Through Iran nuclear talks, US balances Israel and China

US President Joe Biden (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The nuclear talks between Iran and the P4+1 (UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) in Vienna have ramifications across three regions – West Asia, Far East Asia and Eastern Europe – if corresponding US moves elsewhere are taken into account.

While all parties reported positive notes at least on the first day of the talks, a jittery Israel, which had been railing against lifting sanctions on a deal Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said would be akin to “(Iran) getting paid” (for its nuclear programme), would still be happy as the US’s new Global Posture Review (GPR) retains US force levels in the region.

Israel has banned Palestinian humanitarian groups, continued its settlement expansion in the West Bank – inviting US criticism – beside threatening “military options” against the Iranian nuclear programme.

It received Washington’s attention when on the day talks began on November 29, the GPR summary named Iran and the ISIS as the reasons to maintain its military presence in West Asia. That it was prepared in “consultation with dozens of allies and partners worldwide” implied Israel’s fears must have been allayed.

But the US’s exit from West Asia was also for refocusing on China in the Western and Indo-Pacific. That it has now been considerably delayed – if not indefinitely stalled –can be considered as Beijing’s success in preventing a “robust operationalization of the US’s Indo-Pacific strategy,” according to Jonathan Fulton, assistant professor of political science at Zayed University in Dubai.

It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to imagine reports about a Chinese military base in Khalifa port in the United Arab Emirates being planted by Beijing to keep the US in a diminished yet non-interventionist role in West Asia.

West Asia and Northern Africa actors have also been burying the hatchet with Iran-Saudi Arabia, Turkey-Egypt, Iran-United Arab Emirates, UAE-Syria, Saudi Arabia-Qatar and UAE-Turkey, rapidly normalising ties in what is considered a pragmatic desire for de-escalation.

Emirati Presidential Advisor Anwar Gargash said they “are all worried by a looming Cold War…as the idea of choosing is problematic in the international system” adding that for the UAE, the US was the “predominant strategic partner but China (being) our number one economic partner.”

China has deep economic ties with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, Israel, Turkey and Egypt, with the first three being officially part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Israel and the UAE are also part of Huawei Technologies Co.’s massive 5G rollout in the face of American opposition.

From the fact that Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed’s telephone conversation on November 11 touched on the nuclear talks, it is safe to conclude the normalisation has a tacit American sanction.

After Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bageri Kani met and Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the Emirati president, on November 24 , Gargash that they want to “turn a new page”. The UAE’s National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Tehran on Monday, where he met Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani.  This warming of relations, despite concerns of Iranian roles in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Libya, is being coordinated with Saudi Arabia. Gargash had said regional allies were kept “in the picture”.

This also takes the steam off the Middle East Quad between India, UAE, US and Israel which had an anti-Iran slant and the Abraham Accords – where Israel normalised ties with UAE, Sudan Morocco and Bahrain.

But Far East Asia is a bigger powder keg, with three flashpoints – the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. China considers the Asia-Pacific a bigger security concern than West Asia and North Africa. And the US knows it can’t challenge China in the Asia Pacific until it stabilizes Eastern Europe too. It put the onus on Ukraine when Secretary of State Anthony Blinken advocated a “diplomatic peaceful resolution” (with) “full implementation of the Minsk Agreements” to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on December 2 on the margins of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Ministerial in Stockholm, regarding the ongoing standoff with Russia.

His irritation at President Volodymyr Zelensky was palpable when, addressing North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) officials, he said they were “also urging Ukraine to exercise restraint.” Zelensky refuses to negotiate with the self-declared pro-Russian Peoples’ Republics in Lugansk and Donetsk as per the Minsk Agreements.

The situation is not lost on Iran as it put P4+1 representatives at ease by declaring it would consider the talks as having resumed from where they ended before the Iranian elections. The positive signal had emanated from the US when lead US nuclear negotiator Rob Malley blamed the Trump administration for withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at the Manama Dialogue on November 19.

Time will tell whether the US would lift the nuclear-related sanctions on Iran or the other irrelevant Trump-era sanctions over its regional activities, as Tehran enriches Uranium to 60% purity. But following a mildly reconciliatory path with Tehran that doesn’t irk Israel by retaining its military presence in West Asia seems to be the US approach.

A sudden shifting of all forces to the Western Pacific would be escalatory and certainly opposed by Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia – the last two being vocal against the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) security pact. For Washington, the path to the Indo-Pacific seems to run through West Asia.

Parth Satam is a journalist who has been covering India’s defence sector for more than a decade. Twitter: @ParthSatam.

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.