Biden and Regional Stability in the Middle East

The end of the first 100 days of Joe Biden’s presidency, which is considered a crucial period by experts and specialists in the United States, was not enough to judge the Biden administration’s approach to issues at home and abroad that concern American citizens. However, it seems that the Biden administration’s performance is still being continuously observed. With regard to its overall framework, what concerns us most is what relates to the Middle East.

According to an assessment by the Foundation for International Studies, the Middle East has always been a source of unexpected challenges for various presidents in the past decades. Biden now finds himself facing these challenges.

In order not to deviate from the overall view of specialists in the United States on following the path described by the Washington Institute for the Middle East as the path that ensures progress, we have before us these recommendations.

One of the most famous political think tanks associated with contracts with U.S. administrations, especially in military affairs studies, is the RAND Corporation, which released a report describing U.S. policy in the Middle East as outdated. RAND proposed an alternative strategy, by which America would shift from relying on military means in its relations to prioritizing diplomacy and economic investments, as well as looking into programs that address the needs of the people in the region.

With an almost RAND-like view, the CMBG Institute for political studies published a report that says Biden has in front of him a historic opportunity in the Middle East to support peace and economic progress.

At the same time, the report warned that Biden should be careful in his handling of the region, and said that Biden realized through his previous years in Congress and in the White House that the Middle East could become tantamount to quicksand in which his presidential ambitions will sink.

In the same vein, The Conversation stated that Biden’s departure from Barack Obama’s orientations in the Middle East was wise and very important. We still remember what happened in the Arab Spring, when the Obama administration needed the United States to take a step forward, but what happened was that it went backward. Now, attention is focused on Biden to gauge how well he can calculate the risks that might come from any step he takes, especially since he has long political experience.

In addition to all these differing views, RAND may have laid out a detailed vision when it said that the starting point for the Biden administration could be to update his administration’s politics by taking the opportunity to reassess America’s relations with its traditional partners in the region. The best place to start is to affirm the value of regional stability as a primary priority when it serves American interests at the same time. The means to achieve this goal need to go beyond the scope of military cooperation; America’s partnership with the countries of the Middle East needs to be developed and should not continue in its old form.

Perhaps one of the factors that led these centers to make these recommendations calling for change, whether in relation to the previous directions of Democratic governments or the years of the Republican administration, was the realization that a part of Biden’s team were experts in policies that ended in failure. Furthermore, this part of the team is still is not willing to change, while the other part believes that staying the course means a lack of recognition of fundamental changes that have transpired in the Middle East in the past few years, and that since the region has experienced important and core changes, America’s policies must achieve harmony with these changes and not conflict with them.

Biden’s approach to his foreign policy, and the Middle East in particular, will therefore continue to be the subject of constant observation and assessment from experts in the United States, after having found that the first 100 days were not enough to measure the degree to which Biden’s politics have changed or not.