Kal Raustiala 0:04

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Kal Raustiala, Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations. And I'm really happy to welcome you to our event today, with Dalia Dassa Kaye and Jeff Martini, who are coming on screen right now. So it's a great pleasure to have both of them here to talk about their new report, which is just about a month or two old. They will discuss the report about reimagining US strategy in the Middle East. I will have a conversation with them as we normally do, we'll follow our standard format. And then I will open it up to questions from all of you. You can, of course, send your questions in throughout the presentation using the chat. Sorry, is it the chat or the Q&A feature? I think it's the Q&A feature. You will get a message about that soon. I am momentarily forgetting which one we use, but one of those will be used. So I look forward to your questions, and I know Jeff and Dalia do as well. So I'm just gonna very briefly introduce them and then hand it off to them to lay out the basics of their report. And so first, Dalia Dassa Kaye. First of all, a friend and colleague, Dalia is a board member of the Burkle Center, so not exactly a stranger. She is currently at the Wilson Center in DC, where she is a Wilson Center scholar. She's a past director of the RAND Center for Middle East public policy, I guess, as of last year, but she is still affiliated with RAND as a senior adjunct political scientist. Jeff Martini is also at RAND, where he is a senior Middle East researcher. And together, they have put together the report that we will hear about in a moment. So, Dalia and Jeff, take it away.

