The Takeaway: Trump scores diplomatic win with eye on November election
Iran deal coming after elections, Trump says; Qatar says normalization not the answer; Netanyahu returns home to COVID-19, political crises.
US: Trump claims foreign policy prize with normalization accords
The White House signing of normalization agreements between Israel and both the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain scrambled the media storyline of a US president out of his depth in foreign affairs. Most US efforts at peace in the Middle East end up in frustration or worse. White House signing ceremonies are a rare foreign policy prize. In the past four decades, there had been only three such events: peace agreements between Israel and Egypt in 1978, the PLO in 1993 and Jordan in 1994.
Now US President Donald Trump presided over a fourth, less than two months before the US presidential election.
More to come? Israel’s evolving ties with some of the Arab Gulf states has been an open secret for a while, and the Trump administration seized on the trend. The speculation now is that Oman, Morocco and Sudan are already in advanced discussions with Trump’s team, which would like to lock in a few more deals before the election on Nov. 3. The UAE and Bahrain, for their part, would welcome as much company as possible. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi) has also claimed that “this peace will eventually expand to include other Arab states and ultimately help bring an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict once and for all,” without mentioning the Palestinians, as Rina Bassist reports here. Bibi would rather do more deals with Arab states than face the pandemic crisis back in Israel (see below).
"A very open mind" The Trump administration made the deals possible by making Israel and Saudi Arabia the pillars of its regional approach. The kingdom was Trump’s first foreign trip, and he has steadied a relationship rattled by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the war in Yemen and other issues. While the kingdom gave the nod to the steps by the UAE and Bahrain, the game changer for the region is if Riyadh itself signs up for normalization. The kingdom is the subject of endless speculation about "if" and "when" it will join the club. And probably only about a dozen people in the world know, as King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud will keep his cards close. Trump said that the king’s "mind is very open." It’s a tough call for the kingdom, and if the answer is yes, it may choose to play that chit after the election, a kind of welcome gift for a second Trump term or an important gesture to build ties to a Biden White House.
