‘The Indo-Abrahamic Bloc Will Bring Stability To West Asia’

NEW DELHI: Mohammed Soliman is widely regarded as one of the most influential strategists from the Middle East, particularly in the context of great power competition. His thoughts and writings helped shape a vision for the post-U.S. Middle East. One of Soliman's most significant contributions was his pursuit to redefine the Middle East as West Asia, which he defines as a geopolitical system that stretches from Egypt to India or the maritime space between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Soliman believes that without expanding the Middle East to the East to include India, the region will lack a balance of power. This was the strategic context for his famous “Indo-Abrahamic Alliance,” in which he envisioned a broad alignment between India, Israel, and Arab states to bring back a balance of power. He argued that by engaging with the United States and pursuing areas of common interest such as technology, energy, maritime security, and trade, the Indo-Abrahamic construct could create a stable geopolitical order in the region. This construct was embraced by senior policymakers and resulted in a foreign minister-level meeting, officially launching the I2U2 Group, followed by a leaders’ summit in July 2022. In an interview with Ramananda Sengupta, Soliman explains how the I2U2 and other regional formats could bring about the missing balance of power and reduce the U.S. military footprint in the region, while aligning Washington's interests with regional ones....Read More