U.S. officials are skeptical that Tehran will abide by the China-brokered settlement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, denying that it signals a weakening of U.S. influence in the Middle East.
Under the deal, announced on Friday, Iran and Saudi Arabia will reopen embassies and representative offices within two months, marking the first time the two countries have resumed diplomatic relations in seven years. Iran also agreed to stop encouraging Yemen’s Houthi rebels to launch cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia, while Saudi Arabia agreed to reduce critical coverage of Iran by a Persian-language news channel funded by Saudi businessmen.
Iranian officials say they expect to benefit economically from a detente with Saudi Arabia amid extreme political and financial isolation.
U.S. officials hope the deal will quickly calm the situation in Yemen, where Houthi rebels have been fighting the Saudi-backed government. But a senior Biden administration official said on Monday that both Washington and Riyadh had “doubt” that Iran would abide by the terms of the deal, a two-month road map that would reduce Iran’s supply of weapons and other supplies to the Houthis. support.
Efforts to restore diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran began two years ago with a round of talks hosted by Iraq and Oman. U.S. officials said the Saudis briefed Washington on the developments, but the U.S. was not directly involved in those talks.
“We are supporting every step of the way,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Monday. “Anything that helps reduce tensions and prevent conflict is in our interest.”
Still, the deal threatens to do little to break the deadlock in efforts to restart the Iran nuclear deal, which was reached in 2015 with six major powers, and might even intensify it. And China’s role as a go-between — and its plans for a summit this year between the leaders of Arab states and Iran — has led many to wonder whether Beijing has supplanted U.S. influence in the region.
Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran had agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal in 2018; the Biden administration has held periodic talks in Vienna to restart the pact.
U.S. officials, however, have said for months that their attention is not on the nuclear talks because of Iran’s crackdown at home and its support for Russia in the Ukraine war.
With the Biden administration currently on the back foot, accused of allowing China to increase its influence in the Middle East at the expense of the United States, the possibility of a politically risky new White House effort on nuclear negotiations looks Even more elusive.
If China steps in to try to revive negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal, for example by forcing concessions from Iran, Saudi officials might become wary of China, the very wariness that has damaged U.S.-Saudi relations. Saudi officials have repeatedly warned that the kingdom may seek to speed up its fledgling nuclear program if the Iran nuclear deal is revived.
In return for resuming diplomatic engagement with Saudi Arabia, Iran hopes to get some respite from domestic political and economic pressures, U.S. officials said. The Iranian rial, which hit a record low early last week, recovered regarding 10 percent of its losses, boosted by news that Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to restore diplomatic ties. In addition to direct economic relief, officials have said Iran may be able to use funds parked in Chinese banks.
The agreement might also prevent the United States from increasing its military presence in the region.
“Iran may also hope that the agreement will cause Saudi Arabia to reconsider whether it would allow Israel or the U.S. to use Saudi airspace to strike Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. intelligence official now at the Atlantic Council think tank.
Henry Rome, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the rapprochement with Saudi Arabia offers Iran a diplomatic path to escape the regime’s ongoing crisis over its crackdown on protesters at home and its military support to Russia abroad. isolated situation.
China plans to host a summit of Gulf Arab monarchs and Iranian officials in Beijing this year, raising concerns in Washington regarding Beijing’s intentions in the region.
“The summit not only reflects the greater success of the Gulf states’ strategy of getting closer to China, but in turn reflects the Chinese government’s willingness to engage in the region in a way that goes beyond economic and commercial ties,” Panikoff said. insists that China’s interest in the region is limited to economic and commercial ties.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was asked how he interpreted China’s involvement in Saudi-Iran rapprochement, saying, “In this more multipolar world that we live in In a globalized world, we will have to work with a large number of important countries where our interests will overlap and we need to engage with them, and they may not necessarily share our values.”
The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has become more complicated in recent years. A previously released intelligence report determined that in 2018, the leader in charge of daily affairs of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammad. Book. Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal . Operations in Jamal Khashoggi’s death.
The White House recently said it was reviewing the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia following a decision by Saudi Arabia and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies led by Russia to cut oil output by 2 million barrels a day. barrels, a move that might boost already high global energy prices and help oil exporter Russia pay for its Ukraine aggression. However, since the first announcement last year, the United States has not advanced its process of reviewing the relationship with Saudi Arabia, which the United States views as a key strategic partner in the region, and has continued to engage with Riyadh, U.S. officials said.