Conservatism Conference Speakers Friedman, Abrams Bemoan Image of American Weakness

Ambassador Friedman: The next Arab country will join the Abraham Accords ‘a few months after a Republican becomes US president’; Elliott Abrams: The GCC countries are ‘hedging their bets with Iran’

The third annual Israeli Conservatism Conference was held on Thursday in Jerusalem.

The conference’s website asserts that Israel is “socially, the most conservative country in the Western world,” citing the country’s “high birth rates, respect for and connection to tradition, and a high degree of patriotism across social sectors and political affiliations” as evidence of this. But, perhaps because of Israel’s largely socialist foundations, conservatives often say they feel like outsiders whose voices are rarely heard among the country’s intellectual and political elite.

The conference features a variety of speakers, debates, and programs, all with the aim of fixing what the organizers see as a stark discrepancy between the “common conservative intuition in Israel and the absence of an ideological movement which befits it.”

The Media Line sat down with two of the most prominent speakers at this year’s conference, Ambassador David M. Friedman and Elliott Abrams, to discuss the ways in which the United States influences the dynamics and geopolitics of a rapidly changing Middle East.

During Donald Trump’s presidency, the historic Abraham Accords aiming to normalize relations were signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan.

However, since Morocco, which was the last state to join the peace wave, in December 2020, no other country has gotten on board, despite the fact that when the accords were set in motion, it seemed as if many others would follow and normalize relations with Israel.

David Friedman, an attorney who was US ambassador to Israel during Trump’s presidency and the Abraham Accords’ launch, told The Media Line this was related to the change of administration in Washington.

Former US Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman at the Israeli Conservatism Conference in Jerusalem, May 26, 2022. (Elkana Gitlin)

“It didn’t happen because we lost the [November 2020] election. If we would have won, I think we would have had more progress by now,” he said.

However, Friedman believes there will be progress on the peace track; it might just take a bit longer.

He pointed to the recognition by the Gulf countries and by Israel that both sides have much to gain from normalization. “The reality is bearing out the importance of the relations,” he said.

“I don’t know when the next country will be, but it will be no later than a few months after a Republican becomes president,” Friedman said.

Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, served as assistant secretary of state in the Reagan Administration, deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush, and was a special representative for Venezuela and Iran in the Trump White House.

He told The Media Line that as a result of American democracy, the US often changes its Middle East policies, and this is an issue for the Middle Eastern countries who rely on it as an ally.

“The problem for many Middle Eastern governments is that in our democracy, we go back and forth,” he said. “From Carter to Reagan, from Obama to Trump to Biden. How can they plan for five years or 10 years? It is very hard,” he said.

Friedman believes that for another Arab country to join the Abraham Accords, America needs to be perceived as strong and steady.

In all these agreements, he explained, what is important is that you have a triangle, with Israel and another country at the base, and America at the apex.

“A strong America projecting its strength, its values, helping, providing insurances, providing assistance,” he described.

“I think [President Joe] Biden right now is weak, and I think he has allowed events around the world to control him rather than America controlling the world,” Friedman said.

Abrams agreed. He said the United States was being perceived lately as a less reliable ally, and that this has led some of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations to look for alternatives.

“I don’t think I would say that the Iranians are getting closer to the GCC countries. I think that the GCC countries are worried,” he said.

The GCC member states are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

He believes that the Gulf countries would like to see the Iranian regime replaced. However, “they don’t know what Israel is going to do and they don’t know what the United States is going to do,” Abrams said.

When you see a Saudi or an Omani official going to Tehran, he argued, “it does not mean that they are getting closer. They are hedging their bets.”

The degree to which they feel they need to hedge their bets largely depends on the United States, “so it is a bad sign that they feel they have to do that right now,” Abrams said.

Friedman is also concerned about the issue.

“It makes me nervous; I’m worried about that. I think, in the long run, none of these countries will be better off aligned with Iran,” he said. “I think they know that, and I think part of it can be blamed on America’s weakness.

“I think it is a problem, but I don’t think any of these countries see Iran as the solution,” Friedman continued.

As for the talks in Vienna to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, Abrams strongly believes that a deal will not be signed. “I do not think that there will be an agreement,” he said.

Elliott Abrams speaks at the Israeli Conservatism Conference in Jerusalem, May 26, 2022. (Elkana Gitlin)

He thinks the US designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization is not the real obstacle. “I think that there are deeper reasons [that a deal will not be reached],” he said.

“I think that [Iranian Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei does not want an agreement,” Abrams added. “I don’t think it is a 100% certainty, but I think it is about 80-85% that there will be no agreement.”

Despite the war in Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia, the US does not need Iranian oil, he explained. “We don’t need oil; we are self-sufficient,” Abrams said. “Yes, they [Americans] would like to see more oil on the market and the Europeans would also. But we don’t really need it.”

There is a desire to get that oil into the market, “but it won’t be enough to change the outcome [of the Vienna talks],” he continued.

After the Russo-Ukrainian war erupted, the US sent a delegation to Venezuela, a country that is rich in oil but antagonistic to the US.

Abrams said it was a foolish move by the Biden Administration, describing it as “incompetence, stupidity, and diplomatic malpractice.”

He said that in a way he could understand the desire for Iranian oil. “You could get hundreds of thousands of barrels immediately, and a million barrels [a day] by the end of the year.”

There are 60 million barrels more or less of Iranian oil in storage, in tankers, in Iran, that could be out on the market immediately, Abrams noted.

On the other hand, he added, “The oil sector in Venezuela has been destroyed through 15 years of abuse by [Presidents Hugo] Chávez and [Nicolás] Maduro.”

The most the country could produce is an additional 200,000 barrels a day, and it owes it to Cuba, to China, to others, Abrams said. “They won’t really go on the world market.”

Additionally, such a move would undermine the democratic opposition in Venezuela, he said.

Last year’s withdrawal [of military forces from Afghanistan] and the way it was done, said Abrams, suggested that the United States is not a reliable ally and cannot handle its affairs competently.

It made many of our allies nervous, “and we have to ask the question: Would [Russian President Vladimir] Putin have invaded Ukraine without that? We’ll never know the answer, or we may know in 50 years when we see the archives,” he said.

However, Abrams added that the American reaction to the Ukraine war has partially offset the damage from the Afghanistan withdrawal.

“What is happening in Ukraine, I’m very happy to say, is a big contrast where the US and the Europeans are doing more than was expected,” he said.

Abrams noted how during Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 and of Georgia in 2008, the United States didn’t intervene much. He added that Putin probably thought that this would be the case this time as well.

“I think that the difference here is the Ukrainians,” he said. “The Ukrainians decided to fight.”

Everyone thought it would be over in three days, continued Abrams. “Instead, they fought. In a certain sense they shamed us all into supporting them, because if they are willing to risk their lives fighting, how can we not support them?”