US arms sales to Arab allies show a shift in Mideast policy

Photo: AP Images

With a flurry of arms sales to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, the Biden administration last week seemed to be signaling that it was slamming its Middle East policy into reverse — or so claimed John Hannah, a former senior foreign policy official in Washington, in an interview with Mishpacha this week.

Last week, the State Department approved a possible $70 million arms deal with Jordan that will include guided multiple launch rocket systems, alternate warheads, unitary rocket pods, and related equipment.

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a major non-NATO ally that is an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East,” the State Department said in a statement.

Also approved earlier this month were three other arm deals: the $4.21 billion sale of 16 F-16 C/D Block 70 aircraft to Jordan; the $23.7 million sale to Saudi Arabia of MIDS-LVT (a high-tech air defense tactical system) and related equipment; and a $65 million sale to the UAE of various parts, systems, and related equipment to maintain air defense programs.

Although these arms deals with regional allies shouldn’t come as a surprise, the string of announcements raises the question — why did the US approve them all at once?

“I think people in the administration are realizing that their Middle East policy is in a dangerous degree of freefall,” John Hannah told me this week.

Hannah, currently a senior fellow at JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy, served in senior foreign policy positions for both Democratic and Republican administrations, including as former vice president Dick Cheney’s national security advisor from 2005 to 2009. He says the Biden administration’s initial impulse after taking office was to emphasize human rights in its Middle East policy — which entailed giving the cold shoulder to longtime allies like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Biden also hoped to entice Iran back to the negotiating table by offering a more conciliatory stance.

“They came into office with lots of high-minded notions about how they were going to do things smarter and better than Trump,” Hannah said. “But nothing has quite worked out the way they thought it would. They wanted to get a longer and stronger nuclear deal by being more accommodating of Iran. They wanted to end the war in Yemen by distancing themselves from the Saudis and Emiratis. They wanted to end ‘forever wars’ by withdrawing all troops from Afghanistan.

“But their policies have made everything worse. If they get a deal with Iran, it’s by definition going to be shorter and weaker, not longer and stronger. Iran and its Houthi allies in Yemen have rejected a cease-fire and dramatically escalated the war there. And their abandonment of Afghanistan resulted in a humiliating debacle.”

Due to his suspected role in the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, is persona non grata in Washington, and should not expect an Oval Office invitation as long as Biden is in the White House. On the other hand, Biden now seems to realize that Iran is a mutual threat, and if the administration will not help the Arab Gulf states protect themselves, someone else will fill the void.

I asked Hannah about how Biden’s human rights agenda will factor into Middle East policy now. He said that for decades, every US administration has struggled to balance America’s values and its strategic interests in the Middle East.

“Biden and his team believed, not without reason, that the Trump administration devalued the importance of human rights far too much,” Hannah said, “especially in relations with countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, thereby giving them carte blanche to engage in all kinds of abuses and counterproductive policies — culminating in the horrific and brutal murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi by an official Saudi hit team in Istanbul.”

I asked Hannah if the Biden administration’s renewed emphasis on human rights had put the US at a disadvantage internationally.

“It’s clear that between his rhetoric and the policies that he pursued in his first year in office, Biden overcompensated in the other direction, in favor of human rights, and by devaluing America’s core strategic interests in the Middle East, which remain extremely important,” he said. “So the administration came to power making lots of grand rhetorical pronouncements about ‘putting human rights at the center of our foreign policy,’ making Saudi Arabia the ‘pariah’ that it is, and making MBS ‘pay’ for what happened to Khashoggi.

“Within a few weeks of becoming president, Biden launched an openly hostile campaign to visibly punish the kingdom and put it in its place by suspending all arms sales to the Saudis, lifting the terrorist designation of the Houthis in Yemen, declaring that Biden would have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), and publicizing a top secret intelligence analysis accusing MBS of ordering Khashoggi’s murder.”

And nothing good came of it, he argued. “After these steps, the Houthis shot twice as many missiles and drones at the Saudis in 2021 as they did in 2020. Now, for the first time, they are also targeting the UAE, one of the world’s most important hubs for trade, finance, and tourism. Iran has significantly accelerated its nuclear advancements and regional aggression using proxies. And Russia and China are intensifying their efforts to increase their influence and presence throughout the Middle East at America’s expense.”

Hannah said the administration now recognizes it needs to chart a different course. “Especially after the disaster in Afghanistan, Biden has started to realize how much the United States still needs our traditional authoritarian partners in the Arab world,” he said. “It’s all fine to have a serious and ongoing dialogue with them to press for improvements in their human rights records. But in terms of the day-to-day interests of the American people, the way these countries organize their societies internally pales in importance to their continued readiness to support a US-led security order in the Middle East — one that helps keep energy prices low, maintains freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce, contains Iranian aggression and prevents nuclear proliferation, fights terrorists, and stymies Russian and Chinese efforts to undercut US interests and primacy as the region’s most important and valued outside strategic partner.”

Hannah said the recent arms sales signal this shift in emphasis.

“The flurry of arms sales announcements are almost certainly connected to a realization within the administration that they need to adjust course in the Middle East and counter the dangerous perception that they are all about appeasing Iran, abandoning their friends, and leaving a regional vacuum to be filled by Russia and China,” he said. “They need to focus more on shoring up America’s position using hard power than making grandiose but public declarations about human rights that unnecessarily embarrass and antagonize the friends we need, without actually achieving anything except provoking Iran and its terrorist armies to fire more missiles, rockets, and drones at us and our allies.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 899)