Over the past decade, the struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for dominance in the Middle East has insinuated itself into nearly every regional issue, fracturing international alliances and sustaining wars across the region, while raising fears of a direct conflict between the two powers that could involve the U.S. Now both sides seem to be seeking a diplomatic offramp to confrontation, amid a broader shift toward lowering tensions across the region.
Saudi Arabia ramped up its regional adventurism after Mohammed bin Salman, the powerful son of King Salman known as MBS, was appointed crown prince in 2017. From the Syrian civil war to the Saudi-led war in Yemen, that has meant proxy conflicts with Iran-backed regimes and nonstate armed groups that have on several occasions veered dangerously close to direct hostilities between the two rivals. A precision missile and drone strike on Saudi oil facilities in 2019 was widely blamed on Iran. And the Trump administration’s confrontational approach to Tehran brought the U.S. and Iran to the brink of war in January 2020, with direct implications for Riyadh.
President Joe Biden has now reengaged diplomatically with Iran in an effort to revive the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal that the Trump administration withdrew from. Though those talks have now stalled, they coincide with broader moves across the Middle East to mend ties that had been frayed by the region’s various arenas of conflict and competition. Biden has also promised to make respect for human rights a central pillar of his foreign policy. The potential implications for U.S. partners in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, are significant, although to date Biden has not radically changed America’s policies in the region. More recently he visited the kingdom and met with MBS, despite having promised to make Saudi Arabia a pariah state, in effort to rally Washington’s Gulf partners to the U.S. side in its standoff with Russia over the war in Ukraine. But tensions have once again spiked over Riyadh’s alignment with Moscow to keep global oil prices high, despite pressure from Washington to increase production.
With a recent cease-fire having lapsed, the ongoing civil war in Yemen is set to continue fueling one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Syria’s 11-year civil war has now entered an extended endgame that, though less bloody, remains every bit as volatile. Libya has seen a respite in its civil war since a cease-fire was implemented in October 2020 and a transitional government named in March 2021, but its political transition to elections has now hit an increasingly tense impasse. Above all, the absence of fighting in these countries by no means guarantees the establishment of lasting peace.
Meanwhile, the most recent round of fighting between Israel and Hamas in May 2021 served as a reminder that the conflict between Israel and Palestine cannot be simply wished away by regional powers and the United States. Like everything else in the region, this conflict has become entangled in the larger Saudi-Iran power struggle, with Saudi-allied leaders willing to remain silent on the Palestinian issue in return for Israeli support in containing Iran. The U.S.-brokered diplomatic normalization deals Israel signed in the final months of the Trump administration with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain simply formalized a strategic realignment that had until then been an open secret in the region. The question now is whether Saudi Arabia will follow suit. But normalization with Israel without a final settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict no longer seems as tenable a position as it did before, particularly in the aftermath of elections that signal the return of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the head of a government that will likely include far-right parties certain to alienate Israel’s newfound partners in the Gulf.
WPR has covered the Middle East in detail and continues to examine key questions about what will happen next. Will the Biden administration significantly reorient U.S. policy in the Middle East, and what will that mean for the region? Will the move toward diplomatic engagement succeed in tamping down the Middle East’s various conflicts? And will the composition of Israel’s new government move the Israel-Palestine conflict higher up the list of priorities in Washington and regional capitals? Below are some of the highlights of WPR’s coverage.
Our Most Recent Coverage
Saudi Arabia’s Crackdown on Dissent Now Extends Beyond Its Borders
Saudi Arabia has ramped up its crackdown on dissent, as recent cases make clear that the country is willing to surveil its citizens abroad and severely punish them for exercising their right to free expression within the jurisdiction of democratic countries, a worrying trend that appears to only be getting worse.
Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy
The political situation in the Middle East is in flux. Mass protests in 2019 ousted a long-time ruler in Algeria and rattled governments in Lebanon and Iraq, sparking speculation about a new Arab Spring, before the coronavirus pandemic put a halt to those popular movements. The pandemic also initially drove a decline in global energy prices that has further undermined the sustainability of many Gulf states’ oil-based revenue models, although the war in Ukraine has caused prices to once again rise. Meanwhile, regional powers are taking advantage of great power competition to diversify their portfolio of international partnerships.
- Why Israel’s new government could alienate its newfound partners in the Gulf, in Netanyahu’s Far-Right Partners at Home Could Lose Israel Friends Abroad
- How Iraq finally broke its political stalemate to form a government, in Iraq’s New Government Puts Iran-Backed Militias in the Driver’s Seat
- What’s driving Turkey and Armenia’s efforts to normalize relations, in Turkey and Armenia Are Inching Toward a Diplomatic Rapprochement
- Why the current wave of protests in Iran is such a challenge to the regime’s legitimacy, in Iran’s Hijab Protests Have Lit a Fire the Regime Can’t Put Out
U.S. Policy
The Trump administration’s Middle East policy was dominated by support for Israel and Saudi Arabia, and attempts to undermine Iran. But his bellicose rhetoric notwithstanding, former President Donald Trump had little appetite for an actual war with Tehran—or for America’s military presence in the broader region. Biden has sought to reassert American leadership, but so far Washington’s regional partners have refused to simply fall in line.
