June 24: Saudi Arabia and Israel panic Iran

In which, the Abraham Accords strikes again in solidifying an anti-Iran Mideast bloc, we check in on Ukraine, and President Biden tries to rein in gas prices (with no help from fellow Democrats).

Those one week hiatuses really make me feel out of the loop. BUT, knee surgery done, recovery under way, and it’s time to catch up on the last couple of weeks, which can largely be summed up around some major through lines we’ve been tracking for most of this year: Ukraine, Biden’s travails, Supreme Court rulings, etc. Onwards!

Saudi Arabia and Israel panic Iran

Just as I was heading out, it seemed like a new nuclear deal with Iran was on ice, President Biden had postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia, and the Israeli government was on the brink of collapse over renewed conflict with the Palestinians.

Well, the Israeli governing coalition did collapse and a new round of elections is in the offing (we’ve seen this movie before), but the real turnaround this week was Iran’s sudden desire to really badly want a nuclear deal, and the sooner the better, please.

What happened? Turns out Biden’s foreign policy team was still at work and using that ever-so-useful Abraham Accords framework to broker a deal even bigger than increased oil output: the possible normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Such a move would solidify the region’s economic and military powers into one solid anti-Iran bloc, which would certainly put Tehran on the back foot. Now, the only thing Iran can bank on to keep its nuclear program out of Israeli crosshairs (open Saudi airspace would clear a path for Israeli air raids across the Persian Gulf) is pressure from the United States believing it can solve the Iran nuclear problem diplomatically. Stringing America along on the promise of a deal will now likely be Iran’s go-to policy to avoid a direct military confrontation with Israel and the Gulf States.

But does America have that kind of pull with its regional allies anymore? Gas prices would suggest American influence is on the wane with Saudi Arabia.

Putin and Zelensky get desperate in Ukraine

In Ukraine, the home team remains bloodied but unbowed as Russia seeks to capitalize on gains in the Donbas region before its economy really tanks. With ExxonMobil announcing the sunsetting of its Russia operations this week, that may happen sooner than later. While Russian forces have made gains around key cities, winning control is only half the battle, and with Donbas militias taking heavy losses, holding those gains may become harder the longer the conflict goes.

Meanwhile, Ukraine took another major (perhaps fateful?) step towards full EU membership with its western neighbor Moldova. The advancement to candidacy of the two countries (each with Russia-backed breakaway regions) puts the EU on a collision course with Moscow in a power play reminiscent of tsarist Russia’s many conflicts with Germany and the Austria-Hungarian Empire. How will Russia respond? Events are moving faster than EU countries can transition their energy supply line away from Russia, so switching off those pipelines would be a first (though self-defeating) move for Moscow. The real rub is how to put pressure on the EU without starting a conflict with NATO (not all EU members are NATO members). 

My thought bubble would be that Putin would look to cause trouble in those countries first, though that may merely drive the EU as a bloc into NATO.

Such a move though, is more theoretical than practical since Turkey would be a NATO member ill-disposed to support strengthening the EU further as Erdogan’s continued intransigence on Finland and Sweden’s NATO bids indicates.

This war is certainly reshaping European diplomacy, economic, and security concerns, but not necessarily in a radically different way. In many respects, the map of Europe is starting to look rather Napoleonic.

Biden gets desperate in America

While both sides are getting desperate in Ukraine, President Biden is looking increasingly desperate (and isolated) in the US.

With gas prices still high, though maybe plateauing, as peak summer vacation season rolls around, President Biden appealed to Congress for a three-month suspension to the federal gas tax. Nice of him, but that’s hard to justify when 1) your inflationary Covid and infrastructure policies make cutting federal revenue cost prohibitive; 2) your fellow Democrats in states with higher gas taxes (such as California) refuse to consider similar measures; and 3) you’ve been consistently committed to kneecapping oil and gas production in the US. 

Meanwhile, Congress appears too distracted with gun control (see below), the January 6 Committee hearings, and gearing up for potential SCOTUS rulings that the president’s appeals seemed to land on deaf ears.

In one of the sadder moments of the Biden presidency, the President effectively checked the “American malaise” box last week in comments on the American economic picture, which further solidified the parallels between the Biden and Carter presidencies. On the up side, it does look like he’ll get a big Middle East diplomacy win…. Hopefully not an Iran crisis.

Gunning for control