Dalia Dassa Kaye 1:50

Thank you so much Kal, and thanks to Burkle Center, and all the other UCLA centers co-sponsoring this event. I'm kind of calling this our west coast premiere. I know that doesn't mean anything in the Zoom world, but being a Californian myself, I hope there are many from the state on the call. So we really welcome this opportunity to have a chance to talk about this study. Jeff and I had a number of other co-authors as well, so we want to recognize them. It was a group effort. And what I'll do is that I'm just going to give some headlines from the report before I turn it over to Jeff to drill down a little bit especially on the aspects of the study that talk in depth about our relationship with regional partners, because that's such a critical part of our argument about how we reimagine and how we do business in this region moving forward. And so I'm going to start though, before some of the headlines and our approach, just to give you a sense of why we did this study, just to put it in context. And you know, of course, one reason is that we are in a new presidential transition. And that's always a good time to think through strategy and the policies on big issues of the day. And we hope that it can have impact moving forward. So that's always an interest. But when it comes to Middle East Policy, it's really deeper than that. We really felt that, you know, we have had decades of long standing policies that have really been disastrous, they have not served the region well, and they have not served US interest well. And we keep doing things the same way over and over again. And so we said, let's step back and think what would it look like if we had different goals, if we had a different vision for this region, if we thought about our objectives and our current strategic environment and what it would take to meet those needs. So it's a bigger think. And it does respond to the fatigue of the Middle East that we're seeing now across the political spectrum. Because this sense that we're not getting a good return on our investment from our policies in this region. And we make the argument that despite that fatigue, this region, whether we like it or not still matters. What happens in this region doesn't stay in this region, the instability and the conflict spills over borders. And even though the US is energy dependent, for the first time, starting in 2019, the United States was a net energy exporter for the first time since 1952. So we know that traditional goal has declined in recent years. But nonetheless, because this region still is such a focal point and matters so much for so many other interests, including questions of terrorism and non-proliferation, we really make the argument that we still do need to care about this region. The question in our mind is not whether we engage the Middle East, but how we engage it. And we make an argument that we need to do things differently. And in fact, with all of the concerns about domestic pressures and other priorities, that there are more cost effective ways and smarter ways to be engaging this region in our view than we have to date that could meet some of the critiques of why we spend so much energy on this region that we see so prevalent in today's foreign policy debate at large. So first, let me get into our key argument, which is arguing against continuing business as usual. The business as usual approach, which Jeff will get into a little bit more with how we deal with partners. But essentially, it boils down to, we have really engaged in this region based on what we call a threat is a mindset. We're focused on whatever the threat of the day is, whether it's the Soviets, or now the Iranians who have been over several decades. But we kind of look at what are we against in this region, and then how do we align our partners to combat that threat of the day. What we're arguing in this report is that we need to go beyond. Of course, in the report, we do talk about adversaries and how we manage adversaries, we're not naive, we're realistic about the threats from this region. But we say instead of just thinking about what we're against, let's think about what we're for, you know, this is strategy is about end games. This is about having a vision of what we're trying to support, what would be a regional outcome that would be better for the people in the region and better for US interest. And so we focus on the need to not just look at military threat, security threats of the day, but actually look at the socio-economic and governance challenges of this region that we argue are really the drivers of the instability and conflict. And our goal needs to be reducing instability and conflict, because those are the factors that lead to the spillover negatively for our interests from this region. So we take the socio-economic, and governance challenges seriously. And our vision for the region is about supporting those forces that are coming from the region itself that want to change how business is done. And not just looking at stability in the traditional sense, which over time has been basically to support strongmen, and they're, I like to always say this, because they always are men. But again, and again, we support these authoritarian leaders who can kind of keep calm within their borders, so to speak. But we're not really thinking longer term, what damage is that causing? And we see this by the continued uprisings that have not really ended in this region. And so we're arguing for stopping this cycle, or at least trying to move toward a different model. Moving forward, this is not an overnight kind of effort, but we need to start moving in a different direction. So that's our bigger picture theme about what we're arguing we need to shift to. But let me give some examples of what we argue in this study, what we find because we go back and we look at what how we've done business in the past, and then suggest how we adjust. And what we find is there's a lot of legacy thinking that's driving our current policies in this region. And the legacy thinking is based on peace deals and relationships that are, in some cases, over 40 years old, and they haven't really adjusted to the new strategic imperatives and needs of today. And we're based in a logic that is still very much dated, and outmoded. So just to give you some example of the legacy thinking that we point to in this study, we find that our support in this region skews heavily toward military investments, and has very minimal non-security and socioeconomic support. So let me just give you some numbers. The thing I love about this study, I mean, obviously, I'm promoting it, so I like it, but I'm proud of this study, because there's a lot of you know, short op-eds, not to criticize it and so forth, but we actually have a lot of data in this study. I hope all of you on this call today have a chance to look at the report, look at our data, because we're not, you know, making these things up out of thin air. This is what's actually happening in the region. This is how the US is engaging the region. These are real numbers. So if you look at the numbers, for example, the amount of aid we give to Egypt, in any given year, the amount of military aid we give to Egypt in any given year, which has been about 1.3 billion since 1987, actually it's the same amount as what we give the entire region in economic support. One country's military aid is the same as what we give the entire region in economic support. That's pretty staggering. Another staggering figure is that our concentration of assistance especially in the military arena for foreign military financing aid is concentrated in just three states, Israel, Egypt and Jordan. 81 percent of our foreign military financing goes to just these three countries. And the other, I think, notable data point is our arm sales to the region are largely concentrated to two states, Gulf Arab states in the region, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. They really surpass all others, even all other Gulf Arab states. If you look at figures, for example, from 2015 to 2017, the Saudis imported 27 billion in US arms, that Emirates imported 16 billion in US arm sales. The imbalance continues when you look globally, not just what we give within the region, but what we give to the entire world, the Middle East is out of whack. If you look over 50% of US security assistance and arm sales, over 50%, globally of US arm sales and security assistance goes to the Middle East. Only under 6% of our economic development and humanitarian aid goes to the Middle East globally. Under 6%. Over 50% for military, under 6% for economic and humanitarian. These are not numbers we're making up, this is what the US is doing today. And we argue we need to change the mindset, we need to change the balance. So, let me just make a summary of some of our recommendations about how we make these adjustments. And what we really are arguing fundamentally, is that we need to look at the strategic imperatives of today, not the strategic imperatives of 40 years ago. It doesn't mean we're going to give up on our close partners, but it means we need to rethink how we're dealing with them and not be on autopilot with security assistance programs that frankly, aren't meeting their needs too well either. Because there are different kinds of security threats out there today. And there are problems without borders that our assistance is not dealing with. We are living through this pandemic now, we're seeing economic downturns, all of these countries are in need of diversifying their economies, educating their workforce finding employment opportunities. It's one of the highest unemployment regions of the world. Over 60% of the population under the age of 30 have staggeringly high unemployment rates. These are the threats of the region today. How can the US engagement with this region meet those needs? So we have three pillars in our recommendations. I'll just conclude with those pillars, and we can get into more detail in the Q&A. One, not surprisingly, we argue we need to shift this balance from this heavy focus on military and security assistance to non military, non security assistance and investments in the region's people, increase humanitarian aid, increase economic development assistance, civil society support, people to people programs. We need to not just support leaders, of course, we have close partners, we're not suggesting throw all everything out the window. But we need to deal with the needs of the people in the region and have our investments and our assistance reach those people directly as much as possible. So that's the first pillar: shifting the balance. The second pillar is taking a longer term perspective, even if it comes at some short term costs, which means maybe a short term arm sales going to meet the pressures the demands of the day, but that's gonna lead to instability and conflict down the road. We need to think long term about the repercussions of what we do today, and what that's going to lead to tomorrow, because this region continuing on the path, it's one of the most conflict ridden regions of the world. You see this in every data set, and we need to stop this trajectory. So that's pillar number two: we need to start thinking longer term. And the last pillar is we need to be working multilaterally. The era of US predominance is over the US is still a critical partner in the region. It's a critical player. Despite all the talk of the United States leaving the Middle East, we still have just under 50,000 US forces stationed in this region, if you exclude Afghanistan. We are not exactly leaving the region quickly. But we're not the only ones now, and we shouldn't be the only ones and we need to find ways to work with regional partners and global partners to deal with a multitude of problems including these non-border problems, maritime security, narcotics trafficking, pandemics, of course, climate change and migration, which are going to be the huge issues moving forward. So we are arguing for multilateralism and cooperation for regional de-escalation in one arena, which we think is quite critical. We have regional partners, particularly smaller states like Oman or Kuwait, that can be good. mediators, we've seen Iraq in recent weeks become an important mediator in de escalating tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. And we argue, we need to really think seriously of how we work with international partners, and regional partners to finally jumpstart a serious regional security architecture for this region. The Middle East is one of the only regions of the world that has no platform for regional security dialogue, there is nowhere where everyone in the region can sit down and talk. It's not about solving all the conflicts and you know, peace and Kumbaya, but it is about building confidence, and having channels of communication. And it is possible, because we have a strategic moment now where this could be possible. So there is a lot of discussion about models like an OSCE for the Middle East, there may be other models that are our possibilities. But we need to start thinking seriously about these cooperative security platforms where we could start deescalating conflict and thinking about the future of this region in a more positive way. So I will just end with that. I always try to end on a positive note, even when we're talking about the Middle East, because one of our headlines is that this region isn't just a threat, it's an opportunity. And we have to start figuring out how to leverage those opportunities. And that means changing our entire paradigm and mindset, and of course, policies of how we engage this region. So I'm now going to turn it over to Jeff, who's going to give you a little more nitty gritty on our partner relationships, which I think will be of interest to everyone. Thanks.

