THE United States has described the China-brokered normalisation deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran as a “good thing”, despite the message it may send about waning US influence in the region.
The pact between Riyadh and Tehran, announced last week in Beijing, merely cements the reality of China’s growing role as a significant trade — and now diplomatic — partner in the Gulf, analysts say.
They add that Washington, with its confrontational approach to Tehran, was not in a position to broker the rapprochement, but it can still benefit from it despite the alarm some US hawks have sounded.
“The fact that Tehran and Riyadh sort of decided to bury the hatchet of war is good for everybody,” said Jorge Heine, a professor at Boston University.
“It’s good for the United States. It’s good for China. It’s good for the Middle East.”
Heine, who previously served as Chile’s ambassador to China, said the pact between the two Middle East rivals was China’s “breakthrough into the big leagues of diplomacy”, but that does not mean it is a setback for the US.
He told Al Jazeera, however, the agreement should make Washington rethink its confrontational policies towards other countries.
The Tehran-Riyadh rapprochement follows years of tensions that have spilt across the Middle East, most notably in Yemen, where the conflict between the Saudi-backed government and Iran-allied Houthi rebels has spurred an immense humanitarian crisis.
