Joe Biden nominates 20 Indo-Americans, 13 of them women

Joe Biden, President of United States has nominated at least 20 Indian Americans, including 13 women, to key positions in his administration. Among the Indians are Hindus, Muslims and Christians. As many as 17 of them would be part of the White House complex. This comes as a feat for the small ethnic community that constitutes one percent of America’s population.

Kamala Harris is also the first person of South Asia descent to sworn in as Vice President of the United States. “The dedication that the Indian-American community has shown to public service over the years has been recognized in a big way at the very start of this administration! I am particularly pleased that the overwhelming majority are women. Our community has truly arrived in serving the nation,” Indiaspora founder M. R. Rangaswami told PTI.

Biden had assured the Indian-American community during a virtual celebration of India’s Independence Day on August 15, 2020 that he will continue to reply on the diaspora during his presidential stint. “My constituents in Delaware, my staff in the Senate, the Obama-Biden administration, which had more Indian-Americans than any other administration in the history of this country and this campaign with Indian Americans at senior levels, which of course includes the top of the heap, our dear friend (Harris) who will be the first Indian-American vice president in the history of the United States of America,” Biden had said in his video address.

Here’s a list of all the India-Americans nominated so far:

Neera Tanden: She has been nominated as Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Dr Vivek Murthy: He has been nominated as the US Surgeon General.

Vanita Gupta: She has been nominated as Associate Attorney General Department of Justice.

Uzra Zeya: She has been nominated under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.

Mala Adiga: She has been appointed as Policy Director to the First Lady Dr Jill Biden.

Garima Verma: She has been nominated as the Digital Director of the Office of the First Lady.

Sabrina Singh: She has been named as the First Lady’s Deputy Press Secretary.

Aisha Shah: She has been named as Partnership Manager at the White House Office of Digital Strategy.

Sameera Fazili: She would occupy the key position of Deputy Director at the US National Economic Council (NEC) in the White House.

Bharat Ramamurti: He has been nominated as the Deputy Director of the White House National Economic Council.

Gautam Raghavan: He has been nominated as Deputy Director in Office of Presidential Personnel.

Vinay Reddy: He has been named as Director of Speechwriting.

Vedant Patel: He has been nominated as Assistant Press Secretary to the President.

Sonia Aggarwal: She has been named Senior Advisor for Climate Policy and Innovation in the Office of the Domestic Climate Policy at the White House.

Vidur Sharma: He has been appointed as Policy Advisor for Testing for the White House Covid-19 Response Team.

Apart from them, three Indian-Americans have made their way to the crucial National Security Council of the White House, thus leaving a permanent imprint on the country’s foreign policy and national security. They are: Tarun Chhabra –Senior Director for Technology and National Security; Sumona Guha — Senior Director for South Asia; Shanthi Kalathil — Coordinator for Democracy and Human Rights

Two Indian-Americans women have been appointed to the Office of the White House Counsel — Neha Gupta as Associate Counsel and Reema Shah as Deputy Associate Counsel.

Courtesy: South Asia Journal

Saudi American relations may strangulate over Biden's position on Khashoggi

Questions are being raised regarding the fate of relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States under President Joe Biden whose incoming administration has vowed to uncover the circumstances behind the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Avril Haines, had pledged to declassify the intelligence report on the murder of Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, and to present it to Congress. Avril Haines has been confirmed Director of National intelligence Wednesday evening, making her the first official member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet. Before adjourning for the evening, the Senate voted 84 to 10 on Haines’ confirmation.

"Yes, I will abide by the law, "Haines said during a Senate hearing on 19th January 2021, in response to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., about whether she would submit a report to Congress, if appointed director of national intelligence.

Salman Al-Ansari, founder and president of the Washington-based Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee, told The Media Line that the Saudi judicial system has said its final word on the Khashoggi case.

“The relations of Riyadh and Washington are too strong to be affected by irrational media populism,” Al-Ansari said.

He said that the issue of the Khashoggi murder is being raised by lobbyists that are hostile to the Saudi kingdom, who don’t care about America's basic interests in the Middle East.

