A U.S.-Saudi Deal Without Israel Is an Illusion

A major part of U.S. President Joe Biden’s transformational plan for the Middle East—more like a Hail Mary than a real plan—is to see Saudi Arabia and Israel normalize their relations. To make it happen, Washington would have to provide Riyadh, among other things, with a formal defense pact. Israel, per Saudi wishes, would have to take irrevocable steps to help create an independent Palestinian state.

With a prime minister overtly opposed to such an endgame, Israel is unlikely to fulfill its end of this bargain anytime soon. It is not even done with its current war against Hamas. It has threatened to invade Rafah in southern Gaza to go after whatever is left of the militant group’s warfighting capacity—an outcome that would prolong this war, sabotage any hope for a cease-fire and a hostage exchange, and exacerbate the already enormous suffering of the Palestinian people.

When it comes to the creation of a Palestinian state, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rarely missed an opportunity to register his opposition. As always, he is singularly focused on ensuring his political survival by appeasing an angry Israeli public with an ongoing war, knowing that when the shooting stops, they will punish him for failing to prevent Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Except that Israeli victory on the battlefield is proving more and more elusive due to Hamas’s staying power, the challenges of urban combat, and growing international pressure on Israel to end its military operations.

Yet, despite Israel standing in the way of a trilateral deal, it seems that the United States and Saudi Arabia have made great progress on their own. There is now talk of a “plan B” that could exclude Israel, the terms of which—according to some of the excited press coverage—include a U.S. defense pact, U.S. help in Saudi civil nuclear energy development, and systematic collaboration on the areas of artificial intelligence and other important technologies. Such a plan B seems promising on the surface, but on closer scrutiny, it is a non-starter.

“We have done intense work together over the last months,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week while in Saudi Arabia. “The work that Saudi Arabia and the United States have been doing together in terms of our own agreements, I think, is potentially very close to completion.” Echoing his U.S. counterpart, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan said an agreement was “very, very close.”

Why Washington and Riyadh might want to move forward without Israel is perfectly understandable. After all, what if Israel never agrees to a two-state solution? Yet a bilateral U.S.-Saudi deal, at least in its currently described version, simply will not work. The reason is simple: For Riyadh to obtain a formal defense pact from Washington, Congress would have to be on board to ratify it, and U.S. lawmakers, especially Republicans, will not lift a finger unless the issue of Israeli normalization is on the table.

Indeed, the biggest reason why there is bipartisan consensus on this megadeal with Saudi Arabia, rightly or wrongly, is because Israel would get the ultimate prize of Saudi recognition. Take that away, and the whole thing falls apart, despite the other Saudi deliverables, which include Riyadh distancing itself from China, cooperating on energy output, and jointly investing in technologies that matter to the United States.

Advocates of a bilateral agreement might ask: What if Biden uses his executive authorities and reaches a defense deal with Saudi Arabia without having it ratified by Congress? He certainly could, and it would look like the security arrangement the United States signed last September with Bahrain—called the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement. The United States also could offer the kingdom “major non-NATO ally” status (which Bahrain already enjoys), expedited U.S. weapons shipments, and enhanced cooperation on a range of defense and security areas.

However, that is not what Saudi Arabia wants or at least what it has said it wants. Riyadh has insisted, quite rightly, on an official defense pact with the United States—meaning a treaty alliance similar to what Washington has with Japan, South Korea, or the Philippines—because it would solidify, formalize, and legalize the U.S. security commitment to the kingdom. The Saudis definitely want something more ambitious than what Bahrain got. They also want it in writing and codified in law because they understand that a new U.S. administration, or simply a changed attitude from a sitting president, could easily terminate the deal.

Saudi Arabia also worries about how Iran, its top adversary, might perceive a defense deal with the United States that is not sufficiently robust. For Riyadh to decide to openly bolster its security cooperation with Washington, and as a result possibly alienate and jeopardize its normalization accord with Iran, the reward would have to be worth the risk. In other words, Saudi Arabia seeks a defense pact with the United States that is credible enough in the eyes of both friends and foes.

Such credibility requires political commitment and military power. The former would signal in no uncertain terms to Riyadh, and importantly to Tehran, that the United States would come to the aid of the kingdom should it be attacked, as it was by Iran in September 2019. The latter would bring to bear the necessary military capabilities and consultative mechanisms to support the defense pact.

Saudi Arabia does not want to end up in the worst of all worlds: marginally improving its security relationship with the United States while also drawing the ire of Iran. The whole point of Riyadh pressing for a defense pact with Washington is to prevent a war with Iran or defend against Iranian aggression should it happen again. And the only way to get that from the United States is by guaranteeing a U.S. security commitment.

Which brings us back to Congress and its crucial role. Without Saudi normalization with Israel, Congress is unlikely to endorse a formal defense pact with the kingdom. And without the latter, Saudi Arabia might decide that it is better off staying put than risk provoking Iran.

So long as Netanyahu and his government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, are in power, it is hard to see how this three-way deal, at least the way it has been conceived and advertised, could materialize.

The irony is that by normalizing with Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu could achieve the kind of strategic accomplishment he so desperately needs right now: recognition by the largest economy in the Middle East and the leader of the Muslim world—something the Israeli public would celebrate. But he presides over an Israeli cabinet whose views on the Palestinian issue are even more extreme than his own and obstruct any such opportunity with the Saudis.

It is possible that Riyadh and Washington would entertain a more limited deal and enhance their cooperation on issues other than defense, including AI, semiconductors, autonomous systems, and maybe civilian nuclear energy. But it would not be the transformative deal that Biden hopes to sell to the American public or one that Saudi Arabia really covets. Nor would it commit the Saudis to demonstrably restraining their cooperation with China—a challenging proposition given the deep economic linkages between the two countries. It would be just another minimalist bilateral agreement, with none of the strategic effects or benefits that both parties seek.