JERUSALEM – This is what international diplomacy has achieved in the era of President Biden, also known as POTUS.
A few months ago he went to Asia where, after abandoning the TPP, he tried to found the IPEF and also met the Quad. After returning home, he went to Los Angeles to chair SOA with OAS. Then he went to Europe, where he met with the G7 and NATO.
Now on his first trip as president to the Middle East, he is trying to reassure Israel about the Iran talks with P5+1 (also known as EC+3) and discussing the established MEAD to defend against UAVs. a virtual meeting for the first time with I2U2. And finally, he will go to Saudi Arabia to join GCC+3 while quietly trying to win a little more cooperation from OPEC Plus.
The alphabet soup of modern diplomacy has long demanded a menu that keeps up with the ingredients. But even as Washington is looking to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world, it is doing nothing to prevent the proliferation of new clusters of countries and the acronyms that come with them. Indeed, while Mr. Biden did not invent the term international relations, he is adding it to a kind clip.
Join IPEF. It stands for Indo-Pacific Economic Frameworka new trade bloc with dozens of countries that he founded during his May trip to Korea and Japanan admission that it would be politically impossible for rejoin TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a more expansive but controversial trade agreement negotiated by President Barack Obama when Biden was vice president. Mr. Biden did not establish SOA, or the Summit of the Americas, a gathering of nations from the OAS, or the Organization of American States, but he is the first president to host it in nearly three decades.
In the Middle East, he is aiming for a new link between Israel and its Arab neighbors known as Middle East Air Defense Alliance, or MEADthis will synchronize different systems for defense against Iranian missiles, missiles and, yes, UAVs or drones (read: drones).
And on Thursday, he’s hosting the inaugural meeting of a new alliance, I2U2, which sounds like a “Star Wars” droid but is actually Israel, India, the United Arab Emirates. United Arab Emirates and the United States. (Two is and two of us, get it?)
Mr. Biden will then travel to Saudi Arabia on Friday, the most politically volatile time of the trip. It won’t have TGIF for him.