Jeff Martini 16:35

Well, thanks, Dalia, for getting us started. And let me continue to push down the path that you started us on. So I'll focus, as you mentioned, on the way that US-Middle East strategy is played out in terms of selecting into and then managing partnerships in the region. So one of the things that the lead author, my colleague Dalia just mentioned, was the fact that you have this threat is a mindset that really pervades policymakers thinking when they're pursuing US strategy in the Middle East. And unfortunately, you know, this is bipartisan, this threat is a mindset. I mean, probably goes back to the Carter doctrine, of course, a democratic president, looking at intervening to protect US vital interests in the region. You can see echoes of it in the Clinton administration, in terms of the dual containment policy vis-a-vis Iraq and Iran, we certainly can see in the George W. Bush administration with the Global War on Terror, and certainly in the Donald Trump administration with regards to maximum pressure. So you really have this threat as a mindset in which you've had successive administrations attempting to cultivate one block of states to counter another to either contain or defeat the threat of the day. And as Dalia mentioned, you know, historically, that could have been the Soviet Union during the Cold War, or Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or more recently, Iran. That is a sort of a fundamental character of the traditional US approach. We think that has resulted in a lot of costs in terms of the way that the US manages its partnerships in the region, and that those aren't fully priced into, we say, those partnerships. So one of the ways that the costs reveal themselves and then looking at some of the legacy thinking around US partnerships in the region. Dalia mentioned the case of what we call the "Big Three" in this report, that is Egypt and Jordan as the two frontline Arab states that first, normalized relations with Israel, and then Israel itself. And as Dalia mentioned, you know, that came about with promises of US assistance, and it also came about with sustained military to military engagement. And the result is that the United States effectively underwrites a peace which was forged 40 years ago. Of course, today, fortunately, that peace is self sustaining, in the case that those states have an enlightened self interest in continuing that peace. But the United States continues to underwrite it in Egypt's case at the tune Dalia mentioned, of $1.3 billion annually in foreign military financing. And so not only is this probably not an efficient use of taxpayer resources, but it also raises a number of related issues, which is why, you know, such a default to military to military engagement and putting the military sort of ahead in the way that we forge our Middle East strategy. Why the neglect for other emerging partners that may merit assistance, say the Lebanese Armed Forces? And then why don't we price in the costs of misalignment on other interests? For instance, Egypt has committed human rights violations at home, including the detaining of US citizens and US residents, and the way it broadly defines its political opposition. And yet those factors don't seem to be priced into the relationship. As Dalia also mentioned, we tend to see this legacy thinking also in other sub-regions, like in our relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council, the GCC countries, there we do, really, the preponderance of arm sales are to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. And we see additional costs associated with that. And we can see those costs in the Saudi led intervention in Yemen, which featured civilian casualties, which got a lot of attention. One issue that didn't, was that another major actor in that intervention, the UAE, was supporting Southern succession when US foreign policy was for a unified Yemen. So again, we see some times pretty significant breaks between the interests of the United States and US partners, and yet we don't see those reflected in the relationships. So as Dalia mentioned, we look across the board at partnerships and we make recommendations about how we could rethink them. And first and foremost, you know, we start from this first principle that the recipient is what the United States has to have in mind when they're engaging, and it's not just assistance. So when they're engaging with other countries is the publics. We have lost in the past high priority partners like Iran pre-Islamic Revolution to domestic tumults, to uprisings. And, you know, we're not far removed from the Arab Spring or what some people call the Arab Spring 2.0. And so regime durability is definitely in question. And if the US wants sustained partnerships, and sustained return on investment, they have to think about one of the recipients being the publics and not just a partner government or ruling family. As Dalia mentioned, we also need to broaden away from this very narrow focus on hard security issues, even if security is your lens, many of the socio, non-socio economic issues have been a major reverberations in security. So for instance, the youth underemployment, that that Dalia mentioned, climate change, health crises, institutional weakness, and many of the sort of assets that the United States has to bring to bear also reside outside the US government, in the private sector in the scientific community. And so we recommend really an expansion of engagement with this region and beyond on hard security issues. So with that, we're really excited to get questions from Kal and from the audience. I'll turn it back over to you.

