BIDEN PLANNING TRIP TO SAUDI ARABIA
Move an effort to repair relations after journalist’s death
President Joe Biden, who as a candidate vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” in response to the assassination of a prominent dissident, has decided to travel to its capital, Riyadh, this month to rebuild relations with the oilrich kingdom at a time when he is seeking to lower gas prices at home and isolate Russia abroad.
While the timing was still being discussed, Biden planned to add the visit to a previously scheduled trip to Europe and Israel, administration officials said, asking for anonymity because the trip had not been formally announced. During his stop in Riyadh, the president will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was deemed responsible for the dismemberment of the dissident, The Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden will also meet with the leaders of other Arab nations, including Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates.
The visit represents the triumph of realpolitik over moral outrage, according to foreign policy experts. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden has found it necessary to court other energy producers to replace oil from Moscow and stabilize world markets. The group of oil-producing nations called OPEC+, led by Saudi Arabia, announced Thursday that it would increase production modestly in July and August, and U.S. officials
expect the group to do more in autumn, but it may not be enough to bring down prices at the pump before November’s congressional elections.
The Biden administration had already been stepping up cooperation with Saudi Arabia on a variety of issues even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine roiled world energy markets, particularly in seeking an end to the 8-year-old Saudi-led war in neighboring Yemen. A 2-month-old truce was extended Thursday, and
Biden praised Saudi leaders for their role. “Saudi Arabia demonstrated courageous leadership by taking initiatives early on to endorse and implement terms of the U.N.led truce,” he said in a statement.
The diplomacy and the president’s trip signify an effort to repair the rupture in relations stemming from the 2018 death of Khashoggi. U.S. intelligence concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed, the de facto leader of the kingdom, ordered the hit
team that killed and dismembered Khashoggi at a consulate in Istanbul.
While former President Donald Trump remained close with the Saudis, Biden promised to take a different tack if elected to the White House. He said that he would make the Saudis “pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are,” while saying that there was “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia.”
After taking office, Biden
released the intelligence report on Khashoggi’s murder as a statement of accountability and imposed sanctions on some of those involved in the killing. But he took no action against Crown Prince Mohammed, drawing a limit to how far he was willing to break with Riyadh.
The administration argues that it ended the Trump team’s policy of blank checks for Riyadh but was not willing to end America’s 8-decade-old friendship with Saudi Arabia, which has been an important ally on a variety of fronts.
“Saudi Arabia is a critical partner to us in dealing with extremism in the region, in dealing with the challenges posed by Iran, and also I hope in continuing the process of building relationships between Israel and its neighbors both near and further away through the continuation, the expansion of the Abraham Accords,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. He said human rights are still important, but “we are addressing the totality of our interests in that relationship.”
The Abraham Accords, sealed under the auspices of Trump, established normal diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. But Saudi Arabia remains the elusive target, one that would go a long way toward validating Israel’s status in the region if it were to formally recognize the Jewish state.
Biden was already prepared to end the isolation of Crown Prince Mohammed as far back as last October when he expected to encounter the Saudi leader at a meeting of the Group of 20 leaders and most likely would have shaken hands. But the prince did not attend.
The newly planned stop in Riyadh, previously reported by David Ignatius, a columnist for the Post, produced quick criticism from human rights groups. They denounced any diplomatic rehabilitation of Crown Prince Mohammed.