Saudi authorities have charged 11 suspects in the killing but have not disclosed their names. Five who went on trial in secret proceedings were sentenced to the death penalty for “ordering and committing the crime.” They were later officially forgiven by Khashoggi’s children, sparing them execution. In addition, two senior officials, Saud al-Qahtani, a key adviser to the Saudi crown prince; and Ahmad Asiri, Deputy Chief of Saudi intelligence, were fired although they were not part of the team that traveled to Istanbul.

Suleiman al-Ogaily, an analyst, writer and member of the board of directors of the Saudi Society for Political Science, told The Media Line that the promises made by US administrations during election campaigns are not necessarily the policy adopted by the administration when it takes power.

“I believe that the Saudi-American relations are strategic, and they will not be shaken by the divergence of views on some issues,” al-Ogaily said.

“Riyadh is an important geopolitical and geostrategic force that has its regional and international status. And any rotation in its alliances and international policies will change the face of the region,” al-Ogaily said.

In 2017, President Donald Trump and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz signed a series of letters of intent allowing the kingdom to purchase US$110 billion in arms immediately from the United States, and another US$350 billion in arms purchases over 10 years.

In 2019, Congress asked Director of National Intelligence to reveal who ordered the killing of Khashoggi, but he declined to do so, insisting that the information must be kept confidential. Later, Congress approved a legal amendment requiring the Trump administration to provide a full report on those responsible for the crime, but Trump did not respond to the demand.

The United States imposed sanctions on 17 Saudis over the Khashoggi murder, but many congressmen accused the Trump administration of seeking to "protect" Saudi Arabia from accountability.

Robert Mogielnicki, resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told The Media Line that the new Biden Administration is likely to pressure the Saudis to implement additional changes “beyond the goodwill garnered from Gulf reconciliation efforts.”

“Some in the Biden administration and many Democrats in Congress will want to see positive movement on Saudi involvement in Yemen and the human rights record in the kingdom,” he said.

Mogielnicki said that Biden’s foreign policy priority will be Iran. “The Saudis will want to be part of this foreign affairs portfolio, but the level of their involvement is going to depend on how relations with the new administration unfold,” he said.

“Although the early days of Saudi-US ties may be stormy, the Saudis are not in unchartered waters. The Saudis know Joe Biden, and he knows the Saudis. They will ultimately find a way to work together in a number of areas over the next four years,” he added.

Nine hurdles to revitalizing JCPOA

A West Asia security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University, has enumerated nine hurdles to revitalizing Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), nuclear deal that Iran signed with 5+1 nations - five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany - in July 2015.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian points that “snapback” mechanism in JCPOA favors 5+1 nations only. “The ‘snapback’ mechanism built into the agreement allows any country to force the UN Security Council to reimpose multilateral sanctions against Iran if Iran fails to fulfill its commitments. But this is one-sided: There is no such remedy for Iran if other parties fail to do their part,” Mousavian writes.

The article was published in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on 19th January 2021, one day before Joe Biden officially sworn in as President of United States.

Following is the text of the article titled “Nine hurdles to reviving the Iran nuclear deal”:

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on 8th January 2021 that Tehran was in no rush for the United States to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but, he also said, sanctions on Iran must be lifted immediately.

“If the sanctions are lifted, the return of the Americans makes sense,” he insisted. President-elect Joe Biden has announced his plan to return to the deal soon after he is sworn into office. “If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal,” he wrote in an op-ed for CNN, “the United States would rejoin.” His Iranian counterpart, President Hassan Rouhani, has also expressed willingness to return to the deal, stating that, “Iran could come into compliance with the agreement within an hour of the United States doing so.”

Five years ago, after years of intensive negotiations, six world powers managed to sign the world’s most comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran. While the agreement was a political one, it was also ratified by the UN Security Council in Resolution 2231. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the organization tasked with verifying the agreement’s technical aspects, Iran was fully complying with the deal for about three years, until President Trump withdrew from it in May 2018. In response to the US violations of the nuclear agreement, Iran too reduced some of its commitments. Most recently, on 4th January2021, Iran announced that it had increased its uranium enrichment levels to 20 percent. Although reviving the agreement is certainly still possible, it won’t be easy. The two sides will need to overcome nine hurdles to make it happen:

First, the sequencing of a mutual return could be an immediate problem. Iran expects the United States to lift sanctions first, because it was the Trump administration that withdrew first. While Tehran’s demand is legitimate, Washington may ask that Iran come into full compliance before lifting sanctions. Indeed, a straightforward reading of the quotation from Joe Biden’s op-ed suggests just that. In this scenario, after Joe Biden’s executive order rejoining the deal, Iran and the world powers can meet and agree on a realistic plan with a specified timeline of proportionate reciprocal actions.