Kal Raustiala 22:55

Great, thanks to both of you for that introduction and kind of provocative layout of what you've covered. Some of you have asked in the in the chat or the q&a, rather, about where to find the report. So first of all, it's on our website at the Burkle Center. I'm sure it's on RAND's, and we will circulate a link as well. So it should be available to everyone who wants to see it. So let me start with just a couple of basic questions to kind of dig in a little deeper and give Jeff and Dalia a chance to expand a bit on what they said. So first of all, you said a couple of interesting phrases. So legacy thinking is obviously a long standing concern. You use the frame of threatism, as the kind of lens through which to look at a lot of American foreign policy in the region for years. And so I guess I would ask, just generally, what is the positive case for engagement in the region outside of threats? And I'm asking it that way, because I completely agree that threats have motivated almost all of our reactions to the region. And of course, every part of the Earth has some concern for the United States. We're a global actor, we're always going to be interested. But can you go sort of beyond that basic level? What are our positive interests there? What would you counter with to a threat based focus? So that's really for either of you.

Dalia Dassa Kaye 24:22

Jeff, I'm sure you'll want to weigh in, but I'll start. Kal, it's a wonderful question. And and it gets to the the, I think, purpose of this which is to shift the mindset and the positive case is, you know, is also reframing what we consider to be a threat. But I will say we also believe that this region has tremendous human capital. It has tremendous natural resources. While the US is not dependent on the region's oil anymore. Most of our partners are. China still imports 40% of its oil from the Middle East. So that affects the global economy. We saw from the Suez incident the other month, I think it's the other month at this point, 13% of world trade still passes through the Suez Canal. And you know, this is still a region that contributes a third of the global oil production, I don't want to boil everything down to Oil and Natural Resources. But because I guess that's often framed as a negative case, we're stuck with them because we're dependent. But this can also be leveraged in positive ways, because you have a lot of these very wealthy oil economies, who were realizing they need to diversify and service their people and get innovative and get into technology and think about the future and do really interesting things on climate and pandemics. There's a lot we could leverage. Jeff talked about scientific engagement. You're seeing some of this. You know, in the UAE with pandemics there's possibility possibilities of leveraging the Abrahamic Accords and technological cooperation with Israel. There's also a dark side to that, but there's a positive side to that, where it can be leveraged in really innovative ways that can really benefit people. The region of the Middle East is probably going to be hit by climate change, probably most severely, only second maybe to Africa. I mean, and of course, NAFTA, North Africa is included in Middle East, North Africa. So it's going to have a real incentive. And we should have incentive to be helping come up with solutions and resilience in those areas. You have very young populations, who also are becoming increasingly pragmatic. They're tired of stale ideologies. They want leaders who can deliver, they want governance that can deliver basic goods, futures, and livelihoods. And I think there's a lot to work with there. So I think we're making this case that it's not just a region full of extremists and radicalism, and, you know, yes, it has that, and we need to contain that. But we're forgetting the majority of the people in this region want a different way. And their governments increasingly are understanding that these uprisings have been a wake up call. Different governments are dealing with it differently, and we need to be aware of that, and we need to hold them accountable. But times have changed, and there's no way to avoid that. So I think that's kind of what we're talking about when we say deal with these issues within the region, but also deal with the human capital, frankly, in a very different way. And not just look at this region as "okay, this is all about oil."

Kal Raustiala 27:34

Great. Jeff, do you want to add anything to that?

Jeff Martini 27:37

Yeah, just one very short addition, you know, in terms of contracting our approach with those who sort of begin from a threatism mindset, I'll say that in some ways, the end state is the same, we identify the priority interest is regional stability. We're just advocating for a different approach to get there. So for folks, we're starting with a threat as a mindset, they're also seeing regional stability as the end state that they see the way to get there is to counter these threats, you know, again, the encroachment of the Soviet Union, war on terrorism, the malign influence of Iran are broadly interpreted. We're saying,yes, regional stability is the core US interest, but you get there in a different way, you get there by respecting universal rights, you get there by improving governance, you get there by engaging youth in labor markets and giving them a path to, you know, really participatory citizenship. And so, same end state, but a different way to get there.

Kal Raustiala 28:37

Great. Okay. Let me ask about the other phrase that you introduce which I don't think it's necessarily unique to you, but legacy thinking in this context, and maybe use a concrete example that I think exemplifies it, which is Saudi Arabia. And so, you know, we've certainly seen an evolution in US attitudes towards Saudi back in the Obama administration. Of course, Congress overrode the veto of the President on JASTA, which essentially a modified our foreign sovereign immunity statute to permit effectively it was aimed at Saudi Arabia and 9/11. Though it didn't name Saudi Arabia, we've certainly seen more pressure on Saudi Arabia, Jamal Khashoggi etc. But one could step back and say, why are we in any way an ally or a friend of Saudi Arabia's? What is it that actually motivates American interest today in 2021? Beyond the obvious things we've already mentioned, perhaps oil, which certainly motivated a long string of American actions in the region. Is there something more to our relationship with Saudi and should we think of the kingdom as a friend?

