

Given our conversations in Riyadh, we recommend the following to restart the peace process:

Re-energize the UN mediation process. The UN is focusing on a plan to have a neutral third-party operate Hudaydah port. However, a broader and re-energized UN peace process is needed, one that benefits from the active engagement of as many nations as possible with an ability to influence the parties in the conflict.

In this regard, the United States needs to view Yemen as more than simply a theater in which its anti-Iran and counter-terrorism campaigns can be waged. The Trump Administration must bring a sense of urgency to diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. Recent steps by the U.S. House of Representatives to limit U.S. military support for the war point to growing concern over its humanitarian impact, and reinforce the need for effective U.S. diplomacy. This could include further exploration of a deal that accelerates the break-up of the Houthi-Saleh alliance through diplomatic statecraft.

Increase Pressure on the Houthis. Additional political and military pressure on the Houthi and Saleh-aligned forces is necessary. However, military efforts must be directed against targets that minimize humanitarian risks to the civilian population (i.e., not Hudaydah or Sana’a). In addition, more frequent, but more targeted efforts to interdict the flow of Iranian arms to the Houthis should be undertaken so that Saudi-led Coalition naval operations do not impede the flow of humanitarian assistance.

Clarify the Parameters of a Peace Deal. Consensus is building in favor of a loosely confederated Yemen, and ongoing developments in the south only reinforce this likelihood. This may provide an opportunity to offer the Houthis more compelling terms in a peace deal, including a greater measure of autonomy in northern Yemen, and UN-monitored Houthi control of the Red Sea port of Midi.

Right now, the Yemeni people are being held hostage by leaders who have abdicated their responsibilities. They are threatened by violence, famine and cholera. The instability threatens Yemen’s neighbors and, in several respects, U.S. national security interests as well. It is past time that all parties press for peace with the same determination they have brought to waging the war.

The post Yemen: The View from Riyadh appeared first on AGSI.

The parties seem to recognise this, as the flurry of diplomatic activity in the American capital last week demonstrated. But the Trump administration still appears divided, uncertain and haunted by a series of unresolved questions that will undoubtedly shape the longer-term, and possibly decisive, American response.

Perhaps the most significant meeting last week was a dinner at which US secretary of state Rex Tillerson was joined by the foreign minister of Kuwait and the secretary-general of the United Nations, presumably to discuss this crisis. In that meeting, one could start to see the outlines of an international mediation troika that combines the global legitimacy of the UN, the regional Gulf credibility of Kuwait and the heft and power of the United States.

The state department seems keen to resolve the confrontation, but the White House apparently has yet to give it a green light to utilise Washington’s full influence. Sean Spicer, the president’s press secretary, continues to describe the stand-off as a “family issue” that should be resolved by the parties themselves without American interference.

However, many others in Washington are becoming increasingly alarmed at the potential costs to the US over the long run.

Concern not only focuses on emerging difficulties in optimizing and coordinating between the US military installations spread around the Gulf region, as Bahrain’s recent expulsion of Qataris working with the anti-ISIL campaign began to demonstrate. There’s also a strong American perception that unity among its allies is essential to the priorities of defeating terrorism and confronting Iran.

Moreover, Qatar has launched a fairly effective public relations campaign in Washington, painting itself as the victim of “counterrevolutionary autocrats” who are trying to bully a small neighbour for having an independent foreign policy and a free press. This caricature of reality has made substantial inroads in American perceptions because it has been largely unopposed in policy-framing, if not policy-making, circles.

Therefore, once a unified policy coalesces in the administration, Washington is likely to push for an early resolution based on Gulf Arab reconciliation.

The challenge will be that the countries confronting Doha are clear that their demands are non-negotiable, while Qatar is extremely unlikely to submit to them as promulgated.

The Arab coalition doesn’t seem at all willing to negotiate directly, or compromise, with Qatar. But they might be willing to reach understandings with Washington, which could then have its own complimentary “bilateral” arrangements with Doha.

Ideas are already circulating involving the embedding of US treasury officials in Qatari ministries and financial institutions, supervision of monthly audits and restructuring the management of Al Jazeera and other media.

The Qataris don’t rule these out, and while such ideas evidently won’t satisfy the coalition, they could be a start.

Washington’s ultimate posture will be shaped by the answers to several key questions.

First, is the coalition amenable to a resolution based on policy changes by Doha or does it want to give Qatar a straightforward choice of capitulation or indefinite isolation? It will be much easier for Washington to work with the first than the second.

Second, the 13 demands have left many Americans wondering what the primary motivation for the campaign is, because they cover so many varied, disparate elements.

Is this campaign primarily driven by differences over the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremists, and mainly designed to get Qatar to stop promoting radical ideas and demagogues?

Or is it primarily conceptualised as a first step in what may ultimately prove a far broader campaign to confront and rollback Iranian influence, by getting the Arab and Gulf house in order and denying Tehran a covert ally and potential mouthpiece and conduit to Arab public opinion?

The consensus view in Washington is that it must primarily be one or the other. It could be both, of course. But not equally.

The US assumption is that there is an overarching strategic goal, in the singular. And, right now, few if any Americans, including the most well-informed, have a strong sense of which it is.

The inclusion, for example, of the demand to end the Turkish military presence in Qatar in the list further muddied the issues in Washington. This doesn’t seem directly connected to either Iran, or to terrorism.

The idea that Turkey and Qatar, along with Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood groups, constitute a subversive and dangerous Islamist alliance might be convincing in much of the Gulf. But such accusations are still a stretch in Washington regarding a long-standing NATO ally.

Of course, if the countries confronting Qatar seek or welcome a separation, or if Doha is completely recalcitrant — or both – such American questions won’t matter, because any reconciliation effort is bound to fail. But the American drive to understand and resolve the crisis, in the US national interest, is only likely to strengthen if the stand-off drags on or, especially, intensifies.

This article was originally published by The National.

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The Cipher Brief: Historically, what has been Qatar’s connection to the Muslim Brotherhood?

Marcelle Wahba: Qatar is a conservative Sunni Wahhabi state ruled by the Al Thani family. Since its independence in 1971, Qatar has maintained connections with a broad range of Islamists. Ties to the Muslim Brotherhood increased in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, when the Qataris provided extensive financial and political support in hopes that the Brotherhood would become the new regional power replacing autocratic regimes in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya.

The post Gulf Rift Threatens Region’s Stability appeared first on AGSI.

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