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Middle East
This Week in AsiaPolitics

Arab leaders assert ‘strategic sovereignty’ over Middle East conflict in pointed message to West

  • Assad’s return to Arab League and Zelensky’s appearance mark efforts by Arab states to remain diplomatically neutral in the West’s tensions with Russia and China
  • Saudi Arabia is on a ‘geopolitical offensive’ as it seeks to manage regional conflict and boost Arab engagement and realignment

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Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, shakes hands with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on May 19, 2023. Photo: Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout
Tom Hussain
The Arab world has closed ranks for the first time in more than a decade as it seeks to assert “strategic sovereignty” in a bid to resolve the prolonged wars in the Middle East, while staying diplomatically neutral in the Ukraine war and other conflicts pitting the West against Russia and China.
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Leaders on Friday gathered for a summit of the 22-member Arab League in Jeddah that was described by analysts as remarkable for its diplomatic “signalling” to the United States in particular, as they welcomed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad – a close ally of Iran and Russia – back into the fold, while simultaneously extending a platform to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Arab League also pushed back against US pressure to accelerate its normalisation of relations with Israel by hosting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and reiterating demands for a two-nation solution.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is received by Deputy Amir of Makkah, Prince Badr Bin Sultan, as he arrives to attend the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on May 18, 2023. Photo: Saudi Press Agency/Handout via Reuters
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is received by Deputy Amir of Makkah, Prince Badr Bin Sultan, as he arrives to attend the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on May 18, 2023. Photo: Saudi Press Agency/Handout via Reuters

Saudi political commentator Salman al-Ansari described the Jeddah meeting as “the summit of Arab strategic sovereignty”.

The event established three “noes” to political “polarisations, militias and ideologies” and three corresponding “yeses” to “sovereignty, unity and partnership”, he said.

Hisham Hellyer, a research fellow of the Centre of Islamic Studies at Britain’s Cambridge University, said the Arab League summit was notable for host Saudi Arabia’s “messaging” aimed at the West, Israel and Syria.
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Riyadh, he said, was on a “geopolitical offensive” after emerging from “pariah status in the West” following the brutal murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 by security agents at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

By inviting Ukraine’s Zelensky, Riyadh brought “the West’s most iconic military-geopolitical leader into some kind of conversation with all Arab leaders”, Hellyer said. Such a move, he noted, was “going to play quite well in different Western capitals, not least in Washington”.

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