Saudi Arabia and Iran have hopefully begun a new age of political friendliness towards one another with political deals being reached through Chinese mediation. Although Saudi Arabia and Iran have had tense relations for the past few decades, Iran has been looking to open talks with the Middle Eastern power house in hopes of becoming a more prominent power figure in terms of oil and, therefore, power in the Middle East. Because Iran’s current political talks with Saudi Arabia were moving too slowly for Tehran’s liking, Iran looked for another way to expedite the pace of the talks and settled on using China as a mediator. The deal consists of economics, politics, and military agreements between the two states.
This article demonstrates that the US is no longer the sole powerhouse of the Middle East. As I mentioned in a previous article post, the US is beginning to question its ties with Saudi Arabia, and this deal with China and Iran struck the table coinciding with this new tense relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia. Considering the US is no longer the diplomatic power of the Middle East, I have a feeling that a lot more deals will begin to be made because China is more “relaxed” when it comes to certain violations of norms, human rights, for example. Another consideration is China doesn’t have as much regional hate from the Middle East as the US does. For example, Iran and the US have had very tense relations for the past few decades, and because SA is the US’s strongest ally (regional influence wise,) a true deal between SA and Iran with the US still being the prime overseer of the region would never have happened. However, now that the relatively now world power, China, is beginning to “take the reigns” of the Middle East, a lot more diplomatic deals will be struck.
To relate back to class, the Middle East is a shatterbelt region where there is no clear regional hegemon. This article demonstrates that the region is torn between lots and lots of infighting and needs a third party state to mediate.