Negotiations in Muscat… Calculations in Tel Aviv

Eyad Abu Shakra

It is an absurdity of Middle Eastern politics that many politicians and analysts are still betting on the complete elimination of Iran’s role in the region. Even more absurd is the expectation that Israel will drag Washington into this "war of elimination." True, this is the most right-wing US administration since the end of World War II, and no American administration has ever been as closely aligned with Israel as President Donald Trump.

It is also true that, since its founding in 1948, Israel has never been governed by a more fanatical, racist, and fascist government than that of Benjamin Netanyahu and his two “transferist” partners, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

It is just as true that the Iranian leadership never showed the kind of hostility to Arab "neighbors" that we are now seeing from the regime of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which boasted about their control over four Arab capitals until very recently!

Nevertheless, we Arabs remain reluctant to wrap our heads around the realities underpinning Washington, Tel Aviv, and Tehran’s approach to the region’s existential political issues, including the question of whether Arabs will retain any presence or say in it in the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, those of us with strong memories still clearly recall the first “secret” rounds of negotiations between the US and Iran under Democratic President Barack Obama... that culminated in the famous 2015 nuclear deal.

At the time, the talks were held behind closed doors in the Omani capital, Muscat, hidden from the eyes of the Arabs and the world. As for the new round of negotiations that began on Saturday (also in Muscat), they have been public and are being led by Republican President Donald Trump, the same man who suspended the deal in 2018, during his first term.

And while the American negotiating team may have changed, the same figures remain in power in Tehran and its negotiating team has not been altered; indeed, one of the most prominent negotiators, Abbas Araghchi, is now foreign minister.

The fact is that in the ten years between “yesterday’s agreement” and the current attempt to broker a new one, things have changed considerably on the ground.

Things have changed in the region’s “theater of operations.”

The region’s violated, fragmented, and broken polities have been shaken, paving the way for new facts on the ground that facilitate Israel’s “transfer” plan. This plan is sponsored, promoted, and supported by Washington, which has sought to remove the obstacles that stood (or once stood) in the way of achieving it.

To begin with, the Palestinian cause has been pushed to the top of the “taboo” list, as the world waits for investments to begin along the now depopulated shores of the Gaza Strip.

The “transfer” plan is gaining regional momentum. To the north, in Lebanon, the Israeli war machine has clipped the wings of Iran’s leverage. In Syria, the Assad regime collapsed after 54 years of double-dealing and double-speak, once it outlived its utility to most of its patrons and handlers.

To the east, in Jordan, the leadership has long been pressured to accept the “alternative homeland” project, and the Trump administration, chose not to empathize with Jordan’s chronic economic hardship, imposing some of the highest tariffs on the country of any in the Middle East as Trump announced his broader tariff wars against both adversaries and allies.

And to the west, we find the most populous Arab state, Egypt. It was targeted by Netanyahu’s government early on, with pressure and blackmail to facilitate the displacement from Gaza. Neither the peace treaty with Israel, nor full normalization, nor the years Egypt has spent mediating between the parties to the conflict (despite the criticism from both domestic and international opponents) have spared it from such coercion.

Even in the Gulf region, where some countries have adapted to normalization, Netanyahu’s government has shown no good faith, refusing to engage with any genuine regional peace deal founded on respect for UN resolutions and the proposals of Arab Summits.

What we are now seeing, as Washington and Tehran hold negotiations over the heads of the region’s concerned and suffering nations, is the Israeli right’s forward escape, its expansion of targets and mobilization.

With its military machine and security apparatus, this right-wing bloc continues to occupy positions in Lebanon and tamper with Syria’s fragile domestic stability. It is now escalating its threats against Türkiye. Meanwhile, in Washington, the master of the White House is threatening to destroy and ruin Iran if it insists on moving forward with developing nuclear military capabilities.

Trump’s threats undoubtedly amount to pressure that leaves the Iranian leadership in an awkward position both domestically and vis-a-vis the regional forces and non-state actors that are continuing to bet on it, in Iraq, Yemen... and even Lebanon.

Moreover, the US envoys currently managing this pressure campaign against Iran, such as Steve Witkoff and Morgan Ortagus, are considered part of the “Israeli lobby” in the United States. They understand that Washington’s objective with Iran, which essentially doesn’t change, is to curb its ambitions, excesses, and blackmail, without necessarily leading to a decisive confrontation.

Accordingly, one could say that, thanks to Washington’s unconditional support, Netanyahu has, for the time being, achieved his aim.

But the lingering question remains: Will he be content with the outcomes of this new round of negotiations with Tehran, or (as is his habit) will he choose to push his politics of blackmail and entrapment further?