Responding to a question on Tuesday about when Biden will speak to the heir to the desert kingdom Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, press secretary Jen Psaki replied: “We have made it clear from the beginning that we will recalibrate our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Arabia “.
“And part of that goes back to the engagement, counterpart to counterpart. The president’s counterpart is King Salman, and I expect him to have a conversation with him in due course. I don’t have a calendar forecast for that. ”
Whether it’s a strict protocol or a deliberate downgrade of the MBS rankings, this move reflects Biden’s public disapproval of the leader in anticipation that the CIA concluded he knew of the plans that led to the Washington Post columnist’s assassination. , Jamal Khashoggi, in October 2018.
During the campaign, Biden said he would treat Saudi Arabia as an “outcast.” His election NSA, Avril Haines, says he will make public a report on Khashoggi’s brutal murder at the hands of Saudi agents at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
It is possible that Psaki also diplomatically indicated the end of the comfortable and cornered relationship that MBS enjoyed under former President Donald Trump. The unpredictable prince often bypassed the State Department through phone calls and meals with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and special adviser in the Middle East.
The fact that MBS has been announced so publicly will be an embarrassment that it cannot hide, but it does not mean that it will not participate in Biden’s calls with the king.
MBS is the power behind the monarchy and the vision that shapes the country’s future. Assuming that MBS will not know what Biden is saying to the king or will not help shape the answers would be an underestimation of his influence.
But perhaps what interests President Biden is not the impact the diplomatic fall will have on the kingdom, but how it will resonate with the rest of the world.
A central theme of his first presidential foreign policy speech earlier this month was the support for human rights and the power that flowed from it.
“Defending freedom. Supporting opportunity. Supporting universal rights. Respecting the rule of law. And treating every person with dignity. This is the core of our global policy. Our global power. This is our inexhaustible source of strength,” he said.
With this force, Biden intends to take advantage of Allied aid to control China, the biggest challenger of its foreign policy.
“We will confront China’s economic abuses, we will counter its aggressive and coercive actions to push China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property and global governance,” he continued.
” [Chinese Communist Party’s] The diplomatic institution fears that the Biden administration, realizing that the United States will soon be unable to reconcile itself with Chinese power, could form an effective coalition of countries in 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 great democracies is a first step in that direction, “Rudd wrote.
Little surprise then that the hard-working Saudi, a wonderful friend and relative in the great challenges he faces in China, appeared so easily from Biden’s playing card.
One of the first shakes of Biden’s foreign policy was to tell the Saudis that he would no longer support the war in Yemen, including the sale of precision-guided bombs that helped carry out that military campaign. He said he would only support them diplomatically.
Several Saudi sources have recently indicated that all remains well in the long-term US-Saudi relationship. Indeed, well-positioned insiders, who spoke a few months ago, said they anticipate touching a hard patch after Biden arrives at the White House, but expects it to recover after that.
The lesser-known figures remain closed 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 MBS approaches these detentions predicts how far the Crown Prince is willing to bow and how far Biden is willing to press the Saudi government.
For now, the message has been heard and absorbed. A counter-fist is unlikely. Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the United States spans generations of presidents and kings. This could be the oscillation that most Saudis expected.