What’s behind Biden’s affront to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman

Responding to a question on Tuesday about when Biden would speak to Crown Prince of the Desert Kingdom, Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, press secretary Jen Psaki replied: “We made it clear from the beginning that we are going to recalibrate our relationship with Saudi Arabia. “

“And part of that is going back to engagement, counterpart to counterpart. The president’s counterpart is King Salman, and I hope that, at the appropriate time, he will have a conversation with him. I don’t have a prediction of the schedule on which.”

Whether it is the strict protocol or the intended reduction of the MBS rating, the move reflects Biden’s public disapproval of the ruler waiting for the CIA to conclude that it knew of the plans that resulted in the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.

During the campaign, Biden said he would treat Saudi Arabia as an “outcast”. His choice of the NSA, Avril Haines, says he will make public a report on Khashoggi’s brutal murder at the hands of Saudi agents within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Psaki may also have diplomatically indicated the end of the cozy relationship that MBS enjoyed under former President Donald Trump. The unpredictable prince often bypassed the State Department through phone calls and dinners with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and special adviser to the Middle East.

The fact that MBS has been warned so publicly will be an embarrassment that he will not be able to hide, but it does not mean that he will not be on Biden’s connections with the King.

MBS is the power behind the monarchy and the vision that shapes the country’s future. To assume that MBS will not know what Biden says to the king or will not help shape the responses would be to underestimate his influence.

A recent example of the MBS’s power behind the throne came at the end of November last year. Israeli sources leaked that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with MBS in the kingdom, marking a huge diplomatic shift between the two countries. Several Saudi ministers denied it publicly and privately. Experienced Saudi observers believe this was because MBS did not tell his father about the extremely delicate visit and needed to cover his tracks.

But perhaps what interests President Biden is not the impact that the diplomatic offensive will have within the kingdom, but how it will have repercussions in the rest of the world.

A central theme of his first presidential speech on foreign policy earlier this month was the defense of human rights and the power that comes with it.

“Defending freedom. Defending opportunities. Defending universal rights. Respecting the rule of law. And treating all people with dignity. This is the guiding principle of our global policy. Our global power. This is our inexhaustible source of strength,” he said. he.

Biden administration stops arms sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE

With that strength, Biden plans to enlist the help of allies to contain China, its biggest foreign policy opponent.

“We are going to confront China’s economic abuses, combat its aggressive and coercive action to repel China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property and global governance,” he continued.

As described by former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, in a recent Foreign Affairs article, Biden will use his “Democracy Summit” this year to focus on China’s abuse of Uighur Muslims and other human rights violations in an effort to limit Beijing’s growing power.

“THE [Chinese Communist Party’s] The diplomatic establishment fears that the Biden government, realizing that the United States will soon be unable to equal Chinese power on its own, could form an effective coalition of countries across the democratic capitalist world with the express aim of counterbalancing China collectively. In particular, CCP leaders fear that President Joe Biden’s proposal to hold a summit of the world’s largest democracies represents a first step on that path, ”wrote Rudd.

It is no surprise, then, that getting hard on Saudi, a goldfish friend and relative in the sea of ​​challenges he faces in China, emerged so easily from Biden’s manual.

Telling the Saudis that he would no longer support the war in Yemen, including the sale of precision-guided bombs that helped make this military campaign possible, was one of the first changes in Biden’s foreign policy. He said he would only support them diplomatically.

Several Saudi sources have recently indicated that everything is going well in the long-term relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Indeed, well-positioned sources speaking several months ago said they predicted they would have a difficult time when Biden arrived at the White House, but hope to recover after that.

Empowerment of Saudi women
In the meantime, MBS appears to be bowing amid Biden’s human rights blitz. He ordered judicial reforms, in part to protect human rights and remove inequalities in the way laws are interpreted. High-level activists, including Loujain al-Hathloul, have been released from prison, although they still face costly restrictions.

But lesser-known figures remain in prison and a key partner in the Obama-Biden White House, former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, remains under house arrest, according to sources familiar with the situation. The way the MBS handles these arrests predicts how far the Crown Prince is willing to fold and how far Biden is willing to go when he presses the Saudi government.

For now, the message has been heard and absorbed. A counter strike is unlikely. Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the United States spans generations of presidents and kings. This could be the swing that most Saudis expected.

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