By Daphne Richemond Barak
For the Sunni Arab states that joined the Abraham Accords and established formal ties with Israel last year, the United States’ recent exit from Afghanistan has validated their choice to partner with Israel. The Abraham Accords countries understood that the U.S. would come to play a lesser role in the region, and anticipated the need to engage with a broader set of like-minded states.
Successive American administrations, beginning with the Obama administration and continuing on to Biden, have made it clear that the U.S. no longer intends to serve as the guardian of world peace. In the Middle East, as elsewhere, diversifying relationships and alliances to ensure stability in the region has become a necessity.
The Afghanistan debacle confirms, in hindsight, that relying exclusively on a single superpower ally may not be the way of the future. Instead, the formation of new, multiple alliances based on common interests, and diversifying partnerships, must become a priority.
The Abraham Accords enabled the Sunni states to hedge their bets, minimizing the risk of ending up with nothing due to geo-strategic changes.
As a result, when the signatory states of the Abraham Accords look at what is taking place in Afghanistan , they find confirmation that looking beyond their alliance with the U.S. was a smart strategic move.
Israel is a state with significant military power – and it is willing to use it actively against the Iranian axis, more so than any other regional state. That Israel also maintains a close alliance with Washington, and a working relationship with Russia and China, also contributed to the calibrated decision by the Arab states to sign the Accords.
The U.S., Russia, and China are important to the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, and Israel can help them transition into a new multipolar era, in which the U.S. is no longer the sole superpower actor active in the Middle East.
None of this means that the U.S. is about to vanish from the Middle East. It is likely to become a piece of the regional puzzle, rather than its central moving force, as it shifts priorities to its competition with China and its urgent domestic challenges, which have kept the Biden administration extremely busy.
The truth of the matter is that the Trump administration was not the first to pursue the policy of placing America first and foreign policy second.
The lack of an American military response to the use of chemical weapons by Syria in 2013, the lack of a military reply to the Iranian-orchestrated drone strikes on Saudi Arabian oil facilities in 2019, and the muted Biden response to Iranian strikes on commercial oil tankers in recent months, all indicate that the U.S. is consistently avoiding conflict in the region.
The Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations are more in line on this foreign policy aspect than meets the eye. Ultimately, this is what the American people want. Most American voters do not want their country to be as militarily engaged in the region as it has been, and America’s friends and allies are all recognizing and adapting to this shift.
The Afghanistan exit was not the first manifestation of this change, but it is a clear signal and a turning point.
The Qatari riddle
Another turning point, and arguably unintended consequence of the Afghanistan withdrawal, could emerge in the coming weeks, as reports of a possible Qatari decision to join the Abraham Accords have surfaced. The sophisticated – and problematic - maneuvering of Doha raises questions on how the current members of the Accords would respond to such a development.
Qatar has always posed a regional riddle, as a state that has become a specialist in hedging its bets, and supporting opposite sides simultaneously. Qatar sponsors terrorism, but also sends millions of dollars to U.N. programs for countering terrorism. This pattern, of taking one action and then its opposite, has earned it considerable clout on the international multi-lateral arena.
Qatar’s role in Afghanistan is just as paradoxical. It has smartly and carefully positioned itself as the indispensable mediator between the West and the Taliban, by establishing early ties with the Taliban, and then cultivating those links.
By 2014, the Taliban had an office in Doha, and in recent years, Qatar hosted ‘peace talks’ between the U.S. and Afghanistan current Islamist rulers. More recently, Qatar assisted in the mass U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan.
When the U.S. wants to send messages to the Taliban about the need to prevent Afghanistan from serving as a platform to attack the homeland, Doha will appear as the obvious middleman.
Ironically, the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan might therefore be the one that opens the next chapter in the history of the Abraham Accords.
Dr. Daphné Richemond-Barak is Assistant Professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy, and Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the IDC Herzliya. She is also an Adjunct Scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point and a publishing Expert at The MirYam Institute. Read full bio here.