Second is the issue of what compliance constitutes. During the Obama administration there was one major barrier to the full realization of the terms of the agreement: Many primary sanctions, targeting US citizens and permanent residents, organizations, and individuals that engage in trade and business with their Iranian counterparts, remained intact. These sanctions limited the economic benefits of the deal for Iran. The 29th paragraph of the deal clearly states that all signatories will refrain from any policy specifically intended to directly and adversely affect the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran. This cannot be achieved without abolishing the primary sanctions.

Third, the Trump administration imposed numerous sanctions against Iran under the guise of terrorism and human rights, aimed at preventing the Biden administration from returning to the deal. For a clean implementation of the agreement, Biden will need to remove all of these sanctions as well.

Fourth, Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement and violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 as well as other international commitments has damaged US credibility abroad. There is now a widespread belief among policy makers in Iran that the United States will simply not live up to its end of the bargain, no matter what that bargain is. This naturally raises the important question: What guarantees are there that the United States will remain committed to the deal in the post-Biden era?

Fifth, because of Trump’s maximum pressure policy, the Iranian economy has suffered hundreds of billions of dollars of losses, while Iran was in full compliance with the terms and conditions of the deal. Some Iranian leaders, including Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, have demanded compensation for the economic damage the country suffered after the United States withdrew. The challenge will be to find a mechanism to compensate for the economic damages that the Trump administration inflicted on the Iranian economy.

Sixth, the “snapback” mechanism built into the agreement allows any country to force the UN Security Council to reimpose multilateral sanctions against Iran if Iran fails to fulfill its commitments. But this is one-sided: There is no such remedy for Iran if other parties fail to do their part. This became abundantly clear when the Trump administration first withdrew from the deal and then tried to unilaterally re-impose multilateral sanctions on Iran through the snapback mechanism. It was as if the injurer was demanding punishment for the injured. Although the UN Security Council rejected the US demand, the stunt revealed the structural flaw of the snapback.

Seventh, in the first week of December 2020, the Iranian parliament passed a bill mandating Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization to resume enriching uranium to 20 percent purity. The legislation also requires the Iranian government to cease voluntary implementation of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol within two months of the bill’s enactment if the other signatories fail to fully deliver on their commitments under the agreement. And after three months, the Atomic Energy Organization is obliged to begin using at least 1,000-second-generation centrifuges. In short, president-elect Biden will need to move fast.

Eighth, there were some in the United States who were worried that Trump may start a reckless last-ditch war with Iran before leaving office. While this concern is overblown, there should be no doubt that US partners in the region will do whatever they can to prevent Biden’s return to the deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already said as much. To be sure, the hardliners in Iran are also fundamentally opposed to the deal.

Ninth, some pundits and politicians in Washington want Biden to leverage the Trump administration’s sanctions to pressure Iran to accept additional commitments beyond the original agreement as a condition for US return to compliance. These include limiting Iran’s missile capability, extending the “sunset” clauses within the deal, or resolving regional disputes. But from Iran’s perspective, such demands are a non-starter. As the spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry said recently, “No negotiation has been, is being, or will be held about Iran’s defense power.”

Despite these hurdles, Biden should nevertheless seek re-entry into the deal. Only a clean and full implementation by all parties can save the world’s most comprehensive nuclear agreement, contain rising US-Iran tensions, and open the path toward more confidence building measures. That path should include, upon Biden’s issuing an executive order to rejoin the JCPOA, the creation of a working committee of parties to the agreement tasked with ensuring full compliance by all signatories, and a forum, organized by the UN Secretary General, in which Iran and the Persian Gulf countries can discuss a new structure for improving security and cooperation in the region.

