Biden’s public reprimand for Saudi prince is a gamble

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Picture: AFP

When members of the foreign policy establishment in Washington get annoyed with Saudi Arabia they like to remind everyone that the country is not a US ally, only a “partner”.

The US has never signed a treaty with Saudi Arabia, the policy wonks point out. At times since World War II, national interests have aligned. That is all that officially underlies America’s most unpopular overseas relationship.

US President Joe Biden in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Picture: AFP

In Saudi Arabia, that is not how things are seen. Ever since American companies were given its first oil concessions in the 1930s, its monarchs have looked to the US for support. A photograph of King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud meeting president Franklin D. Roosevelt on the USS Quincy in February 1945 adorns the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington. It is, in Saudi eyes, proof of the promise — oil for security — the king felt he was offered. It is also a hint that for Saudi Arabia such relationships are sealed personally, and that slights dished out by US leaders will be received accordingly.

The late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, left, welcomes Barack Obama to Riyadh in 2009.

President Joe Biden knows this. So when his spokeswoman said he wanted to recalibrate the relationship with Riyadh and would deal directly with King Salman, not the de facto head of government, Crown Prince Mohammed, she spoke for effect.

This is a rerun of the Obama years. President Barack Obama also signalled displeasure at Saudi Arabia, whose human rights record and historical support for radical Islam make it unpopular in the West and with the Democrats. In 2009 he chose Egypt as venue for the keynote speech in which he “reset” the US’s relationship with the Muslim world. Only at the last minute was he persuaded to make a brief visit beforehand to Riyadh.

After that snub, Saudi Arabia came to be seen as uncooperative as Obama’s Middle East policies, and much of the Middle East, began to fall apart.

Biden clearly hopes that things will work out differently. He would say he has no great plans for the region, compared with the vision of partnership on a path to freedom and democracy that Obama is recalled for outlining in Cairo. Biden wants to focus instead on China, Russia and Europe, advisers say.

The trouble is, a correct reading of Obama’s speech would show that this was his aim too. He seemed to think that it was US support for autocracies such as Riyadh that was the obstacle to peace and democracy, and that leaving the region to itself was the best way to ensure progress. We all know how that worked out.

The Times