Blinken’s Make-or-Break Tour of the Middle East
The United States has probably never been under so much pressure to solve the problems of the Middle East. The war in Gaza threatens to spill across the region, and whether Washington can resolve, or even simply contain and de-escalate, the tensions surrounding it may well determine the future of American authority in the Middle East. Whatever the outcome, the current imbroglio is almost certain to mark a turning point for Washington’s role in the region.
That’s why Secretary of State Antony Blinken has set out on a grand tour of American allies in the Middle East with a portfolio of interlocking diplomatic proposals. Blinken’s first objective, and that of U.S. policy more broadly, is to keep the current conflict essentially contained to Gaza, wind it down there, and use the opportunity to construct a more stable Middle East in the aftermath, on the bedrock of Israeli-Saudi relations and Palestinian statehood. But Washington will have a hard time selling this agenda to its
