When I posted last night that Kazakhstan was set to join the Abraham Accords, some observers correctly pointed out that Astana has already had official relations with Jerusalem since 1992.
So, what’s this agreement really about? What made Steve Witkoff suddenly remember this huge Central Asian country and add it to the Abraham Accords—alongside Arab countries?
After all, Kazakhstan already has an embassy in Israel. Is this deal really more urgent than countries like Saudi Arabia or Indonesia? Perhaps it goes without saying, but Kazakhstan’s inclusion in the accords does not signal a new era of peace between Israel and the country that brought us Borat. Rather, the goal of the agreement is to bring Kazakhstan into the American-Israeli-Arab alliance against Iran.
The United States has plenty of good reasons to draw this Muslim-majority country closer. After all, its territory is enormous, spanning over 1 million square miles, while the country has a vast amount of resources, including oil, copper, metals, and even uranium (it is actually the world’s largest uranium exporter, producing around half of the global supply).