- Why it’s time to rethink the basis of U.S. ties with the Gulf states, in The U.S.-Saudi Spat Is Over More Than Just Oil Prices
- What’s driving the widening rift between the U.S.-led West and its Gulf state partners, in The West’s Ties With the Gulf States No Longer Make Strategic Sense
- What the recent OPEC+ decision to cut oil production tells us about U.S. ties with the Gulf states, in The Gulf Between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia Is Getting Wider
- What a failure to revive the Iran nuclear deal would mean for the U.S. and the region, in It’s Time to Start Thinking About a Non-JCPOA Middle East
War and Conflict
Ongoing conflicts and the threat of new clashes continue to overshadow the region, as hopes for negotiated settlements to the wars in Syria and Yemen have been repeatedly dashed. A cease-fire in Libya has been more effective at silencing the guns for now, but its political transition has now been sidetracked, and lasting peace is still far from guaranteed. Meanwhile, although the battlefield defeat of ISIS fighters—culminating in the death of the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and more recently his successor—has reduced violence in Iraq and Syria, that has not spelled the end of the movement.
- Why it’s a mistake to assess the effectiveness of Iran’s drones by how Russia is using them in Ukraine, in Don’t Judge Iran’s Drones by How Russia Is Using Them
- What a recent Iranian cyberattack against Albania tells us about Iran’s cyber capabilities, in Iran’s Cyberattacks on Albania Highlight NATO’s Cyber Gaps
- How the Houthis used a recently expired truce to regroup and strengthen their hold on power in Yemen, in The Houthis Are Gaming Yemen’s Cease-Fire
- Why it’s a mistake to assume the Syrian civil war is all but over, in Syria’s ‘Cold’ Civil War Could Easily Get Hot Again
Human Rights
Protections for human rights remain relatively fragile across the region, particularly when it comes to political dissidents, women and minority communities. Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in particular, have cracked down on civil society groups and political opponents. Most recently, several countries have used the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to limit or ban political protest movements that had already brought down the government in Algeria and threatened others. Biden has said he’ll make human rights a priority of his foreign policy, potentially setting up a showdown with Washington’s regional security partners, but so far any shift in approach has been limited to rhetoric.
- How Israel’s enhanced restrictions on media freedoms and free expression have muzzled the Palestinian press, in Israel’s Targeting of Palestinian Journalists Is Only Getting Worse
- How the COP27 Climate Change Conference is putting Egypt’s human rights record in the spotlight, in Egypt’s Rights Record Makes a Mockery of Climate Justice at COP 27
- Why the Iranian regime’s crackdown on recent protests is a grim reminder of the brutality it can deploy against ordinary citizens, in The Only Card Iran’s Regime Has Left Is Repression
- How Tunisia’s narrowing space for dissent is making a combustible situation worse, in Saied’s Power Grab May Provoke a Backlash in Tunisia
Regional Diplomacy
After a period of conflict and heightened tensions, the region’s competing powers have begun to engage diplomatically. Saudi Arabia and the UAE both recently engaged in talks with Iran aimed at easing their tensions. Similarly, Turkey has begun a rapprochement with Egypt that could lead to a normalization of relations, while also thawing relations with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. And the Saudi-allied Gulf states put an end to their blockade of Qatar. But the hostility between Israel and Iran has been an outlier to this trend, with the two sides engaging in covert tit-for-tat attacks that run the risk of escalating into open conflict.
- Why Washington might be the big winner from the resolution of Israel and Lebanon’s maritime border dispute, in The Israel-Lebanon Maritime Border Deal Is a Win for the U.S., Too
- What’s driving the recent rapprochement between Egypt and Qatar, in Egypt and Qatar Continue to Thaw Ties, but for Different Reasons
- Why Turkey is dusting off its old conciliatory approach to regional diplomacy, in Erdogan Is Giving Turkey’s ‘Zero Problems’ Strategy Another Try
- What’s driving Turkey’s recent engagement with Israel—and what could torpedo it, in A New Thaw in Israel-Turkey Ties Still Faces an Old Obstacle in Ankara
The Israel-Palestine Conflict and Israel-Arab Relations
The long-standing flashpoint of the Israel-Palestine conflict was downgraded as a priority in Washington and the Gulf during the Trump presidency. Instead, Israel’s strategic partnership with the Gulf Arab states to counter Iran became formalized with the establishment of diplomatic ties with the UAE and Bahrain—with the potential for more normalization deals to follow. The Biden administration promises to be more conventional in its approach to the issue, but whether a change in U.S. policy will have a meaningful impact remains to be seen. If last year’s fighting between Israel and Hamas is any indication, however, hoping the conflict will simply remain on the backburner is no longer a viable option. And Israel’s new government under Netanyahu has the potential to raise the temperature even further.
- How the latest round of fighting between Israel and militants in Gaza strengthened a Hamas rival’s hand, in Islamic Jihad Could Get a Boost From the Latest Gaza Fighting
- What the unprecedented involvement of an Israeli Arab party in government means for Israel’s democracy, in Ra’am’s Stint in Power Raises Tough Questions for Israel’s Arab Voters
- Why a recent move by Israel targeting Palestinian NGOs is so destabilizing, in Israel’s ‘Terrorism’ Designation of Palestinian NGOs Is a Dangerous Escalation
- Why Palestinians shouldn’t hope for much from Israel’s new coalition government, in Israel’s New Coalition Changes Nothing for Palestinians
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in May 2019 and is regularly updated.