Part of a much larger game

For many years analysts and political commentators have claimed that the Arab League is an obsolete body, representing a fictional Arab community and joint interests that do not really exist anymore.

It may be true, as conflicts and deep rivalries across the Arab world are common, it is rare to find a joint Arab course of action on any subject. As it is, the Arab leaders choose to attend league meetings and the wide news coverage it receives in the Arab world, maintains the symbolic status of this body even today.

The gathering of the Arab League in Saudi Arabia last week and the renewed acceptance of Syria into this body, expresses yet another aspect in the shifting geo-strategical landscape in the Middle East. Qatar was the only country objecting the move, and in an act of protest, the Emir of Qatar left the convention hall just prior to Assad’s speech.

The renewed Syrian membership in the Arab league, comes after Damascus was banned from it for the last 12 years, due to the brutal acts the regime carried out during the civil war. As the power balance between the fighting forces in Syria changed in favour of Assad, it appears the Arab countries – among them Egypt, Jordan, UAE and now Saudi Arabia – have accepted the Assad regime’s de facto victory of the civil war.

The renewed diplomatic relations with Syria and the legitimacy Assad enjoys now, are expected to allow Damascus to receive Arab financial support in the form of aid grants and foreign investments. These funds are critical to restore the country’s infrastructure after a decade of a violent civil war which left large parts of Syria in ruins.

Concurrently, the new approach towards Syria will serve Jordan and Lebanon’s interests towards the return of millions of Syrian refugees who are weighing down on their already fragile economies.

The warm welcome of President Assad in Saudi Arabia is a major shift in Saudi regional policy. After years of Riyadh supporting militant opposition groups trying to topple the Assad regime, it seems the Saudis are among the last of Arab countries to have realised the failure of the attempts to reshape Syria.

Upon this realisation, Riyadh has now become the main force behind the move towards re-embracing Syria into the Arab World.

Thus, the abovementioned Saudi recognition of Assad’s regime legitimacy is added onto other Saudi failures in achieving its regional goals in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon. In each of these arenas Riyadh failed to gain the upper hand against intense Iranian involvement. In all of these countries the outcome has been the same: a diminished Saudi involvement and adaptation of a more pragmatic “cut your losses” policy in view of its inability to curb Iran’s ambition to achieve regional hegemony.

Adding to the Saudi need to re-calculate their regional foreign policy, were other two main factors. The first, was the dwindling of American involvement in the Middle East in recent years and the belief that the US might not be a reliable partner in the efforts to hold back Iran.

The second factor was the 2019 Iranian direct attack against two critical Saudi oil infrastructures using UAV and cruise missile. The strike caused a five per cent drop in global oil production and triggered a 20 per cent surge in oil prices in the global market, and more importantly, it demonstrated Iran’s ability to target top Saudi national interests.

The Saudi realisations that confronting Iran in this new geo-strategical reality might be dangerous, led to a dramatic change in Saudi foreign policy. The most obvious development has been the renewal of the diplomatic relations with Tehran in March.

As far as Israel is concerned, Syria’s renewed acceptance by the Arab world is not necessarily a negative development and may even present an opportunity of sorts.

Regardless of the current Arab League move towards Assad’s regime, Israel recognised Assad’s victory in the civil war few years ago.

Furthermore, throughout the years of the Syrian civil war, Israel avoided destabilising Assad’s regime and has focused its military activities on hitting Iran and Hezbollah assets in Syria. These days Israel targets only Syrian infrastructures which directly serve Iranian interests. This policy is expected to continue even with the new status of Syria within the Arab world.

It may be that Israel will even benefit from a reality in which Syria won’t be solely dependent on Iranian support. An influx of Arab financial support holds the possibility to influence Assad’s calculation regarding the Iranian involvement in Syria. After all, now that the civil war has ended, Assad’s regime needs funds rather than fighters – and money is the one thing the rich gulf countries can deliver, much to the detriment of Iran.

Dror Doron is a senior political analyst specialising in the Middle East, who has worked for the last 17 years for the Israeli government as a research and analysis expert. He lives in Australia.