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▎ wu bingbing, director of the center for middle east studies at peking university source: taihe think tank

editor's note

what adjustments has the united states made to its middle east policy? has iran's military power been greatly underestimated? what other changes in the israeli-palestinian conflict are worth paying attention to?

phoenix reference has compiled the wonderful speech by wu bingbing, director of the center for middle east studies at peking university, at the international relations sub-forum of the 8th taihe civilization forum for readers.

in the theme discussion "international geopolitical challenges and responses", wu bingbing pointed out that the middle east has undergone significant changes in terms of security, economy and regional connectivity. he said that the united states has adjusted its middle east policy and is unwilling to launch another large-scale ground war in the region, and has reached a consensus with iran in this regard, while israel intends to escalate the conflict in the region. he also introduced the changes and efforts of countries in the middle east in terms of economy and regional connectivity. the following is the full text of wu bingbing's speech.

edited by song dongze and hu yufan

▎ the theme discussion of the international relations sub-forum of the 8th taihe civilization forum is "international geopolitical challenges and responses" source: taihe think tank

let me first tell you about the changes in the middle east region.

first, in terms of security, there are three fundamental changes: first, the united states adjusts its policies in this region. nearly 20 years ago, the united states launched the wars in afghanistan and iraq in this region. at the same time, china has developed very rapidly over the years and has gained more and more global influence. from this perspective, the united states has also decided to shift its focus from the middle east to asia. the obama administration had a policy of returning to asia at the time, and the trump administration shifted the indo-pacific strategic framework. later, the obama administration withdrew its troops from iraq, the trump administration reached an agreement with the taliban, and the biden administration also achieved a withdrawal from afghanistan.

this is a very clear message to the region: the united states is no longer willing to launch another large-scale ground war, at least in this region. it can be seen that the united states hopes to limit its involvement in the middle east war.

▎ on august 31, 2021, the united states announced the completion of its withdrawal from afghanistan. the united states launched the war in afghanistan on october 7, 2001. the nearly 20-year war has brought huge losses of life and property to afghanistan.

the second is the rise of iran. in the past 20 years, iran has been developing various deterrence technologies very vigorously, including drones and artificial intelligence. now we can see that iran has very large-scale air strikes against israel. basically 60% of the missiles have broken through israel's air defense.this demonstrates iran's very strong combat capability, which allows it to launch large-scale threatening attacks on israel and other countries.

third, in this region, hamas, jihad (editor's note: jihad is the palestinian islamic jihad organization, one of the main political factions in palestine and less powerful than hamas), hezbollah in lebanon, houthi armed forces in yemen, iraqi militias and other non-state actors belong to the resistance army and camps.so we've seen that hamas has been in confrontation with israel over the past year or so, and there's also a confrontation between hezbollah in lebanon and israel.

these three major changes in the situation in the middle east have brought us some new situations and realities.the united states hopes to avoid direct confrontation and regional war in the region, which has become a consensus between the united states and iran. however, this is opposed by some countries and non-state actors, especially israel.israel hopes to escalate the conflict in the region, including by murdering hamas political leaders and taking some actions in lebanon. this is a change in regional security.

▎ on september 23, 2024, the united nations humanitarian organization warned: the situation in the middle east remains tense. israel launched hundreds of retaliatory air strikes against hezbollah in lebanon. the hostilities led to the destruction of a village in southern lebanon.

the second is economic changes. from this perspective, we can see the efforts of middle eastern countries in economic diversification, such as the arab countries, especially saudi arabia and the united arab emirates. saudi arabia launched its "vision 2030" in 2016. at this time, everyone began to know that it had started the process of localization and industrialization, and there were also changes in social and economic liberalization and marketization. these countries, including the gulf countries, are very focused on economic development, such as developing the economy in a global context. therefore, the united states hopes that the gulf countries of the gcc can cooperate with israel (editor's note: the gcc is the gulf cooperation council, the most important political and economic organization in the gulf region), mainly considering the background of the middle east strategic alliance.

during the trump administration, the united states also supported the uae and bahrain in normalizing their relations with israel; the united states also promoted multilateral arrangements (i2u2), which include israel, india, and the uae (editor's note: the united states, india, israel, and the uae established the four-party organization "i2u2" to use social vitality and entrepreneurship to meet the challenges facing the world).

▎on july 14, 2022, the heads of government of the united states, india, israel and the uae held the first i2u2 leaders' meeting. the new york times analyzed that for israel, i2u2 is another "front" for the country to oppose iran and another "platform" to strengthen relations with the uae after decades of estrangement.

the third is regional connectivity. at last year’s g20 summit, the united states launched the concept of an economic corridor between india, the middle east, and europe. from this perspective, they hope to have not only maritime and land connections between india and the gcc gulf countries and europe and the united states, but also to establish some pipelines, such as hydrogen resource pipelines and cable routes.

in this competitive environment, some international corridor initiatives were initiated by russia.for example, the "international north-south transport corridor" aims to connect the caucasus, the caspian region, russia and iran with india.

turkey has also joined. from this perspective, we can also see the changes in regional countries. last year, turkey expressed its hope that the "trans-caspian east-west middle corridor initiative" would be connected with the "belt and road initiative" to improve the connectivity of the eurasian continent.from this perspective, there is also competition in terms of interconnection and interoperability.

these three aspects, security, economy and regional connectivity, have together brought about a more serious and serious geopolitical competition, not only between major powers, but also involving regional powers, including iran, turkey, the uae and israel. in this context, it can be seen that some measures are needed to reduce the escalation of such competition. therefore, the security arrangements of various countries in the future are very critical and need to be further observed.