How to deal with the heir to the Saudi throne, Joe Biden’s dilemma to be solved

WASHINGTON.– When he was a candidate, the Democrat Joe biden He left no doubt as to how he believes the United States should treat the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

His intention, he then put forward, was “Make the Saudis pay the price and turn them into the outcasts they really are”. Biden was equally strict with the Saudi royal family: “The current Saudi government is not reporting any perks that can redeem him,” the then candidate said.

Now, as president, Biden will have to deal with this government, whether or not it is a benefit to society. And he will have to pilot a series of promises he made during the campaign, such as cutting arms deliveries and making public the findings of US intelligence services on the role of the Saudi crown prince and, indeed, the leader of the country, Mohammed bin Salman. , in the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi while he was at his country’s consulate in Istanbul, where he went for a procedure.

This process will probably start these days, after the conversation Biden had this Thursday with Salman ben Abdulaziz, the sick king. And while the phone conversation was surely full of diplomatic flattery, White House sources claim the real purpose of the call was to warn the King that the intelligence report on this incident will be declassified and released shortly. .

The White House neither denies nor confirms this detailed choreography of events, and the officials consulted even denied that there had been a planned meeting between the two leaders, while preparations were obvious.

“The intention of the president and his government is to recalibrate our relations with Saudi Arabia”White House press secretary Jen Psaki told media last Wednesday.

While the Trump administration dealt freely with the Crown Prince – who was in contact with Jared Kushner, the former president’s son-in-law and adviser – Biden’s position is that King Salman remains the ruler of the country and the only one with whom he agrees. speak directly. With the Crown Prince serving as Minister of Defense, they informed him that his contacts would be with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin.

But protocol issues are less important than the radical change in treatment that Saudi authorities will undergo.

Almost three weeks ago, at the US State Department, Biden ordered end to sale of offensive weapons and other equipment to Saudis for Yemen war, which he called a “strategic and humanitarian catastrophe”.

US defensive weapons will continue to circulate, primarily as protection against Iranian missiles and drones. But Biden wanted to keep his campaign promise to end the Trump-era practice of forgiving the Saudis for their human rights violations to preserve jobs in the US arms industry.

But going directly against Crown Prince Mohammed, the relentless and indefatigable son of the king, known as MBS, is a very different matter for the Biden government.

The contents of the CIA report are not a mystery: in November 2018, the daily The New York Times reported that intelligence agencies had concluded that the crown prince had ordered the murder of Khashoggi, who had been drugged and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey.

The CIA confirms its conclusion with evidence from two sets of communications: intercepted conversations of the prince days before the murder and calls from the hitman team to a close associate of MBS.

The Trump administration applied sanctions to 17 Saudis involved in the assassination, but never declassified the intelligence findings. – without even omitting the sources -, and dodged any question about Prince Mohammed.

In fact, senior officials in the Trump administration used to get angry when they pointed out their lack of commitment to the evidence collected, and on several occasions they have backed down by asking whether the States- United had to abandon an important strategic alliance due to the death of a single dissident journalist.

The big question now is what direct action Biden intends to take against the Crown Prince.

“I hope your message is that MBS should be punished with the same sentence we inflicted on the 17 other accomplices in the murder,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy Now for the Arab World, an NGO created by Khashoggi himself. . “Entry ban into the United States and asset freeze.” Less than that, it would give preferential treatment and it would reduce the severity of the sanctions imposed on others, “he added.

“Even the Trump administration was forced to act” against the other 17, says Whitson. “The message to the Saudis must be, ‘Get this guy out.’

David sanger

The New York Times

The New York Times

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