Jeff Martini 29:49

Well, I think you're certainly hitting on something here, Kal and, you know, to be blunt, you know, Saudi Arabia ce rtainly become kind of the bete noire of folks that are opposed to US foreign policy in the region. And it comes from different camps, it's one of the few things that unites different camps. So, you know, you'll hear their critiques from the so called restrainers, you'll hear critiques from more progressive critics of foreign policy. It is the issue today in Washington that unites people. And of course, you saw in the Senate, people rise up from the right and the left in the aftermath of the Khashoggi incident to sort of question the basis of the relationship, given what we seen as the Crown Prince's involvement in that assassination. I think the case has been driven by the case for that relationship really is rooted in energy security. And although the United States is a net energy exporter, many of our partners either in Asia or in Europe are not. And so there's concern about global flow and availability of energy for for close US partners. The other case that's typically made is among the Arab Gulf states. It's the only country with a large indigenous born population, and while it hasn't, I think, been very good at assimilating US security assistance, it is relatively militarily capable compared to the other states. But again, that logic is based on the sort of idea that Saudi Arabia is a balancer to other actors in the region, the way that we used to think of, at one point, Iraq in some ways as a balancer for Iran and the other side of the Gulf. So, you know, this administration, of course, has taken steps to think, Secretary of State Blinken has said recalibrate but it can recalibrate the relationship and that included ending offense assistance to the offensive operation that Saudi Arabia's waged in Yemen, and taking the form of cutting off some arm sales, like the the GBUs, the guided bomb units. But that case, I think you're right is the case for it is rooted in energy considerations, and then this sort of regional balance of power logic.

Kal Raustiala 32:22

Terrific. Let me ask about Iran, because Iran has obviously come up several times, and I think is on many people's minds. Iran, I think, presents a kind of paradigmatic example of threat-based thinking. Our primary concerns are threat based, and have been for some time and as Dalia pointed out, even going back maybe four decades or more. So there too maybe take a moment to elaborate what a more positive vision of a relationship with Iran might be. Now, I realize that's a complicated path to get to. So you can talk about the path to get there as well. But what might what might motivate that? And how can we get there?

Dalia Dassa Kaye 33:02

Yeah, well, we actually take a different approach than just focusing on normalizing bilateral ties, which I don't think we're assessing will happen anytime soon. Actually, we do favor engagement, we do favor resumption of the nuclear deal. We don't think the maximum pressure approach has worked. It hasn't moderated Iranian activity in the region. And it hasn't brought us a better deal. We do assess that the nuclear issue is a threat that needs to be contained. But what we do in the report, and I do want to emphasize this, we have an entire chapter on managing adversaries, so you know, it's not that we're saying, okay, move from threat. It's a mindset to a positive vision and socioeconomics, governance, and accountability as a way forward to get stability. You say, at the same time you do that, you know, we're realistic, there are these bad actors out there that are doing very bad things, and we need to figure out how to manage them. Our argument is we're not going to be able to defeat them, we got to get away from those absolute terms of, you know, predominance defeat, into more realistic approaches. And that's what we're aiming for here. We aim for that with Iran. So with Iran, we think we need direct engagement that's optimal. We need resumption of multilateral diplomacy, as we're seeing now in Vienna, which is promising, although still has a long way to go. But we also argue that the regional context matters, the real reason that Iran has gained so much influence, although it has its limits. And we also suggest let's not exaggerate Iranian influence in the region, there's lots of push back to Iran. It has its own vulnerabilities. But we argue a good way to deal with countries like Iran is to think about Cold War containment. Not what is now associated with this very assertive military deterrent part of containment, which is basically what the US posture in the region is right now, but the early days of Kennan, when the Soviet Union was not the same extent of the threat it became containment was also about building a better alternative. Right? It was the Marshall Plan, it was developing the economies in Europe, it was making the region surrounding our European partners, surrounding the Soviets, less susceptible to Soviet influence. And so in the report, what we're arguing is for a longer term strategy when it comes to Iran, not just the near term issues of the nuclear talks. And, you know, this missile threat, and that missile threat, which is all important, but the longer game is, if you have better functioning countries, in Iraq, in Lebanon, and the broader region, there will be fewer places for Iran to capitalize on, and its own vulnerabilities will become more acute, and we can leverage that. So it really fits our focus on people, governance and better accountability and just a region that is more resilient. And that will create, we argue, better natural pushback to Iran and its influence and anything we can do directly to the Iranians, which we've tried many times it has not worked. And so that's that's how we deal with Iran in terms of the longer term approach in this report, and other adversaries as well. We think that if to deal with the potential resurgence of ISIS, you know, you need to get Iraq functioning as a country that can deliver to its people and deal with corruption, inefficiencies, and repression. Those are all really important things. Iraq is actually really pivotal in our report as a key partner that needs to be looked at in terms of pushing back against these negative forces. So that's our argument. That's why it's a regional strategy. It's not just a strategy on one country.

