Biden submitted to the prince
It took more than four years for President Biden to completely set aside his campaign promise to end arms sales to Saudi Arabia, gradually weakening that promise until finally, in the last moments of Friday, August 9, the government announced that it will revoke the sale of air munitions to the aggressive kingdom.
In fact, this prohibition is just the latest sign of an old and abandoned policy to isolate and sanction Saudi Arabia for its various crimes and abuses both domestically and internationally. However, the Biden administration officials have doubled their support for bin Salman and embraced him more, giving him endless perks as a golden ticket for the continued dominance of the United States in the Middle East. They are also working tirelessly to reach a conclusion before the end of Biden’s presidency with unprecedented security guarantees from the United States to the prince.
Cutting ties with the largest arms buyer of the United States comes with completely foreseeable costs.
This action not only upset US arms manufacturing companies that were deprived of Saudi milk cow, but also encouraged bin Salman to strengthen his ties with China and Russia in retaliation. Therefore, just a few months after the first year of the Biden administration, his National Security team retreated from arms sanctions and stated that they only intended to prevent offensive, not defensive, arms.
Congress members’ questions about the difference between these terms remained unanswered, after billions of arms sales went through, paving the way for further improvement in relations with the Saudi ruler, culminating in a handshake between Biden and bin Salman in Jeddah in July 2022.
When the Biden team announced that they would also add Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords as their number one priority in Middle East foreign policy, concerns about granting concessions to Saudi Arabia with new military support despite its extensive crimes in Yemen and domestically, or further intensifying its hostilities in the region, disappeared and were buried under the desert sand.
Simultaneously with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s explicit admission of his secondary priorities, cheap oil and preventing China’s influence in the region, Bin Salman faced intense pressure, not only refraining from Biden’s requests to open the oil tap to reduce global prices before the November 2022 preliminary elections, but also warmly hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping at a multi-day ceremony and announcing that China will build a non-military nuclear power plant in Saudi Arabia and support missile development in the country, while also refraining from sanctions on Russia for its attacks on Ukraine.
Therefore, it was time for the Biden team to grant Bin Salman’s requests, the first major concession being granting immunity to the Crown Prince from legal prosecution in the United States, closing several complaints against him for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the attempted murder of Saad Al-Jabri, and the targeted harassment of Ghada Oueiss, an Al Jazeera journalist.
The next concession that Saudi Arabia sought from the Biden team was a security guarantee at the NATO level for the country, which was on the kingdom’s wish list.
Biden team’s efforts to attract the attention of the Crown Prince with a simple aerial security cover were not enough. He clearly stated that only a mutual guarantee at the level of a treaty could convince him. Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7 and the relentless bombings and hunger imposed on the civilian population of Gaza that followed disrupted these plans.
Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Advisor, who had just declared a few days before this disastrous attack that the Middle East is calmer today than it has been in the past two decades and that the time I have to spend on crises and conflicts in the Middle East is much less than all previous US Secretaries of State since September 11, was forced to set aside the Saudi-Israeli peace agreement plans.
Even bin Salman could not openly support Israel against the almost unanimous sympathy of all Saudi citizens with the Palestinians.
The US Congress, largely under the influence of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, likely supported granting security guarantees to Saudi Arabia in exchange for its joining the Abraham Accords. However, without this support, approving a commitment at the treaty level will be very difficult.
The Biden team is currently considering the idea of separating the two issues of ensuring security and utilizing the development of China’s non-military nuclear power plants from normalizing relations with Israel in a less-for-less deal.
According to a proposed strategic agreement from the United States, the United States is committed to defending Saudi Arabia in case of an attack on this country. In return, Saudi Arabia must allow Washington to use its land and air and prevent the construction of Chinese bases in the country, and sign a parallel defense cooperation agreement to strengthen arms sales, intelligence cooperation, and strategic planning in the areas of terrorism and Iran.
This move removes the peace cover for Israel as a motivation for ensuring the security of Saudi Arabia and highlights the secondary motivations of the Biden team. Given the Gaza war and the approaching end of the Biden era, it seems unlikely that this government can provide security guarantees to Riyadh in exchange for joining the Abraham Accords with bin Salman.
It is not even clear whether bin Salman will accept these concessions or keep them for future bargaining with the new US administration. For now, we can only hope that bin Salman will be wiser than the Biden administration and prevent any new war in the region.
Persian
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