Netanyahu's euphoria over the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor may be premature

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently celebrated US President Joe Biden's announcement at the G20 summit in New Delhi of the launch of an economic corridor project to connect India with the Middle East and Europe: The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) as it is now known. IMEC will run by sea from India to the United Arab Emirates, then through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel before reaching Europe. The project will also include a new submarine cable as well as energy infrastructure.

Netanyahu praised the project, although there were no details or timeline, calling it good news for Israel. He claimed it would be the largest cooperation project in Israel's history and would change the face of the Middle East and benefit the entire world. He said that Israel would be a central crossroads along this economic corridor, and that the project would lead Israelis into a new, unique and unprecedented era of global and regional cooperation and engagement. Of course, this kind of rhetoric is common in Israel these days, as Israeli leaders try to take credit for their own achievements and exploit the efforts of others for the sake of their popularity on election day.

However, the IMEC project is neither realistic nor feasible for several reasons, the most important of which is that it has the potential to harm the interests of traditional powers in the Middle East, such as Iran, Turkey, and Egypt. The project would bypass Egypt's Suez Canal, which is the main source of income for the country. Egypt is in dire need of this income due to the difficult economic situation, and the implementation of the project will significantly reduce this income; therefore, Egypt has no choice but to reject the IMEC.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not wait long to declare that there would be no such corridor without Turkey, the most suitable route for east-west economic traffic between India, the Middle East and Europe. Ankara views the project as an attempt to bypass this natural intercontinental corridor.

Iran sees IMEC as a blow to the Iran-Iraq railroad project, which is part of China's Belt and Road Initiative. Historically, there was also a partnership between India, Iran and Russia to create the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) in 2000, but it stalled for more than two decades due to pressure from the United States. Tehran is trying to revive it recently by transporting goods from the Russian port of Astrakhan via the Caspian Sea, the Iranian port of Anzali, and then overland to the Gulf, after which the goods are shipped by sea to the Indian port of Nava (Shiva). Tehran enjoys good relations with India, and the U.S. IMEC project would overshadow this positive relationship and push Iran closer to Pakistan and compete with India.

It is no secret that the real goal of the IMEC, from the US perspective, is to compete with China, to harm China's interests and the Belt and Road Initiative, and to create an economic and strategic defense system against China's economic influence in the region. But the UAE and Saudi Arabia are unlikely to risk participating in the project and damaging their relations with countries such as Iran, Turkey and Egypt, as well as their strategic partner China, at a time when they see the American role diminishing under Biden.

For Israel to be a partner in IMEC, full normalization with Saudi Arabia is necessary. There was no mention of any progress in this regard during the G20 summit. Moreover, India is trying not to be part of any bloc system at the same time as it joins Biden's campaign against China. Will India give up its projects in Iran and Russia to join IMEC? Will it give up the North-South Corridor linking Russia to India via Iran?

Announcing this project is one thing, actually implementing it is another. The primary goal is to keep the Israeli government afloat at a time of unprecedented internal crisis in the apartheid state. It is clear that the Biden administration, despite its opposition to Netanyahu, is still acting as the Israeli government's foreign ministry and pressuring Arab and Muslim countries to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, especially Saudi Arabia. However, while Israel declares that normalization with Saudi Arabia is imminent, the United States sees it as unlikely in the near future.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has declared that there will be no concessions to the Palestinians, which appears to be one of Saudi Arabia's conditions for normalization. Smotrich believes that the normalization agreement should only be between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which Riyadh rejects. Moreover, Saudi Arabia wants to be the last country to normalize with Israel, so it will likely not take such a step before Pakistan and Indonesia.

Therefore, I believe that the IMEC project is unlikely to see the light of day, and Netanyahu's joy is misplaced. It also seems that the issue of normalization with Saudi Arabia, which holds tremendous strategic importance for Israel, is of secondary importance to Washington's primary objective, which is competition and confrontation with China.