Given the developments in the context of the Red Sea crisis and the tense situation in the Middle East, we spoke to David Rigoulet-Roze, a researcher at the Institut français d’analyse stratégique, associate researcher at IRIS and editor of the journal Orients Stratégiques published by L’Harmattan. The interview was conducted by Denys Kolesnyk, a French consultant and analyst.
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip continues to worsen, while Egypt is building a wall on its border, not taking in refugees either. How do you explain Cairo’s inability or unwillingness to take refugees in? What is Egypt’s stance on the conflict between Hamas and Israel?
In February, media outlets such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal relayed information corroborated by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights that Egypt had started work on a wall on the Gaza border at the beginning of February. The wall would be 7 metres high and 5 metres deep and would stretch for 14 kilometres from the south-eastern tip of Gaza with the Kerem Shalom terminal to the Rafah terminal, extending to the Mediterranean Sea.
According to this NGO, it is intended to create a “closed, high-security zone isolated from the rest of Sinai” that would serve as a 3-kilometre-wide buffer zone to absorb the flow of refugees “in the event of a mass exodus” from Rafah, where almost 1.4 million people displaced from the enclave are crammed together. It would therefore serve as an airlock to prevent the uncontrolled flow of people into Sinai.
On 19 February, the governor of North Sinai, Mohamed Abdel Fadil Choucha, denied that such a project existed, even though it had been confirmed by satellite images from Maxar revealed in mid-February.
In reality, Egypt’s position is complex, with two explicit and implicit levels. Explicitly, Egypt wants to affirm its support for the Palestinian cause by ostensibly refusing to endorse a supposed Israeli calculation pushed by certain extremist ministers in the Israeli government. And here I mean the Minister of the Economy, Bezalel Smotrich, and the Minister of Internal Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, openly advocating in their statements at the beginning of January the encouraged, if not forced, transfer of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the Egyptian Sinai, which would be a new Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) for the Arab world in general, and the Palestinians in particular, reminding the exodus of the first refugees in 1948.
This Egyptian stance is also intended to reassure its own viscerally pro-Palestinian population, which could destabilise the Egyptian government, which intends to assert its sovereignty by showing that Egypt does not intend to give in to the blackmail of demographic pressure on its border with Gaza. But at the same time, there is another, less obvious dimension. Implicitly, Egypt does not want to see a potentially massive and uncontrolled influx of refugees into the Sinai region, which is already considered a security “black hole” difficult to control.
A fortiori, because there is the nagging worry that activists from Hamas, an Islamo-nationalist terrorist organisation born out of the historical matrix of the Egyptian “Muslim brothers”, could blend in with these potential flows of refugees. This “Brotherhood” movement has long been the target of fierce repression in Egypt, which has been stepped up by President Abdel Fattah al Sissi since his 2013 putsch to overthrow the elected “Brotherhood” president, Mohamed Morsi, with the financial support of the Gulf oil monarchies, with the notable exception of Qatar – the media and financial backer of this “Brotherhood” movement and therefore of Hamas.
However, there is speculation that a refugee reception plan is in the pipeline in return for a deal with the Gulf States and the United States to wipe out a large part of Egypt’s debt – some 42 billion dollars in 2023 – in conjunction with a renewed agreement with the IMF.
As for Israel, we know that Egypt is not one of Israel’s allies, but it can be said that Egypt is perhaps the least anti-Israeli country in the whole Middle East. How would you explain that?
If we are talking about the Egyptian government, we should remember that Egypt was the first state to sign a peace treaty with Israel on 26 March 1979 in Washington, following on from the Camp David Accords signed on 17 September 1978 between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the Israeli Prime Minister of the time, Menachem Begin, with the mediation of US President Jimmy Carter. As a result, it was the first Arab state to take the risk of signing a peace treaty with the Hebrew state, which in 1982 returned to Egypt the Sinai desert conquered by Tsahal during the “Six-Day War”.
