United States President Joe Biden gives a press conference on the final day of the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain on June 30, 2022.
Jakub Pozhicki | Nurphoto | Getty Images
President Joe Biden heads to Saudi Arabia this week as part of his first trip to the Middle East as commander-in-chief.
He comes with a list of goals, including energy security, rapprochement between the Saudis and Israel, achieving a ceasefire in Yemen and creating a more cohesive regional front against Iran.
But it’s a controversial move for this president, and no one is sure how much he’ll accomplish.
The planned visit drew a lot of criticism, from both the right and the left, for what some called an “awkward” ascent and for revealing a clear reversal from the harsh anti-kingdom rhetoric that Biden used during his candidacy and in the first months of his presidency.
Things are different now. U.S. gasoline is the most expensive it’s ever been, Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine has dramatically tightened global oil supplies, and Biden really, really wants Saudi Arabia and Israel to be friends. So, will the trip feel like an awkward excuse or a reset for two parties with mutual interests?
“I wouldn’t go. I wouldn’t shake his hand,” Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in an interview in June when asked about the president’s planned meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He then mentioned the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the administration blamed on the crown prince. The Saudi government has repeatedly denied the accusation.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends the G20 Leaders’ Summit via video conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on October 30, 2021.
Royal Court of Saudi Arabia | Anatolian Agency | Getty Images
During his 2019 campaign, Biden promised to treat the Saudi kingdom as the “scumbags that they are,” and as president, he has been vocal in his criticism of the country’s human rights abuses. He also insisted on viewing Saudi Arabia’s King Salman as his counterpart rather than the 36-year-old crown prince who runs the kingdom’s day-to-day affairs.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in March reportedly refused to take a call from Biden as the US leader pleaded with Gulf states to increase oil production following a ban on Russian oil imports.
And in an early March interview with the Atlantic, asked if he thought Biden had misunderstood him, the crown prince replied, “I just don’t care. It’s up to him to think about America’s interests.”
“Welcome Reset”
Biden seems to have come to put those interests ahead of what is perhaps a more idealistic narrative.
On Saturday, the president published an op-ed in the Washington Post titled “Why I’m Going to Saudi Arabia.” In it, he claimed that “from the beginning, my goal was to reorient but not to sever relations with a country that has been a strategic partner for 80 years.” He emphasized the importance of US-Saudi relations for stability in the region and for US interests.
Biden is hardly the first president to run on the platform of “human rights will be central to my foreign policy” only to be challenged in office by the realities of the Middle East.
Hussein Ibish
Senior Resident Scholar, Gulf Arab Institute in Washington, D.C
Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst close to the kingdom’s royal court, sees Biden’s visit as a tonic for frayed relations.
“I think the mistake the Biden administration made was that they carried their campaign rhetoric into the administration,” and that “hit a wall of realism,” he told CNBC.
The visit, he said, “is a reset. And I think it’s a welcome reset. Because the relationship is also important to the kingdom. And they would like those clouds to pass.”
“I think by virtue of the visit to the kingdom he puts that behind him and it allows things to go back to where they were with America before,” Shihabi added.
Biden says human rights will still be high on his agenda. But many observers say that is unlikely, given the other security and energy interests in focus.
“Biden is hardly the first president to run on a platform of ‘human rights will be central to my foreign policy,’ only to face the realities of the Middle East in office,” said Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Institute of the Gulf States in Washington.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry and the White House did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Oil and Israel
Biden played down what many analysts say is his administration’s desperate need to see the Saudis and OPEC members pump more oil to ease record high gas prices for Americans.
“Without the war in Ukraine, the tightening of the oil market and the sharp rise in oil prices, there would have been no rapprochement with Saudi Arabia,” Martin Indyk, a former US diplomat and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Financial Times in an interview.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed display their copies of signed agreements as they participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and part of its Middle East neighbors, in a strategic realignment of Middle Eastern countries against Iran, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., September 15, 2020.
Tom Brenner | Reuters
But Biden largely dismissed that, stressing Israel’s security as a top priority. The trip “has to do with national security for them — for the Israelis,” he told reporters in June. This may be an attempt to shift the narrative to a theme that is more widely supported in Washington: Republicans and a majority of Democrats support Israeli-Arab normalization.
The fact that Biden will fly from Israel directly to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is a small hint of progress toward that goal. The Biden administration is also pushing for greater military interoperability between Israel and Arab states to form a single US-led coalition that would create more leverage against Iran.
But any overt engagement is highly unlikely, with security cooperation between the kingdom and Israel likely to continue “behind the scenes” as it has for several years, according to Thorbjorn Soltved, chief MENA analyst at the risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft.
What does Saudi Arabia want?
Although critics say the meeting will put the ball squarely in Saudi Arabia’s court, there are some things the kingdom desperately wants from the U.S. — above all, an ironclad security guarantee.
“Improved air defense,” Shihabi said. “Air defense is absolutely critical to the importance of the entire peninsula, the entire GCC, and I think that’s where Biden can make a big difference. A more formal commitment of resources that would secure GCC airspace would be the big task.”
An Aramco oil depot was engulfed in flames after a missile attack by the Yemeni Houthis. The strike came on the eve of the Saudi Arabian Formula 1 Grand Prix at the Jeddah Corniche circuit.
Peter Jay Fox | Getty Images
Biden angered the Saudis when he withdrew US Patriot missile batteries and other advanced military systems from Saudi Arabia last year, even as the kingdom was hit by rocket and missile attacks from Yemen’s Houthi rebels and other Iran-backed groups.
“Unlikely to lead to a breakthrough”
Despite having a range or shared interests, Biden may still not be able to make a breakthrough in the relationship, says Verisk Maplecroft’s Soltvedt.
“U.S. calls for Saudi Arabia to increase the rate of oil production have fallen on deaf ears. That is unlikely to change,” he said.
Biden’s advisers have also spoken of Saudi Arabia’s commitment to remain fully aligned with the US against Russia and China. But some warn that rapprochement efforts will fall short.
“There is little to suggest that Biden’s strategy of showering the Saudi crown prince … with concessions will result in a sustained Saudi-Emirati commitment to the US side in this century’s great power competition,” Trita Parsi, co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Accountability statesmanship, he wrote in an article for MSNBC.
He argued that a military commitment to protect the Saudis and other allies in the Persian Gulf was not in the US interest.
US military personnel stand next to the M142 High Mobility Artillery Missile System (HIMARS) during the first global defense show in Saudi Arabia, north of the capital Riyadh, on March 6, 2022.
Fayez Nureldain | Afp | Getty Images
“Committing American lives to the defense of these Arab dictatorships is far more scandalous than an embarrassing presidential handshake with the Saudi crown prince,” Parsi said. “In one fell swoop, Biden will break promises to bring troops home from the Middle East, make Saudi Arabia pay a price and end the war in Yemen.”
Still, others argue that a strong relationship with the Saudi leadership, particularly the crown prince, is vital to maintaining U.S. influence in the region — and the world.
“Great power competition with China is not possible by walking away from the Gulf region and hoping for the best,” said Ibish of the Gulf Arab Institute. “On the contrary, it means continued engagement.”
“It is a plausible partnership because of broad, shared mutual interests,” he added, “although in many cases the values are not shared or mutual.”
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