Focus should be on oil and gas, not maritime dispute, Beijing urges Philippines

China and the Philippines should not be distracted by their disputes in the South China Sea and should instead focus on advancing cooperation on oil and gas exploration in the region, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said when wrapping up his week-long tour of Southeast Asia.

Wang said the two countries would continue to “properly manage their disputes” and push for oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea.

Wang’s trip that included stopovers in Myanmar, Indonesia and Brunei was part of Beijing seeking to consolidate its ties with the region.

In an interview with state media posted on the Ministry’s website, Wang highlighted China’s desire to move the focus away from maritime disputes to joint exploration of resources in the waters. “Both sides believe that the South China Sea issue is only partial to the entirety of Sino-Philippines relations,” Wang said, discussing the outcomes of his Manila visit. “We should not let such one percent difference derail the 99 percent of our relations.”

Separately during Wang’s tour, China and Brunei set up a working group on energy cooperation, the ministry said on Friday, without providing details.

The Philippine government in October lifted a ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, reopening the door to joint energy development with China.

Two years ago, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly explore undersea oil and gas, a way of defusing their corner of a broader regional dispute.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague upheld the Philippines’ challenge to Beijing’s territorial claims to almost all of the South China Sea, but Beijing has never accepted the ruling. President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration has promised to shelve the dispute in exchange for Beijing’s economic aid.

As the Duterte administration nears its end, Beijing has sought to reaffirm support for its neighbour, promising half a million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, US$1.34 billion in loan pledges for infrastructure projects and US$77 million in grants.

Wang said the supply of vaccines to the Philippines showed Beijing’s willingness to help the Philippines overcome its Covid-19 pandemic challenges.

China and the Philippines also announced an arrangement for fast-track border crossing during the pandemic for certain personnel, and opened the Bank of China’s yuan clearing business in the Philippines.

China would continue to take part in the Philippine side’s infrastructure plans and actively promote cooperation on major projects to lay a better foundation for the Philippines’ long-term development, Wang said.

He said China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were working together to advance post-pandemic recovery. “Facts once again show that adherence to regional and a multilateral mechanism is more important than ever,” he said.

Israel fears losing its freedom to operate against Iran

Speculation about the extent to which the incoming American administration will appease Iran has been rampant. But US President-elect Joe Biden’s picks for relevant top positions don’t seem to leave much room for supposition.

Let’s start with William Burns, Biden’s nomination for CIA director. Burns currently serves as president of the left-wing foreign-policy think tank the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, one of its donors is the Open Society Foundations network, established by George Soros.

Burns has decades of experience as a career diplomat under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Burns is a longtime associate of Biden. The two have worked closely together, most recently when the latter was Vice President and the former was Deputy Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, during the administration of former US President, Barack Obama.

Burns who had served as Ambassadors to Russia and Jordan, also had a key role in talks with the regime in Tehran in 2013. These led to the 2015 signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 countries: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China plus Germany. By that time Burns had retired, but his imprint lived on in the nuclear deal.

In this context, Biden’s statement about Burns – “[He] shares my profound belief that intelligence must be apolitical” – is not liked by his opponents. The cause of greater concern is Burns’s faith in the JCPOA from which outgoing US President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

In an 29th August 29 2020 opinion piece in The Atlantic titled “‘America First’ Enters its Most Combustible Moment,” Burns spelled out his objections.

 “Any leverage against Iran produced by the UAE-Israel agreement [the Abraham Accords between the United Arab Emirates and the Jewish state that subsequently were signed on 15th September 2020 at the White House] is already being swallowed up in the serial diplomatic malpractice of the administration’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign – aimed more at toppling the Iranian regime than at changing its behavior,” he wrote. “Doubling down on failed policy is not a smart diplomatic prescription... but the Trump administration is not likely to see the light. Instead, it will continue to pretend that the United States can participate in only the punitive parts of the Iran nuclear deal... [a strategy that it] tried – and spectacularly failed at.”Nothing could be further from the truth. Trump’s “maximum-pressure campaign” is anything but “diplomatic malpractice.”

Antony Blinken, for instance – who, pending congressional confirmation, will replace Pompeo – is another JCPOA enthusiast. Blinken served under Obama, first as Deputy National Security advisor and then as deputy secretary of state. Like Burns, he was instrumental in formulating and promoting the deal. He also wants to lift sanctions against Tehran as one of those “goodwill gestures” that American multilateralists so love extending to the regimes.

