Grand designs The audacious reimagining of the Middle East

In a US election year, Joe Biden is offering diplomatic incentives to rival states in the region-including the recognition of Palestine

- Julian Borger

Last weekend's US airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq marked a new high tide in the violence spreading across the region since the start of the Gaza war.

The Biden administration, however, is now seeking to show it has more in its Middle East policy toolkit than precision-guided bombs. While it was planning the midnight sorties in retaliation for an attack last month on a US base in Jordan, the White House has also been sending signals that it will not let the worsening crisis unfolding in the Middle East go to waste and that it is developing a plan to use the turmoil as an opportunity to transform the region.

The message was sent out through leaks and briefings to sympathetic columnists before last weekend's departure of secretary of state Antony Blinken to the region, his fifth since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on 7 October, which will take him to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank.

Blinken's first four forays achieved little, certainly not for the 2.3 million civilians in Gaza, though the US claimed some credit for the fact that the war did not immediately spread to Lebanon. This time, according to the lines being put out, the secretary of state is carrying something more substantial in his briefing papers: a "grand bargain" deal involving normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and substantial movement towards the recognition of a Palestinian state - all incentivised by diplomatic and economic sweeteners from Washington.

While this push was being briefed in Washington, the UK's foreign secretary, David Cameron, suggested that the UK and the UN security council could recognise Palestine sooner rather than later, saying: "It can't come at the start of the process, but it doesn't have to be the very end of the process."