“It all sounds too good to be true, and that’s because it is,” said William Walldorf, a senior fellow at the think tank Defense Priorities and a political and international affairs professor at Wake Forest University. “Advocates of the grand bargain have it all wrong. The deal will be no bargain at all for the United States but will instead turn into a major drain on U.S. security. In essence, high costs and no gain.”
In a recent analysis, Mr. Walldorf said grand-bargain proponents were operating under “several faulty assumptions.”
“First, they overestimate Chinese interests and power, Saudi capacity to leave the U.S.-led regional order and the added security benefits of Saudi-Israeli normalization. In short, China won’t and can’t supplant the United States in the Middle East, the Saudis can’t leave the U.S.-led order, and Saudi-Israeli cooperation against Iran is already robust.”
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