He was clear about this in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA. In a thread of tweets on 9th May 2018, Blinken wrote, “By blowing up the Iran nuclear deal, President Trump puts us on a collision course with Iran and our closest allies. It gives Iranian hardliners the excuse to speed again toward the bomb without a united international coalition to oppose them or inspectors to expose them. Or if Iran and Europe stick with the deal, it forces us to sanction the latter to stop them from doing business with the former. Either way we lose.”

AS IF THIS weren’t an illustration of the degree to which Democrats misunderstand – or are willfully blind to – the mindset of the Iranian mullahs, Blinken goes on to make a ridiculous assertion. The cancellation of the JCPOA, he tweeted, “makes getting to yes with North Korea that much more challenging.

Cognizant of new reality, Israel is boosting its ability to combat Iranian forces and other proxy groups. The Democrats in the White House, State Department and Capitol building are lying in wait to lead the world, as Obama proudly did, “from behind.”

Will Biden also use India against China?

The United States has declassified its 2018 Indo-Pacific strategy for unknown reasons, although it was initially set to be released to the public at the end of 2042. Over the last three years, this National Security Council strategy has guided American maneuvers and policy in a region extending from the United State’s Pacific Coast all the way to India.

At its heart, the strategy reveals a deep concern with China’s rising influence in the Western and Central Pacific. It also highlights plans to deal with an increasingly belligerent North Korea, while seeking to strengthen India to counter Chinese military power.

The strategy was initially devised throughout 2017, going on to be approved and enforced by President Donald Trump in 2018 shortly after the US National Defense Strategy was finalized.

While the strategy’s actual authors are not credited in the document, much of the document accurately reflects the White House’s actions in the region for the last three years.

The strategy shares rare insights into how the US perceives its opponents and allies in the region, specifically India, China and North Korea. There is a realization that China enjoys growing dominance in the Indo-Pacific and it is the United State’s primary adversary and strategic opponent in the area. 

The strategy dwells how to maintain the US strategic edge and promote a liberal economic order while preventing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence, and cultivating areas of cooperation to promote regional peace and prosperity. It also emphasizes that China will circumvent international rules and norms to gain an advantage in a strategic face-off between the two powers.

While the strategy doesn’t specifically mention the paths China follows to further its dominance in the region, it does cite China’s increasing use of digital surveillance, information controls, and influence operations that will counter US efforts to promote its values and national interests, not only in the Indo-Pacific, but also within the Western hemisphere itself.

Parallel to the strategy, the US government and military have consistently sounded alarms over China’s expanding nuclear arsenal, long-range ballistic and cruise missile capabilities, and the resurgence of its naval fleet.

Broadly speaking, it aims to build US capabilities to be capable of, but not limited to denying China control of the air and the sea in the first island chain, referring to a string of Pacific islands surrounding China that include Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. China claims most of these waters. It also emphasizes the need to defend the first island chain, and dominate all areas outside it. 

While the document does not mention the South China Sea dispute, it reflects a concern over China’s claims there and in other parts of the Western Pacific. The South China Sea and Western Pacific as a whole have seen a tremendous increase in Chinese military activity, but also activities by the US and its allies in the region.

The strategy adopted by the Trump administration has arguably led to the worst deterioration in US-China ties in recent history, triggering an ongoing trade war and US commitment to defence of Taiwan by approving large defence deals with the island nation. On top of Trump blaming China for the COVID-19 global pandemic and accusing it of mismanaging the outbreak, Trump has fostered deeper ties with Taiwan that go beyond arms deals and include military capacity building and reinforce diplomatic ties.

After identifying China as a primary strategic concern, the strategy turns its attention to North Korea. Threatened by its multiple missile launches in 2017 including one missile that flew over Japan, the strategy acknowledges the rapid technological advances North Korea realized in its missile technology.

India features prominently in US strategic plans for the region. Specifically, the strategy seeks to build a quadrilateral security framework with India, Japan, Australia and the US. The four-cornered strategy wants to use a strong India to counterbalance China.

