Saudi Arabia has a role as peacemaker

By Leonid Tsukanov

Saudi Arabia persistently moves quickly into the group of “peacekeeping powers”. For Riyadh, active diplomatic work is an element of the competition for the right to be considered athe heart of the power of the new world order, an attempt to "reset" the country's image and get rid of uncomfortable stereotypes. Moreover, the interests of the Saudis gradually go beyond the region and cover not only the Arab world, but also "distant frontiers". They could not get around the main today's conflict - in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, in practice, the sincerity of the kingdom's intentions raises some doubts - the "peacemaking style" turns out to be too peculiar. What is Riyadh really guided by when holding another conciliatory meeting? And how independent is he in this matter?

The wind of change
For a long time, Saudi Arabia was not too interested in processes outside the Middle East. The kingdom's diplomatic efforts were limited, as a rule, to stopping regional crises that threatened national security. With rare exceptions, the focus was on events that could shake the oil market and damage the country's well-being.

However, closer to the mid-2010s, this approach was revised. Today, one of the main supporters of the “reset” of the country is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the “architect” of the new Saudi Arabia. It was he who came up with the idea to bet on "positive neutrality" and increase the geopolitical weight of the country through diplomatic means.

As conceived by the crown prince, the emphasis on diplomacy should help Riyadh to distance itself from images that “do not correspond to the spirit of the times” - primarily “countries sponsoring radical groups” and “gas station countries”. The Saudis would also be happy to say goodbye to the title of "Middle Eastern clone of the United States", which they were awarded for their inflated military budget and high rates of militarization.

The Kingdom is increasingly involved in the settlement processes, even if it does not see its direct interest in this or that crisis. It is noteworthy that Riyadh does not publicly seek to join any of the existing geopolitical camps, be it the collective West or the Arab world. On the contrary, the diplomatic process is positioned as completely autonomous, where the kingdom is guided solely by national interests, and not by instructions from outside.

Riyadh does not seek to publicly join any of the existing geopolitical camps, be it the collective West or the Arab world. On the contrary, the kingdom wants to show that it is guided solely by national interests.

Do all roads lead to Jeddah?
Over the past year, Saudi Arabia has been serious about untangling at least three knots of tension. In addition to the normalization of relations with Iran, its key geopolitical opponent of the last decade, achieved with the active mediation of China, Riyadh has turned its eyes to Syria. The Kingdom has taken a number of steps to normalize relations with Damascus, including contributing to the intensification of inter-Arab diplomacy, which resulted in the restoration of Syria's membership in the League of Arab States (LAS).

It should be noted that the triumphant return of Damascus to the Arab League was skillfully framed by Riyadh as an element of the revival of "Arab self-consciousness", anticipating the "pan-Arab renaissance". In this sense, the kingdom played on the temporary weakening of the US position in the region, ignored Washington's "concern" and issued a call to clear the territory of Syria from foreign contingents.

Successes on the Syrian track, in turn, allowed the Saudis not only to strengthen their positions in the region, but also partially divert attention from their own failures in Yemen.

Riyadh was also among the first to join in the settlement of the crisis in Sudan. The Kingdom not only provided the belligerents with the opportunity to negotiate on neutral territory, but also partly used the resources of the Arab League and the Council of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden countries to provide comprehensive security guarantees.

In addition, the Saudi mediators managed, albeit not immediately, to convince the emissaries of the warring factions to sign a declaration on the protection of civilians under the auspices of the UN, as well as to ensure the access of representatives of the UN and the Red Crescent to the areas covered by hostilities. The last major success of the Saudis on the Sudanese track was the establishment of a ceasefire at the end of July, which was used, among other things, for the removal of foreign specialists who had not previously left the country.

The biggest diplomatic process that Saudi Arabia has become involved in is related to the Ukrainian crisis. Riyadh avoided direct participation in the settlement for a long time, although it lobbied for individual initiatives and proposals through the Arab League and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Persian Gulf (GCC). The kingdom's coming to the fore became possible after the exhaustion of Turkey's intermediary capabilities and the failure of the grain deal: Ankara largely lost the initiative, which made it possible to push it to second positions.

Nevertheless, the replacement of the mediator was not lightning fast: the Saudis began to prepare to play the first fiddle in the spring. In particular, the invitation of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to the Arab League summit in Jeddah became a kind of artillery preparation before the launch of a full-fledged consultation platform and allowed Riyadh to more accurately assess the mood within the Arab world.

