Israel and Saudi Arabia aim to push Biden away from the Iran nuclear deal

The strategic re-alignment of Israel with major allies in the Middle East in the final days of the Trump Administration presents the Biden Administration with some significant complications.

On January 15th, the United States Department of Defense announced that it was changing its command structure to move Israel from the European Command (or EUCOM), to the Central Command (or CENTCOM), which covers the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia.

Israel has been reportedly working very closely with Saudi Arabia, and a confluence of other allies in the Middle East, that are concerned that the Biden Administration will return to the original stipulations of the Iran Nuclear Deal.

This anti-Iran coalition led by Israel and Saudi Arabia, is determined to convince President Biden to use sanctions to squeeze more concessions out of Iran, including pressuring the regime to suspend its ballistic missile program, and a widespread condemnation of various regional militias operated by the regime.

President Biden, who as vice president led the charge on Capitol Hill to lobby in support of the Obama Administration’s biggest foreign policy achievement, is determined to re-establish calm in the Persian Gulf and to bring Iran back into the fold of the JCPOA.

While the Israeli and the Saudi lobbies in Washington still pack a powerful punch, their influence on the Biden Administration may be considerably diminished, as support for the U.S partnership with Saudi Arabia is at an all-time low.

Biden has said “I would make it very clear we were not going to in fact sell more weapons to them. We were going to in fact make them pay the price and make them in fact the pariah that they are".

Still, while relations between the Biden administration and the two closest U.S. allies in the Middle East may be strained, they are still close.