Inside China’s Saudi-Iran Deal: Biden’s and Obama’s Intentional Disaster And a Leftist Trap for Republicans

“OK gang we have entered the quickening phase of events,” went a Tweet late Friday. Truer words have hardly ever been spoken—longtime actions are having quicker consequences than anyone anticipated. Specifically, China’s brokering of a détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran, regional enemies since the Ayatollah took over in 1979, is a direct outcome of Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden’s ten-year effort to remake the Middle East to favor Iran over America’s traditional allies of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel. And this push has become a boon to our ultimate enemy, the one we’re confronting at home and will confront soon enough abroad: China.

The push to the disastrous point we’re at now didn’t begin with the Iran nuclear deal of 2015; it was obvious as early as 2013, when Obama held back from bombing Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for waging war on his own citizens. This wasn’t an ordinary move of prudence in a volatile region: a learning of the lessons of the disastrous interventions in Iraq and Libya. Instead, complicated and silent geopolitics were at play. Syria’s main backer was Russia, and Russia’s main Mideast ally was Saudi Arabia’s longtime rival Iran, which was contracting with Russia for arms while taking advantage of American-initiated disorder in Iraq by sponsoring militias there. Iran was also sponsoring the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and Hezbollah which controlled Syria’s ally Lebanon, as well as Hamas, which controlled parts of the Palestinian territories. Finally, Iran was sponsoring assassinations and infiltrations in America’s backyard: in Argentina and Venezuela, the latter of which had a top Hezbollah operative and drug-runner as its vice president (he now serves as Minister of Petroleum). The outcome of leaving Assad alone was to empower all of these actors. It was also to empower China, waiting in the wings and making energy deals with Russia and Iran.

And it was to put Saudi Arabia and Israel on the defensive. America had relied on both countries since 1979 to boost oil production and contain an Iran angry at America’s role in the 1953 coup and a Russia still waging the Cold War. But by the 2010s America was moving toward Iran, going so far as to partner with it and tacitly with Assad to fight ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), the terrorist group which had formed off of the Iraq War and the Syrian Civil War. And that reality led to more backlash in the Middle East. The fact that Saudi Arabia’s aggressive new leader-in-waiting Muhammad bin Salman, who launched a controversial war in Yemen, came to power during this period isn’t a coincidence; the Saudis were playing a harder game since they lacked American support.

Meantime, the drivers of these moves were hidden from most of the American public, apart from the occasional conservative defense analyst who was paying attention. This was mostly because the movers were part of the opaque administrative state and nonprofit “community” loved by liberals, including the press. Chief among these movers was upper-mid-level State department appointee, former George Soros employee, and left-wing inheritor Robert Malley who, like Soros, is driven to create an “open society” governed by international institutions not representative governments. Supporting these moves were institutionalists like Defense Secretary James Mattis who prioritized policy consistency over rocking the boat, even if the boat was being steered in a progressive direction.

This mostly changed by the end of President Trump’s Administration, as the White House forged closer ties with Saudi Arabia while encouraging Israel and Arab countries like the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations in a de facto alliance against Iran. But since President Trump left office America has reversed course. The Biden Administration is playing a cleverer game than the Obama Administration: not venturing back into the Iranian nuclear deal but doing everything else to support the regime and marginalize Israel and the Saudis. It’s doubled down on the Obama Administration’s insistence that peace with Hamas-infiltrated Palestinians is a major issue for Israel before Israel can solidify closer ties with Arab states. It also pushed Israel into a maritime deal with Lebanon, which is functionally run by Iran, and pushed Saudi Arabia into closer Lebanese ties as well. Finally, it’s taken steps to indirectly sponsor protests against President Trump’s ally Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his attempts to bring an out-of-control Israeli Supreme Court to democratic accountability.

The result of all of these moves has been to signal to Saudi Arabia and Israel that the United States no longer believes in the three-way alliance—and this was what caused Saudi Arabia’s move via China toward Iran. Now it isn’t Russia making power plays in the Middle East—it’s our chief global rival displacing us in a region with huge oil reserves.

In this context, President Biden’s commitment to combating Russia through the war in Ukraine, loudly stated and backed by money but not by the decisive moves of either negotiations or force, is the ultimate red herring—whether he and other Democrats know it or not. It’s a way to “recreate” the Democratic Party’s golden period: the post-World War II, anticommunist liberal order that justified Democrats’ priorities of free trade, expanded government, and leadership of “experts” from government-backed corporations and universities. Meantime that postwar liberal order is collapsing all around us: China buys more of the debt that we’re increasing to wage the proxy war in Ukraine against China’s front-man Russia; and Iran makes power plays in the Middle East as it docks its warships in socialist-controlled Brazil, invading the western hemisphere while we’re sleeping at the switch.

The quickening of events we’re seeing is proof that the Biden Administration’s policies, framed around a model that made sense 75 years ago, make America weaker. But it also brings a challenge for populist Republicans, who see the new reality but have to approach it deliberately: putting America first means keeping our alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia strong and possibly keeping a footprint in Syria. Steve Bannon is right when he says that we’re a Pacific power not an Atlantic one, and need to start acting that way. But we also need to make that move in a focused way: bringing the war in Ukraine to a close while recognizing that, if we cede ground in the Middle East by completely withdrawing, we’re not putting America first or helping our push against China; we’re emboldening it.

We’re also emboldening Leftists like Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar, the latter of whom joined Matt Gaetz’s recent proposal to pull American advisors out of Syria. Many progressives were on board with this push, following Sanders’ lead last year when he proposed restricting the President’s war powers when it came to shipping arms to Saudi Arabia. These politicians aren’t looking to diminish presidential power like Gaetz is—look at their support of a military buildup in Ukraine that lacks congressional oversight. They’re working to redirect American policy in the Middle East to favor peace with Iran and China. And they have strong allies in the Biden Administration, like the current chief negotiator to Iran Robert Malley, who not coincidentally is Antony Blinken’s childhood friend.

It’s tempting to want to pull America out of the Middle East, Ukraine, everywhere, all at once…if only because neoconservatives and establishment liberals are so unapologetically in favor of continuing these interventionist charades twenty years after their due date. But populist Republicans shouldn’t play into a game that will strengthen communist China abroad and socialist Leftists at home, and that will allow liberals and neocons to label them as “isolationists.” President Trump has criticized precipitate withdrawals in Afghanistan and Syria, and Republicans should follow his lead, instead focusing their opposition on the boondoggle in Ukraine.

They should push for funding transparency in Ukraine—and force progressives to join the vote or else label progressives hypocrites who only choose peace when it suits their politics. They should also push the Biden Administration to do everything possible to either go all in on the Ukrainian war or end it with a brokered peace—and force a vote to put progressives in a corner again. But, while they’re avoiding another Vietnam in Ukraine, they should recognize that the road to winning the big fight with China includes working in the Middle East to contain Iran: avoiding a catastrophic Ukraine-like commitment while keeping our enemies on the defensive.