After years of President Donald Trump shielding Riyadh from punishment over the murder of a journalist, President Joe Biden entered the White House. Biden said that Saudi Arabia would be made a pariah on the global stage, and pledged to pursue a foreign policy centered on human rights.
Biden is expected to visit Saudi Arabia later this month to discuss the oil crisis in light of the war in Ukraine and the upcoming elections. With the US and its European allies embargoing Russian oil over the war, the Biden administration is looking to Saudi Arabia to help.
The expected visit, which has been reported on by The New York Times and The Washington Post but has not been confirmed by the White House, is a sign that Biden has been forced into a corner and feels he has to prioritize business over ethics. By visiting the oil-rich country, the experts said Biden would effectively be declaring that maintaining friendly relations with Prince Mohammed is more important than punishing him for his crimes.
"A presidential trip to Saudi Arabia right now is going to be confirmation, validation not just that it's business as usual but that MBS got away with murder," said a former US diplomat who advised multiple secretaries of state.
The Biden administration released a declassified intelligence report that implicated the Saudis in the murder of the journalist. The release of the report resulted in sanctions being slapped on a number of Saudis.
The war in Ukraine is part of a global fight between democracy and autocracy, according to Biden. Miller wants to know why it's a good idea to meet with a man who's among the most repressive authoritarians in the region.
Miller said that Biden is sending a "powerful signal that it's ok now to do business with MBS."
Miller said that Biden is torn about this and that he wants to prioritize democracy and human rights. According to Miller, Biden was being very ambitious.
Trita Parsi is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He said it's not just the murder of Khashoggi, but the murder of a lot of Yemen's children. The UN says that over 10,200 children have been killed or injured in the Yemen war since Saudi Arabia first intervention in 2015.
In an interview with Insider, a senior fellow at UCLA said that visiting Saudi Arabia would be a mistake.
It's not clear what the return will be, whether oil, normalized relations with Israel, or a great power competition with China and Russia. Without a presidential visit to Riyadh, there are alternatives to advance these issues and maintain a working relationship. Kaye said it was a bad deal for Biden to compromise on principles for modest returns.
Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC, told Insider that a presidential visit to Saudi Arabia would not be surprising.
Ibish said that Biden is not doing anything that any responsible US president would not do. Making difficult choices is part of statecraft.
The administration has to consider more than the economic consequences of the war. The US has to consider other ways to help contain and deter an Iranian regime that appears determined to get a nuclear weapon if the talks with Iran are not revived.
The relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia is built on shared interests. The United States needs a partner in the Gulf region to help secure the energy resources of our major trading partners and the global economy while Saudi Arabia needs the United States to guarantee its fundamental security.
The Secretary of State spoke at an event marking the 100th anniversary of Foreign Affairs magazine. He described Saudi Arabia as a "critical partner" in confronting extremists in the region and in dealing with the challenges posed by Iran.
The administration wants to make sure that there is sufficient supplies of energy on world markets at a time that this is being increasingly challenged.
If the president had returned to the Iran nuclear deal during his first days in office, the situation would have been avoided. Parsi said that Saudi Arabia's influence over global oil prices has been enhanced by the fact that Iran has stopped exporting oil. The sanctions on Iranian oil were put in place by Donald Trump after he withdrew from the Iran nuke deal. The US might be able to lift the sanctions if the deal is restored.
Parsi said that Biden's approach to Saudi Arabia was not a failure because he was due to fail. It failed due to him giving up. He made bad decisions.
Biden could have stood up for what he thought was right. He's been in office for a year and a half, and he's decided to cave.
The president did not rule out going to Saudi Arabia in the future.
I'm trying to find a way to bring more stability and peace to the Middle East. I could possibly meet with both the Israelis and the Arabs. Saudi Arabia would be included in that if Biden went, he said.
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