Eurasia Press & News
In a world where American adversaries across the globe are deepening their strategic partnerships to undermine U.S. power and influence, Michael Singh correctly highlights the need to integrate America’s Middle East policy into an overarching U.S. grand strategy.
China today is in a stronger position in the Middle East than ever before, due in large part to President Biden’s Iran appeasement. Iranian oil flows freely to China at levels not seen since the Iran nuclear deal era. Relaxing pressure on both Iran and the Houthis has increased the threat to U.S.-aligned shipping in the Red Sea.
The Saudi Royal Court’s sense of abandonment, sustained political warfare against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and an upending of the core thesis of the Abraham Accords drove Saudi Arabia deeper into the arms of the Chinese—with Riyadh now pursuing a hedge strategy against the United States (a hedge that will remain no matter what bilateral executive agreement the White House unveils in the coming weeks).
Both countries now refuse to admit what is blatantly obvious: the doctrine of “oil-for-security” has ended. China seeks to fill the vacuum— offering to broker regional security to guarantee its Persian Gulf-based energy supply in a future conflict. This has significant implications for U.S. contingency planning.
Moscow, too, is more than pleased to see an environment of relaxed sanctions against Iran and Syria. Sanctions relief for either regime is sanctions relief for Russia. Biden’s refusal to snap back UN sanctions on Iran has legitimized Russian imports of Iranian drones (and perhaps soon ballistic missiles). Support for a multi-billion-dollar Russian-operated civil nuclear expansion in Iran props up Rosatom—undermining efforts to squeeze off revenue to Putin and slow the Chinese nuclear forces build-up.
A far more obvious point for both China and Russia: to the extent to which Iran can foment anti-American chaos—whether in the Middle East or closer to home—American resources must be diverted. We delude ourselves into believing Beijing and Moscow share an American and European commitment to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The mere threat of Iranian nuclear threshold status already deters Washington policymakers from taking bolder action to counter Tehran’s malign activities. A nuclear-armed Iran allied with China alongside a Saudi Arabia-turned-Switzerland (or worse, full CCP partner) would dramatically alter American response options in any future war with China.
There is also the matter of how financial and energy sanctions work— something lost on many “grand strategists” in the national security space. When Iran partners with China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, or North Korea, sanctions relief for one is sanctions relief for all. Sanctions evasion is like water: it will find the hole and leak. Domestic energy policy is also deeply intertwined with our sanctions policies. Economic statecraft requires policymaking with a view of the full picture, which may require restructuring the way we make policy to avoid contradictory decisions made in silos.
Meanwhile, Middle East-based threats are taking advantage of America’s top national security vulnerability: an open border. Iran already operates in the Western Hemisphere, both through Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) activities in Venezuela and Hezbollah operations in the Tri-Border Area. Given Hezbollah’s close partnership with the Mexican drug cartels and Border Patrol statistics showing Iranian nationals being stopped at the Southern Border, we should understand the Iranian threat has penetrated the homeland as deeply as the United Kingdom and Canada (where officials in both countries acknowledge vibrant IRGC networks exist).
Recent cases of Middle Eastern nationals coming across our border illegally and attempting to gain access to military facilities should raise further alarm. With our law enforcement and intelligence officials warning of global jihadist radicalization, a reconstituted Hamas network across the United States, and the terror threats brewing inside Afghanistan, we must prioritize Western Hemisphere policy and counterterrorism early in the new administration. The latter should include a full-court press to end Qatar, Turkey, and Lebanon’s double-game, while soberly assessing available options to degrade Al-Qaeda and ISIS-K.
Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and sponsorship of terrorism are strategic threats to the United States in their own rights, of course. Tehran’s recent launch of 120 ballistic missiles against Israel within the broader context of an active intercontinental ballistic missile program and increased missile cooperation with Russia should redouble our determination both to prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold and to defend our east coast from future long-range threats. The notion of doing any deal with a regime that actively plots to assassinate former U.S. officials and takes other Americans hostage is unconscionable—and provides both China and Russia a dangerous roadmap to follow.
We should also be honest that appeasement toward Iran funds and fuels the fires across the Middle East that prevent us from focusing more on the Indo-Pacific. Every dollar we give Iran praying it will not develop nuclear weapons subsidizes a terrorist organization that will attack American interests or those of our allies. Those who argue for increased allied burden sharing to address the Iranian threat cannot simultaneously advocate policies that put those allies in existential danger.
President Biden’s Iran policy, combined with a reopening of the financial spigots for the UN Relief and Works Agency and other funding to Gaza, ultimately led to the October 7 massacre and the ensuing Iranian multi-front war. His decision to remove the Houthis from the foreign terrorist organization list, withdraw air defense assets from Saudi Arabia, and ignore direct attacks on Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and Jeddah pushed the Gulf Arabs into an Iran deal of their own that strengthened Tehran and made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the center of attention—a guaranteed way to halt regional integration.
A stronger Israel and Israel-allied Saudi Arabia working together to roll back Iran (and its strategic partners) throughout the Middle East requires a U.S. posture that squeezes rather than builds up Tehran. That leads naturally to a revived and improved maximum pressure campaign on Iran, which would deny Tehran much-needed resources and empower our allies to go back on offense. The 2022-2023 national uprising in Iran, which exposed the regime’s fundamentally unstable nature, reminds us that a pressure campaign can also force Tehran to spend more time and money inside its borders than outside.
We cannot, however, dismiss the advances in Iran’s nuclear realm these past three years—and we know Iran will continue to use nuclear extortion to undermine America’s political will to exert pressure.
Moreover, a new underground Iranian enrichment facility will likely be completed in the next two years, which will complicate future American and Israeli military options. With Israel staring down a war with Hezbollah and Iran walking toward the nuclear finish line, limited but effective American or Israeli military action against the Iranian nuclear program will be needed sooner rather than later. The status quo is a recipe for continued instability and distraction.
A strong pivot back to pressure on Iran and the swift elimination of its most dangerous threat would give us the greatest chance to stabilize the Middle East and keep our attention on other critical challenges: empowering allies to deepen their security cooperation and regional responsibilities, turning regional partners toward the United States and away from China, maintaining strategic leverage over China in a future conflict, and cutting off oxygen to Iran’s terror proxies.
