Why America is bowing its head in Saudi Arabia

By Bobby Ghosh

The White House has confirmed that US President Joe Biden will visit Saudi Arabia next month, where he is expected to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He is the same prince that Biden had pledged to make an international outcry over the 2018 assassination of Jamal Kasogi, the Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist.

The Biden government is trying to “sell” this process as a resumption of US-Saudi relations, implying that the president is generously abolishing the prince’s regime.

Do not believe it. Biden’s attempt to isolate the prince was an emphatic failure. No world-class leader has followed in the footsteps of the US president to avoid contact with Saudi Arabia’s successor to the throne: China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, France’s Emanuel Macron and Macron Jason of Britain had regular contacts with the MBS, as he is commonly referred to in the English-speaking press as the Saudi prince.

Oil and repentance

If Biden is now paving the way for a visit to the kingdom, it is because he desperately needs to see Saudi Arabia increase its crude oil production in order to tame prices, which have skyrocketed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After weeks of intense persuasion by US officials, the Saudis have agreed to increase production slightly, but not enough to de-escalate prices.

This allows MBS to look generous without losing significant revenue. And with Biden now forced to ask for more – prices need to fall immediately in the run-up to midterm elections in the US in November – it is up to the prince, not the president, to determine the terms of any resumption of relations.

What MBS wants, first and foremost, is a practical statement of remorse on Biden’s part. She actually received it when the White House announced plans for the meeting. The Saudis know that a US president cannot easily openly apologize to a foreign leader, but it will not take long for their handshake to be interpreted as a gesture of American repentance.

The prince will thus be portrayed as a mature and leading figure for the fact that he will have overcome his dissatisfaction with the characterizations that his guest had previously launched against him.

Beyond the embarrassment of the moment, Biden should be grateful for the opportunity to escape the corner in which he had locked himself in, refusing to have any direct contact with the MBS after he was sworn in last year (that he had little hesitation in talking to other bloodthirsty tyrants made his attitude seem – at least – not serious).

Mutual interest

Biden must be able to deal directly with the man who de facto runs a country that is so vital to American economic and geopolitical interests. Beyond that, MBS does not need much from Biden, and what he wants is basically in America’s interest to provide, anyway.

For decades, the Sound House, as the Saudi royal family is known, relied on American weapons – and occasionally American troops – to protect it from its enemies. In addition to equipping the Saudi military with the best weapons the petrodollars can buy and devoting significant resources to protecting shipping routes vital to Saudi exports, the United States has intervened to save the kingdom from Saddam Hussein-type invasions. of Iraq, but also to protect it from the malicious intentions of Iran.

Saddam has long since left the frame, but the threat from Tehran is growing more and more over Riyadh: just a few months ago, rockets and missiles were fired at the Saudi capital by proxies of Iran in the north (north). south (Yemen) of the kingdom. The attacks have stopped after a ceasefire in Yemen, but MBS knows that at any time Iran can open a new round of attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, but also in urban centers of the country.

Russia and China may be able to sell military equipment to the Saudis, but they cannot “play” in the same category as US missile defense systems, which have prevented missiles from hitting Riyadh hard. And since both Moscow and Beijing are friendly to the Tehran regime, the MBS will always be suspicious of who they would support in the event of a Saudi-Iranian conflict.

Guarantees

So MBS will definitely want Biden to provide a clear assurance that the kingdom can count on the US security umbrella, literally and figuratively. He will also want unlimited access to American weapons. Biden has been skeptical of the issue since initially ending US military support for the Saudis in the war in Yemen and later approving the sale of missiles to Riyadh.

In Washington, where the memory of Kasogi’s assassination has not completely faded, there will be some resistance to giving MBS a “pardon”. It will not be difficult, however, for Biden to convince Congress that this is a price to pay for cheaper petrol at the pumps.

The MBS will also seek assurances that Biden’s willingness to enter into a nuclear deal with Iran will not give Tehran the freedom (and, after the lifting of economic sanctions, with significantly increased resources) to extend its influence across the Middle East. East and use its proxies to pose an even greater threat to Saudi Arabia.

There is a possibility that this concern may be unfounded anyway, as the Iranian regime seems to intend to sabotage the nuclear talks in Vienna, claiming that it is impossible to meet the demands. Biden, however, will at least need to convince the prince that, if an agreement is reached, the United States will further strengthen its defense of Saudi Arabia.

Having chosen to create this difficult condition for himself, it is now up to Biden to come out of it on his own. He already appears to be rehearsing for his upcoming trip, praising the Saudis for extending the ceasefire in Yemen. “Saudi Arabia has shown courageous leadership by taking early steps to adopt and implement the terms of the UN-sponsored ceasefire,” he said in a statement.

He may have avoided mentioning the MBS to her in person, but the prince will have the final say when the US president arrives in Riyadh.