Egypt was to be ostracised by the other Arab countries and even expelled from the Arab League, with the organisation’s headquarters moved from Cairo to Tunis. Above all, President Anwar Sadat paid for the signing of this peace agreement with his life when he was assassinated during a military parade by a commando of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, founded by former members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were opposed to any negotiations with Israel.
The fact remains that since 1979, close relations have been developed between Egypt and Israel, particularly in terms of security between the Egyptian and Israeli intelligence services. This privileged relationship was overseen by General Omar Suleiman under President Hosni Mubarak, who succeeded Anwar Sadat until his overthrow in February 2011 and is now overseen by General Abbas Kamel, a confidant of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.
Israel is aware of the need to preserve its special relationship with Cairo. And Yoav Gallant, the Israeli Defence Minister, felt obliged to declare on 16 February that the State of Israel had no intention of evacuating Palestinian civilians in Egypt, adding that the peace agreement with Egypt was the “cornerstone of stability in the region”.
Let’s talk about the Houthis in Yemen, who are hindering freedom of navigation in the Red Sea by attacking ships. The Americans, supported by the British, have launched an airstrike campaign aimed at targeting the Houthi. France in its turn deployed FREMM Alsace in the Red Sea and Germany followed. How would you explain the willingness of the Europeans to support the Americans in this matter? How important is the protection of trade in the Red Sea to Paris?
First of all, there is no real desire on the part of the Europeans to support the Americans in the Red Sea. It should be remembered that on 18 December 2024, the United States decided to set up a maritime coalition led by the US Navy called Prosperity Guardian to protect freedom of navigation and international maritime trade disrupted by repeated attacks by the pro-Iranian Houthis in Yemen.
A multinational coalition comprising of around ten countries, including – in addition to the small kingdom of Bahrain, home to the 5th US fleet in the Persian Gulf – several European countries, such as the United Kingdom, which is particularly concerned, with London being the world’s leading insurance centre (particularly for shipping) with Lloyd’s, and Norway, but also European Union member states such as Denmark, which is primarily affected, with the direct economic impact on Maersk, the world’s second-largest shipowner, the Netherlands, and finally the Seychelles archipelago, located on major maritime trade routes.
France is particularly concerned by the problem of maritime safety, with shots having been fired at ships belonging to French shipowner CMA-CGM, the world’s second-largest shipowner. France deployed its frigate Languedoc on 8 December 2023, which had already shot down a drone targeting the Norwegian oil tanker Strinda on 12 December using an Aster 15 surface-to-air missile – a first for the French Navy. But Paris decided while cooperating closely with the aforementioned maritime coalition, not to go under US command and to remain under national command, like Italy for instance.
Spain, for its part, had decided not to take part in this maritime police force on the pretext that it was already involved in an operation of this type with the Spanish command of EUNAVFOR conducting Operation Atalanta off the Horn of Africa against piracy, but above all to avoid what might be perceived in domestic politics as an alignment with the United States.
Europe was reluctant to align itself with the American naval initiative. The same reasoning prevailed on 22 January when the European Union decided to set up a European maritime mission, parallel but not in competition with the one put in place by the United States, which already included the modest participation of certain European states such as Norway and the Netherlands.
This is why the European Union finally decided, after much prevarication and debate at the end of 2023, to set up a European coalition called Aspides (a reference to the Greek ‘shield’ to emphasise its purely defensive rather than proactive dimension) – in parallel with the largely Anglo-Saxon coalition. This purely European coalition became operational on 19 February 2024 and is under Italian command with its frigate Virginio Fasan, and with the participation of several major European countries, including France, already present with two frigates, Languedoc since early December and Alsace sent to the area on 20 January, as well as Germany with ships from the world’s fifth largest shipowner, Hamburg-based Halpag-Lloyd, Belgium also planned dispatch of the frigate Marie-Louise, as well as Greece, the historic home of shipowners.