Kal Raustiala 36:53

Great. I like that. Let me ask you to just opine on two other important aspects, and then we'll turn to audience questions. So I don't think either of these were really absolutely central, especially Turkey, to your report. But I just want to ask you, number one, we have to two particular allies in the region, Turkey and Israel, different sorts of countries, different sorts of alliances with the US, very different relationships. Turkey is, of course, still a NATO ally, though there's a lot of tension. And this past weekend, as I think many who are listening know, President Biden, for the first time, from a presidential perspective, acknowledged the Armenian genocide, and Turkey is, of course, unhappy. So is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Are we headed for a breakup with Turkey? Israel, we've seen some, you know, changes from the Trump administration, to the current Bide administration, but also continuity. And I guess I just wanted to give you a chance to speculate about where it should go and where it might go? Briefly. And I'll just say briefly, only because I know there's a lot of great questions in the Q&A, and we'll get to those momentarily. But those are two very important relationships for the US.

Jeff Martini 38:01

Well, Kal, if it's okay, let me pick up with Turkey and all. A long time ago, Dalia was involved in projects at RAND that I think were called "troubled partnerships." And one of the partnerships that was profiled by our former colleague, Stephen Larrabee, was Turkey. It was troubled at that time. Dalia will have to remind me that because this is probably going back more than a decade it is certainly more trouble today. And I think it just, you know, again, to sort of be very blunt, I mean, I think you could use adjectives like dysfunctional or to really describe the current state of the relationship, I mean, in the defeat ISIS campaign as useful and as helpful. And as important as Turkey has been to European security through NATO. Let's think about the D-ISIS campaign, we had won the defeat ISIS campaign, we had one state that basically wasn't on board and took active measures, actually to undermine it, and that was Turkey. If we look at the F35 co-production program, you know, we had one country that decided to take security assistance from Russia that could have threatened the viability of that program going forward. I'm not trying to throw darts at Turkey. Turkey is very strategically important, and we've done some great work at RAND looking at why we need to continue working on that relationship. But it just goes to this broader point we're making that a lot of these partnerships are, frankly, off the rails and we need to decide where we have interest alignment and where we don't. I'll turn it over to Dalia to talk about Israel.

Dalia Dassa Kaye 39:44

Okay, great. I think that was a great overview, Jeff. I just think and this is true with other partners, we also have to think about futures beyond the leaders who are part of the problem. So we do need to think about a post-Erdogan future for US-Turkish relations. Turkey is such an important country, speaking of countries in the region, with, you know, real history, a large population highly educated, you know, this is not a country in terms of the people who we want to alienate, we want to be partners with Turkey in the future. And right now with Erdogan, it's been difficult, but we need to start, we need to think past individuals. That's a lesson I think, across the board. And then Israel, that might be a lesson for Israel, too. But, you know, for strategic, political, historical reasons, you know, we're realistic, their relationship with Israel will stay strong, this is going to be bipartisan, there's not going to be a shift in that arena. But actually, two issues there. Obviously, Israel gets a big proportion of our assistance that, you know, is one of those things, where in the past, actually Israelis themselves, this was a different moment, they came the United States and said, you know, we don't really need all this economic aid. And there may be, you know, Israel's a very successful, vibrant countr, and so there may be room for discussions, because a lot of our recommendations are not about , you know, banging our partners over the head with, you know, this is what you need to do, that is what you need to do. A lot of it is about these are our needs today, does this security package makes sense for our needs today? Obviously, missile defense, so many of the things we do with Israel are still critically needed. We see this by the way, the missiles are, you know, kind of coming over from Gaza, just this week. But that's the kind of thing we talk about, let's have a fresh start. Let's not just have these autopilot packages that don't really think what should they look like? The other thing I would say is, a lot of people don't realize this, I think that, you know, you have a great Israel center there at UCLA, and at RAND, we started a new Israel program, actually. And it's focused on socio economic issues. And yes, it still has serious regional threats. But a lot of the threats that Israelis deal with day to day, are also on the domestic front, they have a serious issue with their ultra orthodox community, their Arab minority, and integrating them into the employment, into viable employment opportunities, into education, the gaps between the rich and poor are only growing in Israel, they have a lot of crime problems, they have many difficult challenges for as successful as the countries you have of Israel, they have a lot of domestic challenges. And so we can also start thinking about engagement with Israel that deals with some of those issues and leverages some of our capabilities and works with Israel in those areas that traditionally,are just kind of left to, you know, kind of, on the margins, because it's not dealing with your bread and butter. But for Israelis who can't afford apartments and, you know, are grappling with all of these internal challenges, and especially their Arab minority population, and integrating them into Israeli society. These are really big issues, you could almost say, existential issues for Israel. And lastly, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we don't deal with it at length in this study, because we do recognize that it is a lower priority. We know this, when you have conflicts like Yemen, Libya, Syria, the most tragic, they're all horrible and horrific catastrophic conflicts. But you do have a country right next to Israel, where half the population is displaced, you know, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still dire. But when you look at those conflicts, regionally, there's a reason that Israel-Palestine has gone lower on the agenda. That said, just as we say, we need to resolve regional conflict, the Israeli Palestinian conflict still needs to be resolved. It's not the source of regional instability. But it's an important issue to solve, not just for the US national interests for Israel's national interest. Ultimately, if Israel doesn't deal with the fact that two people live on one piece of land, they will never be safe. It doesn't matter how many normalization agreements they can sign, and those are all welcome. But ultimately, you have a fundamental issue for Israel's own identity and survival. And I think the US should continue to be supportive of that. You know, of course, the two state solution we know is the optimal way forward. RAND has done studies, you know, showing the economic benefits of a two-state solution, Israel would gain something like 200 billion over 10 years, if there was a two state solution, but we know this conflict isn't driven by economic factors or would have been solved a long time ago. So this is a tough issue, but we felt it needs to be on the agenda. But ultimately, Israel itself will have to make tough choices, because the current trajectory is not leading to good outcomes.