In addition, by the time of the meeting on the settlement, the kingdom was able to draw up a complete picture of the situation, taking into account the position of Russia, formulated following the results of the July meeting in the Russia-GCC format. In this sense, Saudi Arabia looked in the eyes of the world community as a stronger and more savvy mediator than Turkey.

It should be noted that Jeddah, the economic capital of Saudi Arabia, has repeatedly been the main venue for important negotiations. In addition to the obvious reasons (the availability of appropriate infrastructure for receiving high delegations), the choice of the site also has a certain symbolic connotation - the so-called tomb of Eve, the progenitor of mankind, is located in the city.

As in the case of the biblical Abraham (the common ancestor of the Jews and Arabs), this figure can be presented in the future as a symbol of reconciliation and the return of mankind to an atmosphere of harmony. Recall that the Abraham Accords were called a series of treaties on the normalization of relations between Israel and a number of Arab states (UAE, Bahrain, Morocco). It is also used to refer to the current stage of the Arab-Israeli negotiation process as a whole.

And to us, and to you, and "Abraham"
Interaction with Israel should be singled out as a separate track of Saudi peacekeeping work. Unlike previous areas, where the kingdom seeks to maximize the information coverage of its own activities, the negotiation process with the Israelis is practically not advertised.

This is due both to the presence of an ideological split within the Arab world on the "Israeli issue" and the sensitivity of the issues under discussion. As a result, the public gets an idea of ​​the course of the dialogue only in the form of controlled leaks and vague statements by officials.

Nevertheless, the very tone of these half-hints points to a situation that is extremely atypical for the format of the Abraham Accords: this time Riyadh is dictating the terms, and very assertively.

Thus, in exchange for the normalization of relations with Israel, the kingdom demands from Washington, the main lobbyist of this dialogue, to expand the range of arms supplies and comprehensive security guarantees, as well as assistance in the development of projects in the field of "peaceful atom". From the Israelis - concessions to the Palestinians.

At the same time, the Saudis do not hesitate to stick out their winning positions for show, making striking public gestures. One of these was the recent appointment of the kingdom's ambassador to Palestine. With this step, Riyadh sent a signal to the Middle East - and the world as a whole - that it is capable of obtaining concessions from Israel even on such a difficult issue.

However, such foppishness is causing more and more irritation in Israel. Both the opposition camp and the current government are increasingly pointing out that the proposed price of normalization is too high, and Saudi Arabia is deliberately raising demands to annoy Washington.

Moreover, Israel is confident that if they follow Riyadh’s lead, they will not be able to avoid the uncontrolled transformation of the Middle East: the numerous regional allies of Washington and Tel Aviv/Jerusalem will at least want to receive similar preferences.

Washington itself, however, is not in a hurry to pull the Saudis back (it has some cooling of relations with Israel that has taken place in recent years), in the light of which the Israelis are forced to fight back on their own. For this reason, the Saudi-Israeli dialogue on a possible normalization of relations will proceed in the best traditions of Eastern politeness: without haste and without unnecessary demonstration of the true goals of the negotiations.

This is quite clearly seen in the example of the dialogue with Syria. The exemplary process of "pan-Arab reconciliation", which ended with the return of Syria to the Arab League, stumbled over unresolved contradictions in Syrian-Saudi relations after a couple of months. Despite the fact that Damascus and Riyadh have been active in public work since the moment of normalization and make mutual symbolic gestures, the real progress of the dialogue is complicated by mutual claims.

For example, Riyadh demands from Damascus to “toughly and promptly deal” with laboratories producing Captagon: this synthetic drug, supplied from Syria, has literally swept the Arabian Peninsula in recent years and has become a serious problem for law enforcement agencies in Saudi Arabia. Even some members of the Saudi royal house were noticed in the use and distribution of Captagon.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that representatives of the national elite of Syria, in particular, Brigadier General Maher Assad, commander of the Republican Guard and brother of President Bashar al-Assad, may be involved in the production of Captagon and the organization of its traffic. Maher al-Assad is a prominent figure in the Syrian establishment and the "second man" in the Baath Party, which gives him the opportunity to attract government resources to solve his own problems.

And although the evidence base of opponents of the Assad regime in this case raises many questions, there are enough those in Saudi Arabia who are looking for the guilty in the Syrian government.

At the same time, some analyst suggest that, to a certain extent, it may be beneficial for the Syrian authorities to ignore the production of drugs on their territory and indicatively fight only certain aspects of this problem, since the "Captagon valve" serves as a convenient lever of pressure on the Arabian monarchies - and in the first place queue for the Saudis.