The stakes are recognised as being high. It is worth recalling a few figures concerning the importance of maritime traffic in the Red Sea transiting through the Bab el Mandeb Strait (“Gate of Lamentations” in Arabic), which is aptly named in this instance: 12% of world maritime trade, more than a third of container ship trade, 10% of refined petroleum products, between 5% and 6% of crude oil, 8% of LNG (liquefied natural gas), notably from Qatar – whose company QatarEnergy has announced that some deliveries could be delayed because of a rerouting via the Cape of Good Hope, which would mean an extra ten days of sailing, not to mention the increased cost of transport, 7% of bulk carriers (cereals or other).
At the end of October 2023, the Houthis announced that they had started their drone and missile war in solidarity with the Palestinian cause in general and Hamas in particular, as a result of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, by joining al-Milhwar al-Mouqawama (the so-called “axis of resistance to Israel”), which includes Iranian proxies in the region. This missile warfare aimed specifically at Israeli ships or ships with commercial links to Israel reached its climax in November with the hijacking of the Galaxy Leader on 19 November 2023, a ro-ro vessel sailing for the Japanese company Nippon Yusen Kaisha and owned by Ray Shipping, a company partly owned by Israeli businessman Abraham Ungar.
As a result of this strategy, after two months of attacks in the Red Sea, at the end of December 2023, the port of Eilat in Israel came to a virtual standstill as shipping companies were reluctant to go there. The Houthis claimed that they were only targeting ships with links to Israel, but in reality, their strategy was affecting all maritime traffic, all ships combined, which is why the US response was implemented in three phases from December 2023.
Until then, there had been a form of cautious logic consisting of shooting down the drones and missiles fired by the Houthis, while contenting with intercepting Houthi fire in airspace, in the form of air military response, to avoid fuelling a potential escalation. Initially, the US Navy confined itself to shooting down the drones and missiles launched by the Houthis. From the end of December and onwards, there was a second phase of “extending the field of combat” with a maritime confrontational response that led the US Navy, on 31 December 2023, to sink three Houthi boats, killing around ten people, with a fourth boat managing to escape.
CENTCOM (the US Central Command based in Doha, Qatar) said that the US Navy was responding to a request for assistance from the Maersk Hangzhou, a Singapore-flagged container ship owned by the Danish shipowner Maersk. The Maersk Hangzhou had reported being attacked for the second time in 24 hours while sailing in the Red Sea. The ship had previously been targeted by two missiles launched from Yemeni territory controlled by the Houthis, which the US army shot down.
On 3 January, the United States and a group of 14 countries, including those from the maritime coalition, issued a final ultimatum to the Houthis to put an end to their activities affecting freedom of navigation. The strikes were therefore expected, but they were to take a new form.
A third phase of a territorial aspect of the response started in January 2024. The United States considered that a red line had been crossed on 9 January with a wave of 21 strikes aimed not only at commercial ships but also at the military vessels present to protect maritime traffic. In addition, Resolution 2722 passed by the UN Security Council on 10 January, calling on the Houthis to cease their destabilising actions against the region’s freedom of navigation and security, provided legal cover. Moreover, the Houthis do not embody the legality of the Yemeni government.
By the way, in the US Navy, there is a saying that “you don’t just shoot the arrow, you shoot the archer”. This principle is being put into practice with an increase in the number of strikes on Yemeni territory. What some observers, including military ones, thought was impossible has now been proven.
At a press conference on 16 January, Emmanuel Macron stated that France would not join the strikes against the Houthis. France intended to demonstrate its concern not to align itself with the Anglo-Saxon countries, particularly the US military initiative, by considering that the issue was more a matter of “diplomatic logic” than “military logic”. This is a way of avoiding being considered as Israel’s main Western supporter, like the United States, but it is also an expression of the fear of a spiral that is not necessarily a deterrent. President Joe Biden acknowledged on 18 January that the issue was not deterrence as such, but rather the implementation of a logic of capability attrition of the Houthis.
The fact is that in a short space of time, the Houthis have become a geopolitical player, capable of undermining on their own the security of international maritime trade. This situation has placed them at the forefront of the international stage in a completely unprecedented way, posing a problem not only for Westerners. The Houthis have announced that they are giving preferential treatment to Russian and Chinese ships because Russia and China are considered “non-hostile” countries.
