Phantom shift

Virtually since the Iran nuclear talks began, it’s been an article of faith among right-wing deal opponents that the United States is about to shift its Middle Eastern loyalties away from the Saudis and toward the Iranians. This would be Bad, we’re told, because it would strengthen a malign regional actor whose muscular foreign interventionism and support for shady organizations contributes to destabilizing the Middle East and increasing terrorist threats to America, i.e., Saudi Arabia Iran. I mean Iran. Obviously I’m not talking about Saudi Arabia. They’re Good. Duh.

Anyway, the whole “American shift” story is salient again this week, what with the Iranians and Saudis escalating their feud. Neocon stalwarts Josh Rogin and Eli Lake coughed up another iteration of this tale on Monday, and I tried to help ease their fears today at LobeLog:

As I noted on Twitter after reading their piece, it’s remarkable that Rogin and Lake devoted roughly 1,100 words to a supposed shift in American Middle East policy away from Saudi Arabia and toward Iran, yet not a single one of those words was “Yemen.” I point this out because America’s continued and consistently baffling support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the (at least nominally) Iran-backed Houthi rebels in that country is the exception that just about disproves Rogin and Lake’s rule all by itself.

While the nuclear deal may have laid some groundwork for American-Iranian relations to improve over the long run, there is no evidence of a shift taking place right now. You’ll be unsurprised to find that this lament is really just an excuse to bemoan the nuclear deal all over again. And while an improvement in US-Iranian relations might come at Saudi expense (though there’s no reason it has to), the Yemen operation shows that Washington is still prepared to back the Saudis even when the Saudis are doing things that run directly, 180-degrees counter to American interests. Does that really seem like a shift in policy?

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