Damascus, for its part, has never forgiven Riyadh for its generous funding of the Syrian anti-government forces (including the so-called armed opposition) and attempts to cobble together a 'United Front' out of them. In part, the problems of the “Idlib freemen”, which Assad’s entourage is forced to solve today, lie on the conscience of the Saudis. For this reason, the Syrian government is very wary of any initiatives by Riyadh that are aimed at defusing internal political tensions in Syria.

Another potential point of disengagement could be the issue of Syrian contacts with Iran. The influence of the promoters of the interests of the Islamic Republic both in the public sector and in business is strong, and Damascus does not show readiness to give up the established ties even in exchange for reintegration into the Arab world. Riyadh is not too pleased with this state of affairs, but prefers not to focus on the problem, so as not to accidentally damage its own dialogue with Tehran.

Saudi Arabia's attempts to reconcile the opposing factions in Sudan are not fruitful either. The meetings in Jeddah, which were previously the main bet, only exacerbate the contradictions between the supporters of the legitimate leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the rebel camp of General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo. Time after time, both sides use the respite that has presented itself to regroup forces and strengthen the occupied lines, as well as to search for foreign sponsors.

As a result, the Emirates became significantly more active in the Sudanese theater of struggle, while Saudi Arabia, constrained by the status of a “public mediator”, was unable to build on the initial success and was relegated to the background.

Moreover, as contacts with Saudi Arabia declined, Sudan expanded its interaction with Iran: both loyalists and rebels showed interest in dialogue with the Islamic Republic. Despite the fact that the Iranian-Sudanese “reset”, according to the Sudanese themselves, was inspired by the results of a similar process between Tehran and Riyadh, the kingdom sees this as an alarming sign and fears the emergence of new agents of Iranian influence in the region.

However, perhaps the meeting on the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, which took place in early August, raised the most questions. The international consultative meeting on the prospects for resolving the Ukrainian crisis was held without Russia's participation, and its results were rather coldly received by Moscow.

Attempts to work out a "draft" of the future negotiation process did not bring any result - due to Kyiv's unwillingness to abandon "principled demands" on Moscow even in exchange for a possible freezing of the conflict. As a result, the meeting in Jeddah, although it became a demonstration of the collective position of more than 40 countries, in fact did not contribute to any progress in the settlement, and therefore did not bring any tangible benefits to Riyadh.

As long as Saudi and American interests overlap, the parties are ready to work together. However, any attempt by the United States to more rigidly dictate the rules of the game to Riyadh will violate this harmony.

Diplomatic Zitz-Chairman
Saudi peacekeeping work is only gaining momentum so far, Riyadh is trying its hand in each direction in turn and is even demonstrating attempts to “work on the mistakes”.

The Saudis themselves stubbornly explain their desire to interfere in world affairs, including outside their native region, from the position of a “conductor of goodwill” and link it with “global transformations.” Nevertheless, in practice, Riyadh is still promoting Western approaches to the settlement to a greater extent, although it is trying to “blur” them by including individual proposals from China or African peace initiatives in its projects.

Nevertheless, the core of the proposals over and over again remains Atlantic and, moreover, lies almost entirely in Washington's zone of interests.

The bet on the Saudis, which was made in the White House, is quite understandable. Unlike Turkey, which defends its independence from the Atlanticists more aggressively and is able to “float freely” for some time, it is somewhat easier to dictate terms to Riyadh due to its continued technological dependence on the United States.

On the other hand, the Democratic administration remembers well the failure of attempts to rein in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of Joe Biden's presidential term, and therefore chose a softer strategy of interaction: on occasion, direct, but not crush.

With the timely playing of the Saudi peace card, the White House has several areas of influence on world politics at once: the opportunity to influence the Islamic world, of which Riyadh remains the unofficial leader; to sow a seed of doubt among the members and candidates for joining the BRICS, especially since among the participants in the last consultations in Jeddah there are enough countries representing this category; timely control of moods within the global South.

Nevertheless, such a geopolitical combination sooner or later runs the risk of tripping over the wounded pride of the Saudis. The image of the “beloved American satellite” that Riyadh has been portraying in recent decades frankly irritates the national elites, and the kingdom’s desire to play a more prominent role in world politics is partly dictated by the desire to demonstrate its maturity and independence to the world.

As long as Saudi and American interests in the settlement intersect, the parties are ready to work together. However, any attempt by the United States to more rigidly dictate the rules of the game to Riyadh, especially on the Ukrainian track, will break this harmony.
This article originally appeared in Russian at expert.ru and was translated and edited by Rhod Mackenzie