As a candidate, Joe Biden described Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” state to be punished for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the killing of civilians in airstrikes in Yemen.
“They are killing innocent people and they must be held accountable,” he said in November 2019. “The current government in Saudi Arabia has very little social redemption value.”
The White House is now giving the diplomatic cold shoulder to the man leading the government: Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince better known to the world as MBS.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that when Biden makes his first official call to Saudi Arabia as president, it will be 85-year-old King Salman – and not his 35-year-old son who rules the country. .
“We have made it clear from the outset that we are going to recalibrate our relationship with Saudi Arabia,” she said.
This does not mean that the United States is breaking ties with the kingdom, which according to officials is an important country in the Middle East. The Crown Prince is also not completely frozen: he is officially the Minister of Defense in Saudi Arabia and has received a call from the Minister of Defense, Lloyd Austin.
But Psaki’s words were a sign that Crown Prince Mohammed was being held at arm’s length by the White House. The great presidential access he enjoyed under former President Donald Trump is gone when he was housed in the Oval Office and treated like a visiting head of state.
The move may not come as a surprise because Biden accused the crown prince of personally ordering Khashoggi’s assassination – a rating shared by the CIA but strongly denied by Saudi Arabia.
However, it sparked a heated debate: is it sustainable for the US to maintain ties with the Saudi government while sidelining the kingdom’s de facto leader?
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Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who served in the Middle East and is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says yes.
“I can not speak for the administration, but I think it is wise to send the message to Saudi Arabia that the White House has nothing to do with MBS because of its record of reckless violence against civilians,” he told NBC News said.
Crown Prince Mohammed has been widely criticized for overseeing a massive crackdown on differences in the country and the war in neighboring Yemen, which is now the scene of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
Riedel argued that the crown prince’s grip on power in Saudi Arabia was not as firm as it seemed, and that his weakened position with the White House could encourage palace rivals to oust him as heir to the throne. “Endangering the kingdom’s alliance with the United States is not considered an asset.”
Ali Shihabi, a commentator close to the Saudi government, said there was no chance the crown prince would be forced and the White House had no choice but to enter into talks with him.
‘There’s a lot of plays to please the base, because they spoke the big talk during the campaign. “But Biden knows as well as everyone around him that MBS is the CEO of the country,” he said. “Ultimately, he makes all the decisions – the king has given him this power – and they have to deal with him.”
Reality can end up somewhere in the middle. While Biden can avoid naming the crown prince from the White House, the Saudi kingdom usually represents his father at international summits such as the G-20, which could force the president to enter into talks with him.
King Salman’s age and fragile health – he spent ten days in hospital with an inflamed gallbladder in the summer – also mean that the White House’s justification for avoiding the crown prince on the basis of official protocol may not last. The crown prince may soon be the king and thus Biden’s formal counterpart.
The Saudi embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment for this story. A statement from the Saudi government on Friday acknowledged the call between the Crown Prince and Austin, but did not mention the White House’s announcement.
Becca Wasser, a Defense Fellow at the Center for New American Security, said the White House removed from the Crown Prince was part of a restoration of relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia that led to Biden’s decision to leave Washington. to end its aid to Saudi Arabia. war in Yemen.
“Such movements will not be welcome in Riyadh, and as with any recovery, there will be growth pains,” she said. “But the end result is a recalibrated relationship that fits more with American interests and values, and puts an end to the blank check that the Trump administration provided to the Saudis.”