From the Saudi Presidency of the Jeddah Arab Summit to Leaders of the Hiroshima G-7 Summit: We Are Here

The Saudi presidency of the Arab Summit, lasting for the next year, will exert a magnetic pull, drawing the Arab region towards its orbit and leadership. It aims to shift away from rigid ideologies and intolerance, towards a path of openness, moderation, and a forward-looking, visionary future. In the Saudi calculus, Iran takes center stage in regional considerations: Over the next year, Iran could take a leap out of the category of enemy, saboteur, and aggressor – as labelled by previous Arab summits – into that of cooperative partner and neighbor, actively contributing to finding solutions and restraining encroachments on the sovereignty of Arab states, as anticipated by the Saudi leadership. The international considerations and priorities of the Saudi presidency for the upcoming year will focus on advancing Arab interests while moving away from the usual polarization imposed by major powers. The aim is to strike a balance while simultaneously building confidence within a fresh framework of relations with the United States and China. Presently, Saudi Arabia holds a significant and influential position both regionally, throughout the Arab world, and on the global stage. The kingdom intends to capitalize on this status by following a roadmap that prioritizes the kind of initiatives launched during the distinguished Jeddah Summit, marking a milestone in the journey of Arab summits.?

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The Hiroshima Summit, held on Friday concurrently with the Jeddah Summit, marked the beginning of a cautious chapter in relations with China and heightened tensions with Russia. Leaders of the G7 industrialized nations unequivocally conveyed a lack of trust in China and complete absence of trust in Russia. Formerly the eighth member of the G7, Russia has now become a nemesis to the West, with no turning back from the decision to ostracize it due to its war on Ukraine. Consequently, the Hiroshima Summit swiftly transformed into a Ukraine Summit, where the leaders of the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, and Canada expressed a unanimous consensus to bolster military and economic support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with the ultimate objective of defeating Russia.?

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The Hiroshima Summit's key resolutions centered around intensifying pressure on Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, through the expansion of long-term sanctions. This encompassed implementing secondary sanctions on Asian or Middle Eastern companies engaged in business with Russia. Notably, China emerges as a primary contender for such measures due to the G7 countries' determination to prevent China from playing a role between Russia and Ukraine in a way that serves the Chinese agenda.?

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Indeed, the G7 countries are determined to prevent China from advancing its aspirations to broker solutions to the Ukrainian war, hence their insistence that the only basis for peaceful negotiations should the Zelensky plan. Western countries, along with Japan, have decided to curb China's ambitions through the Ukrainian gateway. Some experts today express the opinion that there is no room for solutions to the Russian-Ukrainian war, and that this conflict will become akin to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, lasting for years and years without any solutions. This, of course, unless the war escalates militarily into a broader, deeper, and more dangerous confrontation, especially if Ukraine escalates militarily within Russian territories. Then, all possibilities remain open, including nuclear options.?

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The relationship between the Hiroshima Summit and the Jeddah Summit is not direct. However, the dynamics of Western-Chinese relations, specifically the US-Chinese relations, will influence the positioning of the Saudi presidency at the upcoming Arab Summit. Both American and Chinese diplomats recognize the crucial significance of Saudi leadership in the Arab region, especially during this pivotal moment for all parties involved. This represents a qualitatively new development.?

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Major powers have not been accustomed to adapting to the choices and orientations of smaller states, even major regional powers. In the past, their policies were crafted based on a "top-down" approach, given the roles of major powers during the era of polarization, particularly during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.?

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Today, there is a shared understanding among American, Chinese, Russian, European, and Asian leaders that the Gulf countries have undergone significant transformations compared to the past. The leaders of these nations embody youth, vision, courage, attentiveness, and boldness, while steering clear of recklessness. They skilfully decipher the signs of the future through the lens of technology, artificial intelligence, development, and progress. These astute leaders excel at moderation and persuasion. They not only acknowledge the worth of their heritage but also grasp the future value of their strategies and plans. As a result, they engage with their American, Chinese, European, Russian, and Asian counterparts with a language characterized by mutual respect for interests, aspirations, and sovereign decisions, while deftly avoiding provocations and short-sightedness.?

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This new Gulf language, embraced particularly by Saudi Arabia, has been endorsed by the Arab countries—at least as evident in the Jeddah summit, where it was clear that there was an interest in engaging with Saudi Arabia's influential position beyond the goal of "zeroing" problems and conflicts, to contributing to a radical transformation in the Arab region and its global standing. All of this is part of the Vision 2030 of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has eradicated religious extremism, embraced development and moderation as national imperatives, and surrounded himself with educated ministers and confident state institutions. He pledged that the Gulf and Arab states would become a "new Europe," and he is now delivering on that promise based on the principles of moderation, flexibility, and a new sense of political realism.?

