Johnson visiting the Arabs: punching above his weight

Gone are the days when British premiers were perceived in the Middle East as extraordinary personalities, behind which loomed the shadow of the former greatness of the colonial empire. There are serious reasons for this. In recent years, London has been completely integrated into the fairway of American politics in this region, without entering into any negotiation mechanisms for a Middle East settlement, although previously the British have always demonstrated a fairly high degree of political activity.

But the fact is that the last British Prime Minister who made serious statements about the arrangement of Arab countries was Winston Churchill. He said that two policies could be applied to the Arabs: one is to keep them separated, the other is to try to create a country friendly to Great Britain.

Such a state with the most active participation of London appeared in 1932. Great Britain officially recognised the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Nejd and Hejaz - a large state on the Arabian Peninsula, which arose as a result of the conquest of several smaller states of the region by the Sultanate of Nejd. After the accession of three more state entities, it was named the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi dynasty gained serious influence in the Arab and Muslim world, positioning itself as the closest ally of the British. The discovery of oil fields contributed to the growth of Riyadh's influence in the Arab East, and then in the Muslim world. Therefore, the stereotype of ideas that "the Saudis will be eternally grateful to London for their historical existence" still persists.

But then London began to turn Riyadh into a "geopolitical side dish", passing the baton to Washington and putting itself in second or third roles in the zone of political backstage. As a result, British policy in the Middle East began to degenerate, and the Saudis, who found themselves in a fork between the United Kingdom and the United States, were the first to feel this for well-known reasons.

When Washington began to lose influence in the Middle East, London found itself at a crossroads. All this was manifested during the recent visit of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Johnson is the second Western leader who went to Riyadh to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the scandal with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 (French President Emmanuel Macron visited the kingdom last December).

Meanwhile, earlier Riyadh did not respond to calls from the White House. US President Joe Biden and the heir to the Saudi throne have not spoken since Biden, taking office in January 2021, promised to treat the kingdom as a "rogue state" because of the Khashoggi murder. Now Johnson has made an attempt to change everything and, according to Reuters, "start working together to stabilise energy markets in order to neutralise the Russian factor”.

According to the British prime minister, "the world should get rid of Russian hydrocarbons, and Saudi Arabia and the UAE can become key international partners in the implementation of such intentions”. He also reminded Riyadh that "we are united”, adding that "Western sanctions against Russia are beginning to take effect, and a new international coalition is needed to compensate for their impact on energy consumers”.

However, he was turned away from the gate, even though the UAE and Saudi Arabia are the two largest economic partners of the UK in the region. Speaking after talks with the Crown Prince, Johnson looked upset. Saudi Arabia, like the UAE, is increasingly drifting away from Washington and London in the Ukrainian crisis and retains the OPEC+ alliance, which regulates quotas for oil production on the world market.

They, the world's two largest exporters of energy resources, avoid taking a position against Russia and ignore US calls to increase oil production in order to contain the rise in oil prices, "which threatens a global recession in connection with the Ukrainian crisis”. Now Johnson is calculating options: either to find an opportunity to withdraw Saudi Arabia from international isolation and establish cooperation in the energy sector with it, or opt for compromise agreements with Moscow.

Riyadh and other Arab countries see that the influence of the United States, and of course, the United Kingdom, is weakening in the Middle East, and a military-political vacuum is emerging in the region, which is filled only by energy relations so far. At the same time, the intensive and meaningful interaction between Russia and Saudi Arabia in recent years has become one of the most significant phenomena in the Middle East, North Africa and the Muslim world as a whole.

Therefore, any form of dialogue between these two giant energy players has significant consequences for the world oil and gas markets. In geopolitical terms, efforts to create and maintain a dialogue platform can contribute to raising the status of the participants in the negotiations and at the same time become a factor constraining national security challenges.

Russia and its strong Arab partners within the framework of the OPEC+ agreement are the result of political will and a rethinking of the role and place of Moscow and Riyadh at the global and regional levels. New times are coming in the region.