The Biden administration foreign policy is one in which domestic consideration such as connection to former President Trump or the Republican Party qualifies a certain country as “unfriendly” and therefore “an enemy of sorts.” It is the case of the Biden administration treatment of Saudi Arabia, and potentially of Benjamin Netanyahu’s incoming coalition government.
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has identified the Saudis and Netanyahu with the Republican Party. The oil interests of the senior Bush administration and its former Secretary of State James Baker were indeed heavily involved with Saudi Arabian oil. This, however, was a bygone era, when Saudi Arabia was one of the most repressive regimes on earth with brutal punishments such as cutting off limbs for theft, decapitation as punishment for infidelity, and the ill treatment of women in general. Slavery in Saudi Arabia was abolished as late as 1962.
The Saudis under King Salman, and Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), have chartered a new and more moderate course. MBS, the effective ruler of the desert kingdom, has restrained the fanatical Wahhabi religious establishment, and is seeking to diversify and modernize the Saudi economy beyond oil. MBS has relaxed the restrictions on women and has been supportive of the Abraham Accords that established a warm peace between Israel and United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.
To the Biden administration, the critical issue is whether the Saudis will be helpful against the Republican attacks on the administration’s energy policy in general and the inflationary pressures the progressives “green energy” has caused. The administration’s restrictions on domestic energy production caused skyrocketing cost at the fuel pump. Therefore, President Biden traveled to Riyadh last July “hat in hand,” to implore the Saudis to increase their oil production. Biden though, vilified MBS and held him responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, at the Saudis consulate in Istanbul. Biden expected Saudi compliance, which did not occur. OPEC voted to cut production by 2 million barrels per day. In October 2022, the White House asked the Saudis to delay the cuts in oil production voted by the OPEC cartel. The Biden administration then accused the Saudis of taking Russia’s side in Moscow’s war with Ukraine.
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| LINK: The art of the peace deal, Trump’s masterful détente |
Saudi Arabia is clearly not a western democracy, and its human rights record is nothing to be proud of. America has nevertheless been protective of the Saudi regime ever since FDR met with Ibn Saud in 1945. America has relied, rightly or wrongly on the Saudis to fuel the western economies. While the Biden administration has accused Riyadh of collusion with Moscow, Biden’s former boss, Barrack Obama colluded with Russia in the Syrian civil war. Obama issued a “red line” to the Assad regime for using chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, and instead of punishing the Syrian dictator, he submitted to Putin’s interests. The Saudis and the Sunni-Muslim Gulf Arabs asked Obama to demand that Russia stop its bombing of Syrian hospitals and schools which targeted primarily Sunni-Muslims. He replied to them, “Talk to Vladimir Putin yourselves.” --->READ MORE HERE
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