JNS
“In many cases, I come into this job knowing the ambassadors, knowing some of the senior diplomats,” Anne Dreazen told JNS.
With Hezbollah’s neutralization, the fall of Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime, attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities and the ceasefire in Gaza, it can be hard to define the “new” Middle East, which appears almost perpetually in motion.
To Anne Dreazen—formerly the most senior civil servant overseeing the Pentagon’s Middle East policy office, where she was principal director—the constant in the region is security.
Washington isn’t the top trading partner for many states in the Middle East, so “security really forms the bedrock of their relationship with the United States,” Dreazen, vice president of the American Jewish Committee’s Center for a New Middle East, told JNS.
Economics is a factor, according to Dreazen, but that tends to be “much more robust with China, with countries like India and other partners,” she said. “What they really want from the United States is help with security, and the United States is really their primary security partner.”
Dreazen, who is Jewish, told JNS that she intends to draw on that approach in her new job at the AJC.
She cited muscular U.S. military assistance to Egypt and Jordan, and American security assurances and defense training to others, as well as U.S. military bases in the region.
“It’s that security piece that these countries know they can’t get anywhere else,” she told JNS. “They can’t get it from China. They can’t get it from Russia and from their other partners, but they know that the United States provides assistance.”
Only Jew ‘in potentially hundreds of miles’
Dreazen, who grew up in a “traditional, observant household” in the Boston area, told JNS that she has always had “a proud Jewish identity.”
After high school, she spent a year in Israel. Subsequently, at Yale University, her first day of classes was canceled due to the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Her time in the Jewish state and the 9/11 attacks led to her deep interest in Middle East security issues, she told JNS.
In her 17 or so years working at the Pentagon, with a one-year break in the middle to work as a defense and foreign-policy fellow to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Dreazen worked on issues related to Iran, Lebanon and Iraq, and directed the department’s Egypt, Israel and Levant desk.
Spending time at Camp Fallujah, a former U.S. base in Iraq that is now run by the Iraqi military, Dreazan was struck that the ancient Talmudic academy of Pumbedita was in that area. She spent time in Fallujah working on reconstruction efforts, alongside U.S. forces and Iraqi organizations, after "Operation Iraqi Freedom."
“There’s nothing left there to see now, but it was quite fascinating to me to think that thousands of years before, there had been many Jewish people in places where I was walking,” she told JNS. “I was there as one of the only Jewish people in potentially hundreds of miles.”
Dreazen served as the Jewish lay leader of the base, whose known Jewish population was three people. A military contractor helped them build a sukkah, and Dreazen recalled that the contractor was confused when told not to add a roof.
“It was very special to have a sukkah under the stars in the desert of Anbar Province. I’ve always found it very meaningful,” she told JNS. “I feel very proud being an American and a Jew, and supporting our national security for so many years and really serving U.S. national security interests.”
Before she departed Iraq, Dreazen’s mother contacted Jewish chaplains, asking them to find a nice Jewish man for her, she told JNS. Her mom’s meddling paid off, as the note, which included Dreazen’s photograph, was forwarded around Washington and ended up in the inbox of Yochi Dreazen, a Wall Street Journal defense correspondent. He recognized her at the Pentagon.
“He found someone to make an introduction and invited me to coffee to talk about my time in Iraq,” she told JNS. The couple now has three children.
‘Security is a real priority’
At the AJC, Dreazen manages more than a dozen people, who work in Jerusalem, Abu Dhabi and Washington. Her experience throughout the Middle East serves her well, she told JNS.
“My background in security has helped me develop senior relationships with some of these countries,” she said. “In many cases, I come into this job knowing the ambassadors, knowing some of the senior diplomats, because even on the diplomacy side, they know security is a real priority.”
A veteran of "Operation Inherent Resolve" in Iraq, Dreazen learned that U.S. military might is part of a toolbox, but not the lone element that helps attain broader goals.
She appreciated the chance at the AJC to “be working on some of these other soft power lines of security and stability, and really digging deep into how we could put more meat on the bone of the Abraham Accords, to make it not just an agreement on paper but something that has additional dimensions and a lot more substance,” she said.
“Economic and business development and people-to-people exchanges are also essential to form a more lasting and strong foundation for long-term security and stability,” she told JNS.
If approached correctly, new developments in the region are in the interests of both U.S. and Israeli security.
“There are opportunities potentially with Syria and Lebanon, which I don’t think we would have anticipated in any way, even a year ago,” she told JNS. “The changes that have taken place in both of those countries have been astounding.”
“It’s important to explore whether or not there can be further progress in developing a more productive and peaceful relationship with the State of Israel,” she said. “I see this as something that is very much in the U.S. national security interest.”
Since starting her job last month, Dreazen has met with government officials, business leaders and civil society partners on a visit to the United Arab Emirates and attended the International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue, which was held from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 in Bahrain.
“What really stuck out to me was that at the leadership and government level, most of these countries really remain deeply committed to the Abraham Accords,” she said. “It’s also clear to me that public opinion right now is presenting significant problems with Israel.”
Dreazen is hopeful that with the ceasefire in effect in Gaza, “there’s a really strong desire to get these relationships back on track and to deepen our ties,” she told JNS.
