In the final months of the Trump regime, Jared Kushner, the senior adviser to US President Donald Trump, traveled to the Gulf to pursue long-lasting achievements in US Middle East diplomacy, along with the resolution of a Saudi-led blockade of Qatar.
Analysts reported that Kushner, who allegedly landed in Saudi Arabia on Monday, is presumably seeking to accomplish late-stage milestones in the Middle East diplomacy of the administration, characterized by pursuing Israeli interests and imposing full pressure on Iran.
This includes breaking Qatar's more than the three-year-long ground, air, and sea blockade by Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbors, Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and trying to unite Tehran with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
In June 2017, the blockading nations suspected Qatar of moving too near to Tehran and promoting "terrorism." Qatar had repeatedly been dismissing these claims and refused to cooperate with a list of 13 conditions, which included reducing political relations with Iran and shutting down Qatar's Turkish naval base.
"I see all of [Kushner's] agenda items connected to enhancing Israel's interests and Israel's position," an American University professor and a previous senior State Department official, William Lawrence, told a news source. "They include continuing to maximize efforts against Iran by trying to solve the Gulf blockade of Qatar totally or in part."
Moreover, in recent months, the United States has supervised normalization settlements among Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan, and it is predicted that Kushner will make one last effort to secure the normalization of relations among Riyadh and Tel Aviv.
Saudi Arabia portraying flexibility
The trip happened soon after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's post-US election trip to the country. As per the Israeli press, they had a historical discussion in the Saudi city of Neom involving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and MBS that did not lead to a normalization settlement.
However, witnesses said that Kushner's efforts in the remaining days of the administration to address the Qatar blockade act as a perfect end to Trump's initially inconsistent answer to the Gulf crisis that took place in his first year in service.
Executive Director of Arab Center Washington DC, Khalil Jahshan, told Al Jazeera that the visit also comes as Riyadh has shown "more of a flexibility than we've seen in the past." At the same time, "distancing itself from its main ally in the Gulf," the UAE remains to take a hard line towards Qatar.
According to analysts, Saudi progress or compromise in the Gulf crisis might bring the Trump administration a closing triumph. This is a beginning to help pave the way out for the next US administration.
Great attention has been paid to returning back Saudi overflight rights to Qatar when it comes to potential major concessions.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi Foreign Minister, stated in October that in the "relatively near future" there might be a way to end the dispute.