Kal Raustiala 44:47

Terrific. Okay. So let's go to audience questions. There's a lot of them. I'm going to start with one about China. And so the question is, how should the expanding role of China in the region which includes trade investment, 5G, you mentioned earlier, oil and gas, which are major issues that the PRC etc? How should China's role affect our relationships? And American relationships with governments in the region? So yeah, that's an interesting kind of wildcard that didn't exist really 30 years ago, but really does today.

Dalia Dassa Kaye 45:23

Jeff, I'll go ahead and take it, if you want to add anything. I do want to say that in our report, we have an entire chapter dedicated to great power competition, there's no way to think about strategy in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world for that matter without thinking about the new world we're in. Especially China, our chapter deals with Russia and China, they are different types of competitors, China is a much more significant long term competitor, Russia is a more near term opportunistic threat. But China is really the one that everybody has their eyes on now, we actually argue in the report that, that as much as we may be competing with them and need to compete with them in other arenas. For China, the Middle East is actually now probably the most important region outside of the Indo-Pacific. So there's a real temptation to bring the competition with China into the Middle East, we argue against that we think that would be that would be jeopardizing opportunities where we have overlap. We don't need to repeat the Cold War competition with China in the Middle East, let's compete with them elsewhere. In the Middle East, we actually have areas of alignment. There are areas where we need to be concerned, certainly there are technology transfers, there build out of smart cities with surveillance technologies go very much against our focus on the well being of people in the region, right? We don't want this region where the cities are built by the Chinese and nobody has their freedoms, that is not the vision we have for the Middle East. So we're not suggesting just you know, let China kind of have free rein in the region. But the Belt and Road initiative of the Chinese is, you know, the train has left the station there. They're there, the infrastructure that they have invested in, cannot be reversed at this stage. What we need to figure out is where has that been helpful, maybe in our argument is we need to update our own game in those investments. That's part of the rebounds we talked about from military to non military to economic, we should be equally invested, we should be increasing our own investments in those arenas. But we also shouldn't be alarmist about the Chinese inevitably having, you know, unfettered access to this region, they have to balance different interests, just like we do, they have this new strategic agreement with Iran. One of my co-authors, Ashley Rhodes, and I just wrote a piece and wore the rocks. If Alexandra at some point, if you find it while we're on line, you could send it to the audience here, which is basically making the argument we don't have to make China our enemy in the Middle East. Because they have to straddle relations with the Iranians, they have close relationships with the Israelis, with the Saudis. It's not a new Iran-China axis, they have multiple interests. There's also a lot of resentment of Chinese investment in this region. Many regional players, including Iranians, prefer Western products. We have advantages, we have access to the World Bank, to the IMF, to world economic institutions that the Chinese cannot offer. So we have a number of arguments to suggest let's be calm and smart about how we deal with the Chinese. Let's not, you know, probably overshoot our response to them and lead to counterproductive outcomes that may not be smart, and work with them where we can, especially when it comes to issues like non-proliferation, where they are supportive, they are a member of the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA and number of other areas where we think we can work with them, and compete with them where we need to.

Kal Raustiala 49:16

So let me just ask a brief follow up on that, because obviously, US-China relations are so important everywhere. Is it in America's interest to have China have a stronger footprint and role in that region? In other words, do we actually want to see more Chinese investment, more Chinese political ties to take some of the pressure off us? Perhaps I can imagine arguments that way. But I can also the common reaction is usually no, we don't want that. But what's your take?

Dalia Dassa Kaye 49:45

Yeah, well, we, and Jeff, if you want to weigh in, please do. Our take is there are some of those investments that are not undermining our interest, you know, building trains and, you know, some of the infrastructure development projects. We certainly can be assessing those and play a role in assessing them to make sure they're not at the detriment of our partner country's interest. But not everything is zero-sum. So we do think we can be doing a little more about ourselves. But we're also realistic is that we don't have the bandwidth or capacity, given all the other priorities. And China's frankly, more dependent on the region, it has more incentives to be there. So some of that we think we should not be alarmed about that actually could be beneficial to the region. So far, they're very light on their security investments, especially compared to the Russians. The Russians are far bigger of a worry, their intervention in Syria is a good example of Russia being much more zero-sum, very much more detrimental to our interests than the Chinese. Chinese focus is more on economic development. But we do need to be clear eyed because some of these political and technological relationships, you know, they have no problem with autocrats right. And they have no problem with repression. We see that quite well, when it comes to the Uighurs. So that's the part that I think we need to be keeping our eye on.