This comes after pointing out that India is already able to counter border provocations by China. It should be noted that the strategy was passed before India-China skirmishes in the Doklam region. 

Interestingly, the strategy makes no mention of Pakistan at all in spite of its close ties to China. It further defines a key need to accelerate India’s rise and capacity to serve as a net provider of security and Major Defense Partner; solidify an enduring strategic partnership with India underpinned by a strong Indian military able to effectively collaborate with the United States and its partners in the region to address shared interests.

The US Navy has advocated creating a new naval command exclusively for the Indian Ocean and close-by areas of the pacific. With the expiration of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the US has also assessed different locations in South East Asia to position long-range missile forces that would be able to counter China’s own strategic missiles.

Meanwhile, India continues to enjoy large defence procurements from the US, including the F-21 fighter jet. Others have indicated this could be a form of induction to bring India into the F-35 stealth fighter program. 

In spite of its bold efforts, much of the strategy’s ambitious objectives have yet to be fulfilled. That’s not to say that the strategy went entirely unfulfilled. The US Navy is set to create a new fleet to cover the Western Pacific. Freedom of Navigation deployments to the region is increasing, along with the major US efforts to arm Taiwan. While the strategy reflects Trump’s legacy, its approach may still shape coming US strategy as Biden’s new administration seeks to contend with China and North Korea. 

Biden Middle East Policy: Need to disentangle United States from Iran-Saudi Arabia rivalry

The Biden administration will face a number of challenges in the Middle East over the next four years. The diplomatic landscape of the region offers the United States ample opportunities to offer peace initiatives. 

Some have been successful and enduring, like the 1978 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. There have also been many more notable failed attempts, such as the stalled talks between Israelis and Palestinians during the Obama administration.

Diplomacy does not have to be big and bold to be successful. The Biden administration has an opportunity to stabilize the Middle East by disentangling from the regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This has the prospects of reducing the temperature of relations between these two regional rivals and possibly even prompting them to settle some of their differences on behalf of regional stability.

One may like it or not, the United States has become party to the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Of course there are profound issues related to wars in Syria and Yemen and instability in Iraq and Lebanon that separate them. But much of the enmity they harbor for each other relates in no small way to Washington. Iran sees Saudi Arabia (and Israel) as the tip of the spear of US efforts to undermine it. Iran sponsored attacks on Saudi oil facilities in 2019 after Washington’s maximum pressure campaign is prima facie evidence of this.

Saudi Arabia has felt little incentive to even entertain diplomacy with Iran given the large US military footprint in the Persian Gulf and Trump’s hostility toward Iran. Not only is the United States a party to the Iran-Saudi rivalry, but it has hardened the resolve of both sides, driving them further away from diplomacy, with negative consequences for the entire region.

The United States lacks the capacity to persuade either of the regional rivals toward rapprochement. But Washington can play a constructive role by extricating itself from the role of central character in this conflict. This will require recalibrating relations with Saudi Arabia, supporting Riyadh but also making sure that it does not continue using Washington as a crutch for shunning diplomacy.

It also necessitates the United States working to ensure that the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE are used as a bridge for building further regional cooperation and not merely as a cudgel for deepening hostilities to Iran. And it will necessitate the United States moving toward a diplomatic track with Iran, starting with rejoining the 2015 nuclear deal, on the condition that Tehran reverts to compliance.

The US will need to use leverage to move a stubborn Iran into a more constructive regional role, but skillful diplomacy can deprive Iranian leaders of the narrative that their regional adventurism is a necessary defensive crouch for deterring a hostile Washington.

Disentangling the United States from the regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia won’t ensure peace between the two regional powers. But it can force Iran and Saudi Arabia to deal with each other on their own terms, and not hide behind relations with Washington.

If successful in cooling the temperature of relations between these two powers, it can also possibly have other benefits, such as sucking some of the oxygen out of the proxy conflict dimension of the civil wars roiling Syria and Yemen and helping stabilize Lebanon and Iraq.

While the United States can’t start a peace process between Iran and Saudi Arabia, peace should be the objective of the US diplomacy. Rebalancing relations with friends and foes would go a long way toward this objective. Steady resolve rather than bold diplomacy might be just what the region needs from Washington right now.