The Yemeni Houthi rebels, whose attacks are crippling maritime traffic in the Red Sea, have claimed to guarantee “safe passage” for Russian and Chinese ships on this strategic route. However, the problem is that general insecurity in the Red Sea is affecting global maritime trade. China is very upset by this situation, which is affecting an essential part of world maritime traffic by impacting the logistics chain for Chinese exports, whose port warehouses are beginning to fill up with stocks and are incurring additional costs by rerouting ships via the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa to avoid the Red Sea.
The “Factory of the World” is worried. Hence the formal warning issued on 19 January by the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman calling for “an end to harassment and the maintenance of smooth global supply chains and international trade order”. But China is somewhat trapped by its concern to spare its Iranian ally. However, this didn’t prevent Beijing from telling Iran that it was essential for Tehran to put pressure on the Houthis, as failure to do so would be likely to damage Iran’s trade relations with Beijing. A message that was perfectly received in Tehran, but not necessarily entirely audible on the part of the Houthis, who are also following an agenda that does not fully coincide with Tehran’s.
And we are going to talk about Iran since Tehran has been mentioned. Iran is adopting an increasingly assertive stance, whether in taking action or in organising intimidation campaigns while avoiding direct conflict with the United States and its allies. What is Iran’s policy in this complicated region?
Iran’s strategy is a subtle one, which could be described as a “Persian strategy”. It is an indirect strategy of hybrid warfare, via proxies, its regional proxies grouping a myriad of movements, most often Shiite, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, pro-Iranian militias in Syria (the Liwa Fatemyoun made up of Afghan Shiites and the Liwa Zainebiyoun made up of Pakistani Shiites) and Iraq (the Islamic Resistance in Iraq), as well as the Zaydi Houthis in Yemen while taking care to avoid any direct confrontation with the United States and its allies.
Tehran knows well that any direct confrontation would be catastrophic for the Iranians. In reality, none of the players involved wants a direct confrontation. The Americans have made this explicit on several occasions. This strategy is based on the principle – paradoxically Anglo-Saxon – of plausible deniability as to their possible responsibility for regional instability.
Concerning the Houthis in particular, on 22 December 2023, the US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson pointed the finger at Iran’s involvement in the recent attacks on ships by Yemeni Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, saying that Iran had been “very involved in the planning” of these attacks.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the rebels were using real-time intelligence provided by a spy ship, the Behshad, linked to the Iranian regime, which took over from the Saviz in August 2021, which had been permanently damaged in April 2021 by an unclaimed operation, probably Israeli. On the following day, 23 December, Iran immediately rejected US accusations of its involvement in Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, had said that the United States had already asked his country to advise the Yemeni rebels not to act against American and Israeli interests in the region, pointing out that these groups were acting in their interests and denying any responsibility.
Even if they insist that their proxies are autonomous, that they act on their initiative and that the fight is legitimate, there is obviously an Iranian agenda behind it, a geopolitical agenda, even if the proxies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, also have their national agenda.
But this strategy, however skilful, can also be dangerous. The problem with this type of configuration lies in the fact that, insofar as the proxies are given room to manoeuvre, at least in operational terms, there is never any guarantee that there may be miscalculations and situations getting out of control.
But what does Iran really want?
Iran, ostracised internationally, wants to be recognised as a central geopolitical player in the region. In other words, to make all the other regional players and the major powers understand that security in the region will not be possible without talks with Iran.
This also concerns Saudi Arabia to some extent, doesn’t it?
Of course, it does. Because there is a long-standing geopolitical rivalry between the Sunni Arab and the Persian Shiite power. Nevertheless, there was a rapprochement in March 2023 between the two countries brokered by Beijing, which is anything but insignificant.
For Tehran, this rapprochement, which involved re-establishing diplomatic relations that had been severed since January 2016, was supposed to show that talks with Iran would lead to regional appeasement. Iran’s strategy thus aims to demonstrate that Iran is essential to achieving regional stabilisation. This is also should be done by the expulsion of external players deemed undesirable, in particular the United States.
