Top MENA analyst evaluates regional reaction to Ukraine war

A MENA expert has claimed that the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia in particular, have been the biggest regional beneficiary of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Saudi has used its roles as a mediator with ties to both Russia and the US to rebuild its public image just a few years after former president Biden had described the kingdom as a ‘pariah’.

He also explained that much of the regional reaction to the war was shaped by frustration at perceived hypocrisy and double standards from western nations.

Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Gulf State Analytics, Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University and Adjunct Fellow at the American Security Project, told Maghrebi.org in an exclusive interview that the Gulf states have “leveraged their positions to be productive players in the talks necessary for exchanging prisoners and, eventually, freezing the war.”

Cafiero explained how Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has used the situation to his advantage. “When this conflict erupted in February 2022, he was still relatively isolated from the West due to the Jamal Khashoggi murder case. But this conflict highlighted to western statesmen the centrality of Saudi Arabia’s role in global geopolitics, security, energy and diplomacy.”

“Put simply, this international crisis underscored how Saudi Arabia is of so much importance and the Kingdom is influential to a point whereby the U.S. and European countries can’t avoid engaging with its de facto ruler.”

Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman

MbS the peacemaker?

It was Saudi Arabia who hosted recent talks between the US and both Russia and Ukraine, separately. Further talks between Moscow and Washington are scheduled on March 23rd in Jeddah.

Cafiero discussed how the war forced former US president Joe Biden to re-engage with Saudi Arabia, visiting a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine, after previously attempting to isolate it. “Biden’s controversial trip to Jeddah in July 2022 was largely a consequence of new dynamics on the international stage that resulted from the Ukraine war. Put simply, the war in Ukraine did much to quickly pull MbS out of his period of being isolated from the West.”

“That Saudi Arabia is now hosting these talks speaks to the Kingdom’s success in positioning itself as an internationally respected peacemaker and diplomatic bridge between the West and East. This is extremely different from being a global “pariah” as Biden accused the country of being back in November 2019.”

Cafiero explained how Arab states attempted to strike a balance and adopt a neutral stance in the conflict, in an attempt to maintain their ties with both Russia and the US

“Governments across the Arab world sought to respond to the conflict in a relatively neutral manner that would avoid creating problems in their relationships with both the West and Russia. Striking this balance has required careful decision-making.”

There are a number of factors as to why Saudi Arabia has ended up as the destination that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says “generally suits” the US and Russia.

“I don’t think there’s another place where the leader has such a good personal relationship with both Trump and Putin,” Saudi commentator Ali Shihabi, who added that for the kingdom, the negotiation between the US and Russia was “prestigious and enhances the Saudi soft power regionally and globally,” reported CNN.

They write that Saudi’s move towards neutrality is part of bin Salman’s “Vision 2030,” the official name for the crown prince’s plan to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil. Riyadh has significantly pulled back from Yemen after years of war with the Ansar Allah group, known generally as the Houthis and supported by Iran. They have also been mending ties with regional rival Iran and maintained close relationships with both China and Russia while simultaneously maintaining their close relationship with the West.

US and Russian delegations for the talks in Saudi Arabia

Western hypocrisy

In addition to discussing regional attempts at mediation, Cafiero also says there was regional anger over perceived hypocrisy in the western response to the invasion. Many in the region noticed a double standard between the harsh western reaction to Russia’s invasion and the west and its allies’ actions in recent years and decades.

“On a societal level, the West’s firm condemnation of Russia’s “special military operation” fueled some anger in the region. This was not a result of widespread support for Moscow’s rogue behavior in Ukraine (though segments of Arab societies did support Russia in this war). Rather it was because the West’s hypocrisy was on full display.”

“Many Arab citizens noticed the West’s zero tolerance for Ukrainian land being illegally occupied by Russia which contrasted with decades of the West being indifferent to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and the US and UK’s illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. Arab citizens also saw countries in Europe embrace Ukrainian refugees, which was not the treatment that Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, and other countries in the Islamic world received amid conflicts in their homelands.”

The war that began in Gaza in October 2023 and the west’s steadfast support for Israel despite accusations of genocide running concurrently with the war in Ukraine and the western reaction to it inflamed this feeling. Cafiero wrote in Middle East Eye about how to many, western hypocrisy had never been clearer.

Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, stated that the double standards “could not have been more blatant.” “This is something that the non-western world has been aware of for a long time, but it’s rare to see it demonstrated so clearly,” he added.

Discussing the 2024 Munich security conference, Munich-based journalist Marc Martorell Junyent stated that “It was obvious [that] both Harris and Scholz wanted to avoid the [Gaza war], and they [either] barely mentioned it in their speeches or not at all,” and that “audiences in the Arab-Islamic world are taking western leaders less seriously than ever when they talk about ‘human rights’ and the ‘rules-based order'”.

Even the European Union’s own foreign policy chief Josep Borrell noted that “Russia is taking good advantage of our mistakes. The blame about double standards is something that we need to address and not only with nice words. It is clear that the wind is blowing against the West.”

Borrell at the Munich Security Conference

When asked about Borrell’s remarks, Duss explained: “It’s significant to the extent that [the EU foreign policy chief’s words are] obviously true, but also shows how the EU can’t do anything about it while the US continues to back Israel unconditionally.”

Alongside Washington’s iron-clad support for Tel Aviv, the EU works in a way that limits the strength of Borrell. “He needs unanimous support within the EU for major foreign policy decisions. For instance, he explained in Munich that he had to release a statement calling for no Israeli operation in Rafah alone on [16 February], without the backing of the EU as a bloc, because [Hungary] did not want to sign,” added Junyent.

“Ultimately, with Washington giving ironclad support to Israel’s barbaric war while the EU fails to devise a coherent and cohesive foreign policy that breaks from Washington’s foreign policy toward Gaza, the countless speeches about the international “rules-based order” delivered by western leaders fell on deaf ears in the Arab world and Global South.”

“Such shameless hypocrisy does irreversible damage to the West’s moral capital, as with each passing day, the world sees new images of death and destruction in Gaza,” wrote Cafiero.

CNN, AP, Kyiv Independent, Middle East Eye, Responsible Statecraft, Euronews