Kal Raustiala 51:07

Great. Okay, so we get to the next question, which relates to the Gulf, which we haven't talked that much about. So how will the growing political and economic rapprochement between Israel and the Gulf Arab states reshape the region? Is it a seismic shift? Or has it been overrated?

Jeff Martini 51:28

I think some of that really depends on US decisions going forward. So if decisions are made by the United States to have a very substantial US military withdrawal from the region, then I think there's more temptation for the Arab Gulf states to cooperate and to look to Israel as a way to partially fill that vacuum. I mean, they're not to sound rah-rah America, but right now, there's not another force that could fill that vacuum on its own. The US really does have unique capabilities. But of course, Israel is quite militarily capable itself. And if we do see, really a large scale US withdrawal from the region, and then heightened tensions paired with heightened tensions from Iran, then you could imagine a scenario in which, you know, this normalization and expanded economic engagement really leads to more sustained security cooperation over between the key Arab Gulf countries and Israel.

Dalia Dassa Kaye 52:34

I just want to add one point, I think, Jeff, is absolutely right about that. But we do see another trend line, which is, because these Gulf states are Iran's neighbors, right? They will be the target of retaliatory attacks, when things heat up with US and Iran, or Israel and Iran. And so we have seen a pattern, we'll see how this holds where they hedge, right, so on the one hand, they're looking for security alignments with, of course, the United States, possibly increasingly Israel to deal with the Iranian threat. But they also have shown an interest in engaging the Iranians too and to make sure they communicate and make sure they know that the Iranians know that they are not necessarily on board with a security alignment against them. So you know, you saw after the first strikes in the Gulf Oil infrastructure in the Gulf, the Emirati started to have high level conversations with the Iranians. And now just in the past weeks, we're seeing pretty serious Saudi-Iranian dialogue mediated by the Iraqis. This is, you know, not coincidental. This is happening when you're seeing quite an escalation on the US-Iran front. So, you know, I do think that these actors have a way of hedging, and the idea that we can just count on them for a NATO-like Gulf alignment against Iran is unrealistic.

Kal Raustiala 54:02

Great. Okay. So we just have a couple of minutes left. We really try to keep these to one hour. And there were several questions in different ways that related to human rights and what role human rights ought to play in American policy in the region. I realize it's a very broad topic, which obviously lends itself to answers. You know, that will vary a lot depending on what country we're focused on. But can you briefly say something about how you think human rights should fit into a reimagined American strategy?

Jeff Martini 54:32

Sure. So one thing we should make clear at the outset is sometimes when people hear of a human rights first agenda, they think about the George W. Bush freedom agenda. And that's not what we're advocating for here. We're not advocating for the imposition of democracy, or huge surges in democracy promotion. What we are advocating for is that human rights, universal rights are a serious consideration in US policy. So for instance, human rights seem to be a major consideration in the recalibration of our bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia clearly, you know, the killing of a US resident Khashoggi, and then the civilian casualties in Yemen, really, I think, played a major role in the US taking a different course and its relationship with Saudi Arabia. But we haven't seen that more broadly. I mean, we've had recent approval of weapons transfers, for instance, to Egypt, they may not have as high profile of recent incident on their record as the Khashoggi incident, but there's no shortage of human rights violations in that country. And so what we're advocating for is the Human Rights becomes a serious consideration in US foreign policy, but again, just want to differentiate, in case anyone was with, you know, and sort of conjured up that the George W. Bush freedom agenda. Over to Dalia.

Dalia Dassa Kaye 56:03

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's such an important point, Jeff. Because, you know, change has to come from within the region. But we are arguing human rights can't just be a footnote, or a secondary thought. In fact, we are kind of challenging this assumption that it's this trade off, you either have security and strategic interest, or you have your human rights agenda. Actually, if you're not integrating human rights into your strategic agenda, you're in trouble. Because the kind of repression that happens in this region and many other places in the world, fuels the grievances, fuels the frustration, and exacerbates the drivers of conflict and instability. And of course, morally is the right thing to do. But from a strategic perspective, it's not either or, it's critical. And we need to be doing this with partners and adversaries. And I stress the partners in particular, because we haven't, and that gets back to the business as usual approach that we're countering the business as usual approaches, do what you want in your borders, as long as you help us confront Iran, as long as you help us, you know, stay in the US orbit and not you know, and not go to the Soviets. And just we want to keep you on our side at any cost. That is really short sighted thinking. And that's kind of what we say needs to change and then equally with our adversaries, when we're dealing with Iran and the nuclear diplomacy in Vienna, it does not preclude continuing to raise their egregious human rights abuses, including the continuing hostage taking of dual nationals and American citizens. It's egregious and it has to stop. We have to keep raising those issues with all parties. It has to be a core fundamental part of the US national interest in our strategic strategy.

Kal Raustiala 57:47

Great. All right. Well, I really want to thank Dalia and Jeff for coming on and for talking about their new report. As you've heard, there's a lot in it. Obviously, we only covered a little bit, really, and so I urge you to read it. And behalf of UCLA and the Burkle Center, Jeff and Dalia, thank you so much for for joining us. Take care everyone.

Dalia Dassa Kaye 58:06

Thanks