By Hussein Aboubakr Mansour | April 8, 2022

A foreign policy without the backing of force is an uncredible foreign policy. What would have been a foundational maxim of statecraft a decade ago today became a contentious notion. US policymakers apparently decided that neither force nor the threat of force are useful foreign policy tools and unwittingly heralding an era of American incredibility. But is this truly about the fear of war? 

Not too long ago, it would have been unimaginable for an Iranian proxy to routinely bomb America’s closest allies in the Middle East or American bases in Iraq, expecting no American retaliation. Moreover, a new American administration inaugurated its foreign policy by removing the first proxy, the Houthis of Yemen, from the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list. This is not a fluke but the result of a new orientation of American foreign policy backed by an entire ideological paradigm complete with a new historicist foundation. In this paradigm, American force is shunned and disregarded as a support for policy and replaced by openness to accommodations and deference to adversaries. 

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As word continues to leak out about greater concessions made to the Islamic Republic of Iran behind closed doors in Vienna, many of our newly-forged relationships with countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia might be in jeopardy. In December, Sheik Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan traveled to Tehran on a rare visit. In January, Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullallatif bin Rashid Al Zayan traveled to China to meet with Foreign Minister Wang Yi. And Saudi Arabia has invited Chinese leader Xi Jinping to visit the Kingdom as early as this coming May and might actually accept the Chinese currency, the yuan, in lieu of U.S. dollars for its sale of oil to China, which will have a mighty impact on the U.S. economy.
 
And of course, as these talks have been ongoing, the Iranian-backed Houthis have attacked oil fields in Jiddah, as well the Saudi capital Riyadh. On January 17^th , the Houthis attacked the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi, killing three people.
 
Come listen to the expert opinion of Victoria Coates to learn whether the Abraham Accords, painstakingly constructed during the previous administration, can withstand the vicissitudes of the current administration.

Coates previously served as the Deputy National Security Advisor for the Middle East and North Africa on the National Security Council staff and the Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of Energy in the Donald J. Trump administration.  She also served as the National Security Advisor in the office of Sen.Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and as Director of Research for (former) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s 2011 memoir, Known and Unknown.

Coates holds a B.A. from Trinity College, a M.A. from Williams College, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, all in art history.  Coates is the author and presenter of dozens of publications and conference papers worldwide on the intersections of art and history, including David’s Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art (Encounter Books, 2016) and the forthcoming Seeing the Light: A History of Christianity in Twelve Works of Art (under contract with Encounter Books), which are part of a projected trilogy on the key tenets of Western Civilization: democracy, the Judeo-Christian moral code, and the primacy of the individual.

Coates routinely appears on TV and radio outlets such as Fox News, CNN, OANN, Newsmax, The Hugh Hewitt Show, The Erick Erickson Show, The John Batchelor show, and CSP’s own Secure Freedom Radio.  Her writing has appeared in Bloomberg, FoxNews.com, The Jerusalem Post, The New York Post, Newsweek, The National Interest, National Review, The New Criterion, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Examiner, and The Washington Times.