Let’s talk about France, which was once a major power in the Middle East, but those days seem to be long gone. What were the factors behind France’s loss of influence in the region? And what is Paris’ current policy towards the major regional players?
Indeed, the French voice is somewhat diminished. Today, it is not inaudible, but it has much less impact, particularly in the Arab world. We are a long way from the gesture made by President Chirac, which is still remembered today, with his words addressed to members of the Israeli security forces during a visit to the Muslim part of Jerusalem in October 1996, as part of an official trip to Israel: “What problem is there now? I’m getting fed up! What do you want? Me to go back to my plane and go back to France, is that what you want? Then let them go. Let them do it. No that’s… no, no danger, no problem. This is not a method. This is a provocation. That is a provocation. Please you stop now”.
Ceteris paribus, it makes somewhat a parallel to President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Beirut in Lebanon after the port explosion on 4 August 2020. Just two days after the explosion, which killed almost 200 people and injured nearly 6500, he stood alongside the inhabitants of Beirut, promising to do everything in his power to bring about change in the country and calling on the Lebanese political class to take the necessary action. However, he was immediately blocked by the Lebanese political class and was unable to translate his firm words into concrete action.
In reality, France has few means at its disposal to promote its interests and is now competing with other powers. What used to make France special is now less so. What has been described as France’s Arab policy, sometimes somewhat abusively, was intended to be a policy of balance, particularly in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was this policy of balance that President Macron intended to maintain after 7 October. But this has resulted in declarations that are sometimes contradictory in their wording, leaving the French position unclear to the parties involved.
Who are our main partners in the region?
As far as Lebanon is concerned, France is working with the United States to prevent the situation from degenerating into a second front to the north on the Israeli-Lebanese border. So it’s clear that we’re still keeping our fingers on the pulse. The head of French diplomacy, Stéphane Séjourné, on a visit to Lebanon on 7 February, four months after 7 October, reportedly warned Beirut that Israel could launch a war against the country. The message was intended to persuade the Lebanese to ensure that Hezbollah withdrew below the Litani River in accordance with Resolution 1701 of 11 August 2006, adopted just after the 33-day war.
But it is not certain that this will be enough, as France no longer has the influence it once had in the region. This is difficult for France to accept because there is a certain feeling of diplomatic downgrading that is painful in terms of the history of our relations with this region. This is an unprecedented situation in the recent history of French diplomacy in the Arab world.
According to Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper, a dozen French ambassadors in the Middle East and certain Maghreb countries have collectively drafted and signed a note, regretting the supposed pro-Israeli turn taken by Emmanuel Macron in the Gaza war. This joint note was sent to the Quai d’Orsay (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), with a copy to the Élysée Palace. The note is lucid in its assessment, measured in its formulation and perhaps tinged with a certain nostalgia. It establishes France’s loss of credibility and influence and notes our country’s poor image in the Arab world. Then, rather diplomatically, it suggests that all this is the result of positions taken by the President of the Republic.
The centre of gravity of French diplomacy has shifted from the Near East to the Middle East over the past two decades, as our ties with the Gulf oil monarchies have developed. We could even say that a “Gulf tropism” developed after Jacques Chirac’s two presidential terms (1995-2007). More specifically, there was a “Qatari tropism” with President Nicolas Sarkozy, then a “Saudi tropism” with President François Hollande, and finally an “Emirati tropism” with President Emmanuel Macron, even though it was during Nicolas Sarkozy’s mandate that the major French inter-army base was inaugurated on May 26, 2009, with the ambition of preserving our strategic interests in the Gulf region in synergy with other Western powers, notably the United States, which remains omnipresent in the area despite a very “relative” withdrawal that had been ordered by its famous “Asian pivot”.
Nevertheless, the war in Gaza is a flagrant reminder that they cannot avoid – nolens volens – their responsibilities as the world’s leading power. This is also evident in the Red Sea, where it is the US Navy that is “policing the seas”. Their role remains inescapable, and a burden that momentarily distracts them from their “Indo-Pacific” agenda.
