U. S. President Joe Biden meets with Arab Gulf countries to counter Iran threat
The Hindu
In the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, President Joe Biden will meet with heads of state from six Arab Gulf countries, plus Egypt, Jordan and Iraq for a regional summit.
President Joe Biden, on July 16, will lay out his strategy for the Middle East as he closes out of the final leg of a four-day trip meant to bolster U.S. positioning and knit the region together against Iran.
In the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, Mr. Biden will meet with heads of state from six Arab Gulf countries, plus Egypt, Jordan and Iraq for a regional summit. Hours before the Gulf Cooperation Council summit, the White House released satellite imagery that indicates Russian officials have twice visited Iran in recent weeks for a showcase of weapons-capable drones it is looking to acquire for use in its ongoing war in Ukraine.
None of the countries represented at the summit have moved in lockstep with the U.S. to sanction Russia, a key foreign policy priority for the Biden administration. If anything, the UAE has emerged as a sort of financial haven for Russian billionaires and their multimillion-dollar yachts. Egypt remains open to Russian tourists.
Release of the satellite imagery — which shows Russian officials visited Kashan Airfield on June 8 and July 15 to get a look at the drones — could help the administration better tie the relevance of the war to many Arab nations own concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions and other malign activity in the region.
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A senior Biden administration official, who briefed reporters ahead of the summit, said that Moscow's efforts to acquire drones from Tehran show that Russia is "effectively making a bet on Iran.”
The gathering of leaders comes a day after he championed steps toward normalising ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia and sought to rebuild cooperation with the Saudi king and crown prince after once promising to make the kingdom a “pariah” for its human rights abuses.
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When the conflict in West Asia, which began with the U.S. and Israel’s attack on Iran on February 28, escalated into a regional war, analysts said that the war would last as long as Iran had missiles or until the Gulf nations ran out of interceptors. However, with “emergency” military sales, piling monetary costs and a strained supply chain, is the U.S. becoming too constrained in its effort to keep the war going — both militarily and monetarily?