Blinken's Unconvincing Defense of the 'Mega-Deal'

His answer can’t conceal the fact that the effort he is defending makes no sense for U.S. interests.

Last week, Secretary of State Blinken tried to defend the Biden administration’s bizarre obsession with pursuing a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal:

A few things.  First, normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, were it to be achieved, would, in my judgment, be a transformative event in the Middle East and well beyond – transformative because we’ve now had four decades-plus of turmoil in that region in one way or the other going back to 1979.  You can go back, of course, even further.  Moving from a region of turmoil to one of much greater stability and integration would have profound benefits for people in the region and, I believe, profound benefits for people around the world.

Blinken takes his best shot in answering the question about why the U.S. is “so obsequiously catering to what these countries want who are not actually at war with each other right now,” but in the end his answer can’t conceal the fact that the effort he is defending makes no sense for U.S. interests. Based on everything we know about the rough outlines of any agreement, the U.S. would get vague, unenforceable assurances from its clients at most, and in return the U.S. would make significant long-term commitments to one or both states, including a security guarantee for the Saudis. All of this would be done just so that two governments that already tacitly cooperate begin doing so openly.

Later in his response, Blinken asks, “who’s to say that in an arrangement that involves at least three countries, were we able to get there, there would not be concrete benefits for all three countries, to include the United States?” Anyone that paid any attention to the other normalization deals that the U.S. has brokered would be able to say this.