Saudi Arabia is pushing for a tighter relationship with the incoming Biden government after four years in which President Trump
Trump hotel in DC raises room rates for Biden inauguration GOP legislator criticizes Trump, colleagues for ‘trying to discredit’ election. Video shows long queues on the last day of early voting in Georgia. gave a direct line to the Oval Office and provided support, even though some of its policies and actions caused controversy and dual contempt.
The Trump-Saudi relationship has been a constant source of tension between the White House and many Republicans in Congress, hinting at the Kingdom’s involvement in the assassination of US Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the unwavering support of the Saudi White House. war effort in Yemen. These actions also drew fierce criticism from Democrats.
Elected President Joe Biden
Joe BidenBidens honors frontline workers in NYE address: ‘We owe them, we owe them, we owe them’ Trump hotel in DC raises room rates for Biden inauguration. called Saudi Arabia a ‘pariah’ and promised a strong hand in relations with the country, especially in confronting Riyadh about his human rights violations.
The Trump years were in some ways a golden period for the Saudi, as the GOP government turned the US sharply in the direction of Riyadh by pulling the US out of the nuclear deal with Iran. The government’s aggressive anti-Iran policy also led to a military strike that killed the leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Saudi Arabia, which has seen the Obama administration’s negotiations with Tehran as an undesirable overture, expects a more strained relationship with Biden’s team. It is already calming turbulent waters between Washington and Riyadh, with the expected release of a prominent women’s rights activist and a possible rapprochement with its blockade of Qatar, which is home to one of the US Central Command’s headquarters. at the Al Udeid Air Base.
“They have no friends here,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who advised both Republican and Democratic governments on U.S. policy in the Middle East. “Congress is hostile, the Trump administration is on the way out, the Biden administration has made clear what its view is.”
Saudi Arabia is expected to release prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Haltoul in March.
Al-Haltoul was arrested on Monday on charges of terrorism and was sentenced on Monday to nearly six years in prison on charges of politically motivated human rights groups. But the terms of her sentence leave open the possibility of an early release.
“I do not think it is coincidental,” said Hussain Ibish, a senior resident of the Arab Gulf State Institute in Washington, about the sentence.
Biden’s incoming national security adviser Jake Sullivan
Jake SullivanBiden frustration grows over lack of Trump cooperation in transition Incoming National Security Adviser: Pentagon has not allowed a meeting with the Biden transition team since Dec. 18. tweeted that the sentence was “unfair and disturbing” and that “the Biden-Harris government will take action against human rights violations wherever they occur.”
Saudi Arabia also wants to take steps to resolve its four-year blockade of Qatar, which arose as a result of Riyadh’s frustration over Doha’s relations with Tehran.
Saudi King Salman on Wednesday allegedly invited Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar to the Gulf Cooperation Council’s January 5 meeting in what is being seen as an attempt to resolve the dispute.
“I think this is something that the Biden government will address a lot,” Ibish said. “I do not think they want to inherit the Qatari boycott.”
The Saudis are skeptical that the government of Biden Obama will be 2.0, with many of the same faces of the previous Democratic government returning to different roles.
These include Sullivan, who was the chief negotiator in the initial talks that led to the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, and Antony Blinken
Antony Blinken Meets Biden to lead the American intelligence community Mnuchin, says he spoke to Biden Treasury nominee Yellen Next steps for foreign policy MORE, Biden’s nominee as foreign minister. Blinken served as Biden’s national security adviser when he was vice president and deputy secretary of state between 2015 and 2017.
In particular, Blinken is seen as part of a younger generation of foreign policy advisers who served in the Obama administration and supported former President Obama’s support for democratic change in the Middle East.
And although Biden has said he will ‘reevaluate’ US relations with Saudi Arabia, he has indicated he wants more to restore balance on the world stage, rather than embark on a revolutionary policy shift.
The Biden transition team said it was no longer possible to comment on what the president-elect had said on the campaign, pointing to his past comments on US-Saudi relations.
Biden issued a statement on the second anniversary of Khashoggi’s assassination in October, saying the Biden-Harris government would reevaluate US relations with Saudi Arabia and end Washington’s support for the Saudi – led war in Yemen. He also expressed support for Saudi activists, dissidents and journalists, saying the US would not “check its values at the door to sell weapons or buy oil”.
Tamara Cofman Wittes, senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said reevaluation was needed to counter the culture of impunity against Saudi Arabia under the Trump administration, while also reflecting a changing world .
“The changes in global energy markets mean that Saudi Arabia’s role in world oil prices is not as dominant as before,” she said. “The Middle East in general is less central to US global strategy.”
“But you can not take relationships in general for granted, and I think that is true here,” she added.
These include reports from the Saudi government trying to kidnap one of its critics on U.S. soil and FBI assessments that the Kingdom is using its diplomatic facilities to help Saudi citizens escape prosecution in U.S. courts. In November 2019, two former Twitter employees and a Saudi citizen were charged by the Justice Department with acting as illegal agents of a foreign government.
“This desire to reevaluate may be caused by some of the very worrying Saudi behaviors we have seen over the past few years, but it is also driven by these trends that really cannot be ignored,” Wittes said. Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama administration.
Riyadh is holding an important bargaining chip with the Biden administration over whether he wants to open relations with Israel, following the mediation by the Trump administration of diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
While Saudi Arabia maintains silent security ties with Israel in the face of Iran, and has taken small steps to soften relations – such as opening airspace for Israeli commercial flights – it has so far remained full of ties over Saudi King Salman’s commitment to the Palestinians.
‘If and when – the Saudis decide to take another step towards normalization with Israel – I will see that this is a way to make their very low relationship with what they expect, an incoming Biden government, to awaken. , ”Said Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia is seen as a ridiculous but essential alliance, based on shared goals about shared values, said Ibish of the Arabian Gulf Institute.
This includes the need for US relations with Saudi Arabia as part of broader alliances to thwart China’s global ambitions, destabilize Russia’s activities and maintain stability in the Middle East.
Riyadh, in turn, needs the security provided by the US as a global force to ensure its own national integrity.
“For the US, this is global politics at its highest level,” Ibish said. “The two countries hold on to each other.”