As a result of the United States changing its priorities
After a month in the White House, Biden will withdraw from the Middle East
Biden proposed a plan in 2007 to divide Iraq into 3 semi-autonomous regions.
Reuters
The remnants of the first Iraq war in 1991 that Biden voted against.
Getty
Austin was careful not to get bogged down in the Middle East quagmire.
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It seems that US President Joe Biden has grown weary of his handling of Middle East issues, and about a month after entering the White House, this is evident in this region.
The president’s advisers say that the signals sent to the Middle East do not need a lot of intelligence to understand them, as the US president made a phone call to the leader of one country in the region, when he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Wednesday, the call that was postponed three weeks ago. This was followed by calls with America's other allies and even rivals such as Russia and China.
He backtracked on a deliberate response to the missile attack in northern Iraq that targeted the US-led coalition.
Not in the first 3 priorities
"If you want to classify the areas that Biden regards as his priorities, the Middle East is not in the first three of them," said a former national security employee and advisor close to Biden. "As the first three priorities are the countries of Asia bordering the Pacific, then Europe, and then the Western Hemisphere.
This reflects a party consensus stating that the issues that interest us have changed, as a superpower competing with China and Russia. ”Another informal adviser said more clearly:“ They are working very deliberately to not be drawn into the Middle East. ”
The shift away from the region in terms of access to energy and resources reflects what advisers have described as deliberate efforts to prioritize global issues of most importance to them.
It is a style that Biden predecessors have tried and often succeeded in.
The crux of this approach is the sense of anger that US foreign policy has become entangled in the swamps of the Middle East.
The same applies to Biden, as this president has a long history in the Middle East, as he voted against the first Iraq war in 1991, which the United States quickly won.
As chair of the Congressional Foreign Relations Committee, he pushed for Congress to give President George W. Bush a mandate to invade Iraq in 2003, a vote he said he regretted.
In 2007, when he ran for the presidency, Biden proposed a plan aimed at dividing Iraq into three semi-autonomous regions.
Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish.
Blame the Allies
After years of shuttle trips between Washington and the Middle East to deal with the Iraqi file during the administration of President Barack Obama, and to fight hard to prevent sending more soldiers to Afghanistan, not to participate in the Syrian civil war, or to deal with the escalation of the terrorist organization "ISIS", Biden criticized the allies in 2014 He held them responsible for the escalation of terrorism, and revealed his general frustrations with the region.
Now Biden must address some of these thorny issues that bothered him a decade ago, and even if he did not provide many indications as to whether he will withdraw completely from Afghanistan, as planned according to the peace agreement that was signed by the administration of former President Donald Trump. With the "Taliban" fighters.
Although Biden opposed any increase in the number of soldiers in Afghanistan when he was serving as Vice President Obama, but his current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hinted that the withdrawal of the United States may not take place as planned.
Re-evaluation
Austin seemed careful not to get bogged down in the Middle East quagmire either.
Finally, he conducted a review of the deployment of US forces around the world, which could lead to a reassessment of the US troop presence in the Middle East, but it is unlikely to reduce the number of US forces in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a senior administration official. last week.
Austin signaled that the Middle East was not one of his top priorities when he appointed three advisers to him on basic issues: China, Corona virus, and climate change.
Both his deputy, Kathleen Hicks, and his chief of staff, Kelly Magsman, are considered experts referred to by Lebanon on Chinese affairs.
In fact, the Pentagon is not the only place where US officials are hinting at their priorities. At the National Security Council, National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan reduced the size of the staffing team devoted to the Middle East and increased the size of the team that coordinates US policy toward the Asia-Pacific region.
But one of Biden's close advisers said that he opposes the appointment of Doss, saying that he, like others with an old outlook, is ready to abandon the firm American leadership of the world, and to appease the enemies of the United States, such as Russia, under various justifications such as de-escalation.
But Democratic Representative Tom Malinowski, who served as the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and employment in the Obama administration, said these concerns had been overcome.
"Biden wants people in this administration who represent different currents of thought, within the broad coalition of the Democratic Party," Malinowski said.
This does not change anything in his obligations or convictions that he specified ».
A commitment to successes
During his short term as head of state so far, Biden has shown his willingness to commit to some of the diplomatic successes that his successor brokered between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.
But the big test he faces is whether he will cancel his predecessor Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, which will determine whether or not his approach to distancing the Middle East from his priorities will be successful.
Sullivan had described returning to the Iranian nuclear agreement as a "important and urgent priority", which the administration will decide to negotiate on as soon as possible, and perhaps next month, with the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia, and Germany, a group known as the "5+." 1 “Some of the president’s allies feel that Biden and his team could be in a hurry to return to the agreement, seeing it as a victory, and turning a blind eye to issues such as Iran's human rights record, its ballistic missile programs, and its attack on the US-led coalition forces in the region.
Put the program in the box
Sullivan emphasized that this would not happen, indicating during an interview last month that the administration’s goal was to “return to diplomacy” with Iran and put its nuclear program in a “box”, and thus the “great threats” Iran posed to the United States and its allies could be addressed.
This issue has become urgent now, as Iran has announced February 21 as a deadline to lift the sanctions on gas and oil, otherwise it will expel the UN observers from its territory.
But the matter became urgent again a few days ago, when three missiles struck an Iraqi air base in Erbil where US forces were present, killing a non-American contractor and wounding five Americans.
It is known that the Shiite militia, which claimed responsibility for the missile attack, has close ties to Tehran.
But in another indication that the administration wants to extricate itself from this thorny area, US officials say that US intelligence has not yet accurately determined who is responsible for the attack, and indicated that it will leave the Iraqis leading the investigation, as well as any possible military response.
"Although there is a sense of urgency for action, there is a real and strong interest in making sure that our presence is very important in the process here, in the decision-making process, and since we are coherent with our Iraqi partners," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said last Thursday. We want to give them the time and space they need for the investigation. ”
• The Pentagon is not the only place where US officials are hinting at their priorities. At the National Security Council, National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan reduced the size of the staff team devoted to the Middle East and increased the size of the team that coordinates US policy toward the Asia-Pacific region.
• The administration’s goal is to “return to diplomacy” with Iran and put its nuclear program in a “box,” thus it is possible to address the “big threats” Iran poses to the United States and its allies.
• Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin seemed careful not to get bogged down in the Middle East quagmire either. And he recently conducted a review of US troop deployment around the world, which could lead to a reassessment of the US troop presence in the region, but it is unlikely to reduce the number of US forces in the Asia-Pacific region.
Natasha Bertrand - White House Correspondent
Lara Seligman - Journalist covering Pentagon news
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