Apart from France and the United States, there are other competing powers in the Middle East. And here I mean China and Russia. What are the objectives and strategies of these countries in the region?
There is competition with two other players, Russia and China, but they are not on the same level. Russia has “come back” to the Middle East, thanks to its involvement in Syria since September 2015, particularly its air component, to save Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
It consolidated its naval base at Tartous and set up a new air base at Khmeimim. Moscow was determined to secure access to the warm seas, especially given the uncertainties surrounding the optimal use of the Sevastopol base in the Black Sea, which opens onto the Bosphorus straits and the Mediterranean Sea.
This intervention also enabled Russia to show itself to be a reliable partner, capitalising on a strong anti-American sentiment in public opinion, even – not without a certain paradox – in those regional states that had supported the Sunni insurrection against Bashar al-Assad.
And then there’s China, which has numerous economic interests to uphold, as the Southeast Asian region is one of the outlets for the “New Silk Roads”. It’s no coincidence that China has a military base in Djibouti, the port of Doraleh, which overlooks the Red Sea and is China’s only real overseas base.
However, despite American requests, Beijing has refused to participate in the maritime coalition set up to secure maritime traffic in the Red Sea, because China does not want to give the impression that they are aligning themselves with supposedly Western interests. The Chinese want to get along with everyone, except in this region it’s very difficult.
They maintain good relations with Iran since it is an important partner with which there is a “comprehensive strategic partnership” confirmed on 16 February 2023, during President Ebrahim Raissi’s visit. China, Iran’s biggest customer, smuggles out oil at a discount of one-third (30% of Iranian exports). China is also Iran’s second-largest supplier with 25% of Iranian imports. Chinese products flood the Tehran bazaar.
China also enjoys excellent relations with Saudi Arabia. Beijing is the country’s biggest customer and crude oil importer, accounting for 25% of China’s oil imports. Economic exchanges between Beijing and Riyadh are 4 to 5 times greater than between Beijing and Teheran. Beijing aims to show that China is a balancing power, stabilising the region.
And above all, to stigmatise other destabilising powers, from their point of view, the United States. It was in this context that the Chinese played an active role in normalising relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The March 10, 2023 agreement was signed in Beijing, even though it had been negotiated for two years in the region, notably in Baghdad. It was a thumbing of the nose at the Americans and the West.
Despite interests outside the region, regional players themselves shape the political landscape of the Middle East, and the Russian-Ukrainian war has only increased Saudi Arabia’s room for manoeuvre in its quest for regional leadership. Who are the main players, and what are their interests and strategies in the region?
What’s new in the last ten years or so is that there has been a kind of strategic empowerment of regional players. In other words, they are seeking to assert themselves as such, or have become increasingly emancipated from the major world powers. Not totally, however.
This is particularly true of Iran, whose ambition is to be the great power in the Middle East, with its population of some 80 million. But this is also true of Saudi Arabia vis-à-vis its American “protector”, even though Riyadh is well aware that the kingdom’s security is ultimately guaranteed by the United States. Not without irony, the two geopolitical rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia simultaneously joined the BRICS on January 1, 2024.
Hence the diversification of relations, if not alliances, to relativize their over-dependence, even if this has not totally disappeared in the area of armaments, as in the case of Saudi Arabia with the United States. But this does not prevent Riyadh from maintaining close relations not only with Beijing but also with Moscow, notably within the framework of the OPEC+ agreement to guarantee the price of a barrel of crude oil.
This emancipation is also the case for the United Arab Emirates, which is developing its own strategy of geopolitical projection in southern Yemen and the Red Sea. Even Qatar, to a certain extent, is presenting itself as a key player and therefore “courted” to serve as a negotiating hub in the case of the war in Gaza. Everyone is playing their part, and that’s what’s new today. Saudi Arabia, a G20 member, aims to become a major power of the XXI century with its “Vision 2030” plan. Turkey, with a population of some 80 million, also intends to become an “emerging country”.
And what about the reintegration of Bashar Al-Assad’s Syria into the Arab League? How can we explain the logic behind it?
