Why It Matters
The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa is convening a hearing Wednesday, July 22 on the next phase of the Abraham Accords, at a moment when the agreement's founding premise faces serious questions. Lawmakers are examining efforts to build a new regional security architecture in the Middle East, but the window for assembling such a coalition may be narrowing. Key players had viewed Saudi Arabia's entry into the agreement as the centerpiece of a broader postwar settlement that could reshape the region, an assumption recent events have significantly undermined, according to a Middle East Forum analysis.
The Big Picture
What once seemed like a matter of timing and terms has become more complicated, leaving open the question of whether any diplomatic framework can overcome the current barriers, or whether the architecture for Middle East security policy needs fundamental rethinking. The stakes were underscored in May, when President Trump pushed leaders of several Arab and Muslim countries to sign peace agreements with Israel once a deal to end the Iran war is reached.
The Bottom Line
The subcommittee will hear from Asher Fredman, a Visiting Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, on the accords' next phase. With Saudi Arabia's posture toward normalization cooling and the Iran war's resolution still unsettled, the hearing is likely to test how much appetite remains in Congress for expanding the accords versus reassessing what a realistic regional security framework looks like without Riyadh at the table.
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