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Until not long ago, political discourse in the Arab summits was characterized by ideological one-upmanship and false promises of Arab unity. Today, under the current Saudi presidency of the Arab summit in Jeddah, the political discourse has shifted towards emphasizing the importance of legitimacy and national sovereignty in each nation, highlighting the crucial role of Arab nation-states. If there is a genuine aspiration for integration, then it must be pursued at a higher level within the framework of an advanced modernization project that embraces future technologies, rather than clinging to outdated ideologies.?

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Perhaps the Jeddah Summit deserves to be dubbed the summit for constructing the New Arab Order. The Saudi leadership is among the first to recognize the centrality of Gulf and Arab countries and their potential to have a significant role within the upcoming global order shaped by developments among major powers and within themselves, economically and politically.?

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The Saudi presidency will be marked by engagement and optimism, leading a new chapter in the Arab world with a leadership that believes in finding Arab solutions to persistent Arab issues. This approach avoids empty emotions and instead focuses on carefully measured steps that respect international resolutions and sanctions. Riyadh is employing a style of persuasion, inducement, and providing opportunities based on gradual progress and ensuring the fulfilment commitments. From the high-priority matter of Yemen to the urgent need for stabilization in Sudan, and from testing the Syrian leadership to addressing the situations in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and other Arab nations, the Jeddah Summit has ignited an effective Arab machinery with a real impact.?

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The presidency of the summit will be a pivotal moment as today's atmosphere indicates that the Arab world has confidence in Saudi Arabia and in themselves. It suggests the emergence of a rare Arab sense of clarity following the Jeddah summit, which will have significant implications both regionally and for the Arab world.?

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Regionally, the Saudi presidency will prioritize Iran in the upcoming year, building upon the Arab position articulated in the final statement of the Jeddah summit. The statement welcomed the agreement reached between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Beijing, which guarantees the resumption of diplomatic relations, reopening of their respective missions, and activation of the security and economic cooperation agreement between the two nations.?

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For the first time, a statement has been issued by Gulf and Arab summits that does not condemn Iranian behavior, does not call for an end to interference in Arab countries' internal affairs, and does not refer to the islands previously referred to as Emirati islands occupied by Iran.?

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Iran is still ubiquitously present in the Arab region, from the Gulf to Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Its strategic intentions remain unclear. From the lens of performance, Tehran today adopts a soft diplomacy approach, distancing itself from the usual threats and intimidations, as if it is presenting credentials of moderation to Saudi Arabia and China. But from the lens of the ideology of the Iranian regime, there is no indication of any radical reform and there is no evidence of disengagement between Tehran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and their regional proxies, from the Houthis in Yemen to the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq to Hezbollah in Lebanon.?

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Nevertheless, it seems that Riyadh is determined to use the presidency of the Arab summit through next year to give Iran an opportunity to test the benefits of peace, dialogue, and ending interference in Arab countries and violation of their sovereignty. These benefits go beyond the economic dimension and will be crucial for the Islamic Republic of Iran if it truly chooses a path of modifying its system's logic and developing the Iranian state to join the regional march towards the future.?

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It is a gamble and an adventure, but Saudi diplomacy doesn’t believe it is impossible to coax the Iranian leadership and believes that the desired transformation will enable the Saudi presidency to play a pivotal role with the United States in resuming nuclear negotiations and lifting sanctions on Iran. In other words, Saudi diplomacy will join hands with Chinese diplomacy in the nuclear negotiations file, if Iran fulfils its promises and behaves accordingly, and then the lifting of sanctions on Iran will be aided by Saudi Arabia, though everything comes at a price.?

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Some have evoked the possibility of deals that turn a blind eye to Iran's behavior in certain Arab countries, for example allowing Hezbollah to consolidate its influence and expand its authority in Lebanon in exchange for not extending its regional reach. These are mere conjectures. In fact, such a scenario lacks logic because handing Lebanon over to Hezbollah practically means providing it with the chance to regroup and be ready at any time to resume its regional disruptive operations. Therefore, logically, it is unlikely that the Saudi presidency intends to hand over to the IRGC and its ally in Lebanon any decisive cards. It would be suicide.?

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Finally, on the international level, the Saudi presidency intends, in addition to maintaining balance in relations with the United States and China, to highlight its capability and the capability of other Gulf and Arab countries to play the role of mediator or reconciler among leaders who are in conflict.?

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The participation of Volodymyr Zelensky in the Jeddah summit amid expectations that he was heading to the Hiroshima Summit first means that the Saudi presidency of the Arab summit wanted to send a very important message to the leaders of the G7 countries in Hiroshima. The message is as follows: firstly, despite the special relationship with China and the accommodating relationship with Russia, Arab countries are on the same page as Western countries, and Ukraine is proof. Secondly, it proves a readiness to play a distinctive role in the Ukrainian crisis, as well as in other crises if the need arises. And thirdly, it sends a very clear message to the leaders in Hiroshima from the leaders in Jeddah, and its title is: "We are here."?