Syria wouldn’t have been able to rejoin the Arab League if the Saudi veto hadn’t been lifted. So it’s no coincidence that this reintegration was made official in spectacular fashion at the Arab League summit in Riyadh on May 19, when Bashar al-Assad was invited to attend.
The GCC oil monarchies took note of the fact that Bashar Al-Assad had won the civil war, albeit on a field of ruins, but that he had managed to hold on to power. Given this situation, the question then became what strategy to adopt, with several calculations in the background.
On the part of Saudi Arabia, two calculations justified the reintegration of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. The first was to try and get Bashar al-Assad to more or less distance himself from Teheran. Not that he would cut ties entirely, because Riyadh knows that’s not possible, but at least he would remember that he is Arabic, not Persian. The second calculation referred to the problem of Captagon, the amphetamine whose world’s leading producer is Bashar Al-Assad’s Syria, a drug that wreaks havoc in Saudi Arabia, the leading consumer country, and brings in several billion dollars a year for the Syrian regime.
It’s a trade that helps make up for the lack of revenue due to sanctions in a country ruined by a decade of civil war. The aim was to make the Damascus regime understand that reintegration into the Arab League implied a firm commitment to the fight against Captagon production and trafficking.
This double-edged calculation has been moderately successful. Firstly, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria cannot afford to distance itself too much from Iran, to which it is indebted for Teheran’s direct support to Damascus in sending men to fight to save his regime during the civil war. Secondly, as far as Captagon is concerned, the commitment expected from Riyadh in the fight against the production and trafficking of this drug is in reality conditional on Damascus receiving financial aid in return, which would replace the Captagon revenues it cannot do without today. In short, a fool’s game.
It’s a very complex, indeed. Just before the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, there was a process of normalisation in the Middle East with Israel. This process also involved Saudi Arabia, but now it’s frozen, and the first power that seems to be benefiting from it is Iran. Considering that any strong escalation on Israel’s part in the Gaza/Palestine issue could bury the crucial normalisation process for Israel, how do you perceive this situation? How does Israel envisage its next steps?
This is a significant factor that could influence the way Israel responds to pressure from international opinion. This was one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategic objectives. The October 7 attack did not reverse the momentum of normalisation, already at work with the “Abraham Accords” signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in September 2020, and underway with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In fact, after the outbreak of the war in Gaza, the normalisation process with Saudi Arabia, which was well advanced, was suspended but not cancelled. This coincidence in timing fuelled speculation that Teheran may have been inspired by these tragic events, as this potential normalisation represented a geopolitical nightmare for Teheran. Iran had probably accelerated normalisation with Saudi Arabia, which became effective with the March 10, 2023 agreement, in the hope that this might hinder normalisation with Israel. However, this was not the case.
The war in Gaza has not, and will not, cancel out the normalisation process that was underway, simply because it is an intrinsic necessity for the GCC oil monarchies. But its temporality and modalities have been modified.
Before October 7, the Palestinian question was not the primary criterion for this normalisation. Saudi Arabia’s first condition was to obtain a security treaty with the United States. The second condition for formalising this rapprochement was the expectation of American authorisation to develop an enrichment chain for civil nuclear power, with all that this implies for the future when we know that the enrichment chain is dual-use. The third condition concerned the Palestinian question.
After October 7, the Palestinian question officially returned to the top of the agenda. In a communiqué dated February 7, the Kingdom informed the US Administration of its firm position that there would be no diplomatic relations with Israel until an independent Palestinian state was recognised “within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital”. In other words, the conditions set out in the 2002 Abdallah Plan presented in March 2002 at the 14th Arab League Summit in Beirut.
This is obviously a factor that could potentially play a part in adjusting Israel’s military response, as Israel had placed great hopes in this normalisation, not only with the Emirates and Bahrain but even more so with Saudi Arabia. Indeed, normalisation with Saudi Arabia – custodian of the two Holy Places for the Ummah – would complete the normalisation dynamic. It would mean that Israel would be fully integrated into the regional space.
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