Mohammed Soliman writes on the impact of the Abraham Accords in The National Interest.

On July 13, President Joe Biden will attend the first-ever leaders’ summit of the United States, UAE, India, and Israel. Occurring during Biden’s major trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel, the summit affirms the rise of a new geopolitical reality: the emergence of West Asia. This new integrated region—always nascent—was suddenly birthed amid the twin geopolitical shocks of the fall of Kabul and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Coupled with widening Arab-Israeli rapprochement and India’s realignment from Iran to the Arab Gulf states, the emergence of West Asia has unleashed an unprecedented opportunity to pull together the siloed threads of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and South Asia.

West Asia is a geographic system linked through peace and conflict. Changing geopolitical realities have brought together traditionally odd regional powers—India, Israel, and the UAE—into a “warm peace” that seeks deeper economic and security integration. In the same system are Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, which act independently and assertively to advance their own interests in the region, sometimes with the help of outside powers such as Russia and China. West Asia is now a geopolitical reality, and policymakers around the world should incorporate the Middle East and South Asia into a new West Asia paradigm that captures the new geopolitical reality.

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