Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states apparently still do not trust the Biden Administration, largely because of the perceived abandonment of its traditional Arab allies in the Middle East and President Joe Biden’s hostility to Saudi Arabia. This view began with then-presidential candidate Biden declaring the kingdom a “pariah” state — and is continuing with US attempts, still ongoing, to revive a “nuclear deal” that will enable an expansionist Iran to have nuclear weapons potentially to topple other countries in the region.
Saudi Arabia is not likely to improve its relationship with the Biden Administration in the aftermath of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to the Kingdom in early June, according to Arab political analysts and columnists.
“The Biden administration has misjudged its approach to the Middle East,” noted Jason Greenblatt, former Representative for International Negotiations for the Trump administration. “It alienated the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and wasn’t particularly great with the United Arab Emirates.”
Meanwhile, the same Biden Administration has continued to cosy up to the Iranian regime, which the US’s own Department of State has called the “top state sponsor of terrorism” and which has, until recently, not only been attacking both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through Iran’s proxy militia, the Houthis in Yemen but has also been supplying troops and weapons to Russia for attacking Ukraine.
The message being sent is that being America’s enemy pays handsomely, but, as with Afghanistan, being its friend can be fatal. “US President Joe Biden visited Jeddah last summer and met King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” noted Syrian author and political analyst Fatmeh Yasmin.
“That visit was a turning point in the history of the long relationship between the two countries because it came from a president who had announced strict positions against Saudi Arabia during his election campaign. After he entered the White House, Biden quickly implemented what he pledged against the Kingdom: stopping the export of offensive weapons to it, punishing some Saudi security officials, and preventing many Saudi personalities from entering the US by not granting them visas.”
Referring to Blinken’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Yasmin said that the Biden administration is pretending that the old alliance between the Saudis and Americans has not changed.
“But Saudi Arabia, during the year separating the visit of Biden and Blinken, turned towards the Far East, unleashed unbridled relations with China, and allowed the Chinese to launch a Saudi-Iranian dialogue that led to the opening of the Iranian embassy in Riyadh after a seven-year diplomatic break… Ironically, the opening day of the restoration of the Iranian embassy in Riyadh was the day the US Secretary of State arrived in Jeddah. His visit also coincided with the visit of Venezuelan President [Nicolás] Maduro, whom the US places on the list of its enemies. Blinken, however, swallowed all that, and talked about good relations [with Saudi Arabia].”
Yasmin added that Saudi Arabia is not expected to make a full turn once again towards the US administration, as Biden’s last year in office is approaching and he will devote his time to his critical reelection campaign.
Yasmin pointed out that Saudi Arabia’s current policy was based on strengthening its relations with China and achieving reconciliation with Iran, Turkey and even Syria. “The current Saudi effort is completely devoted to building a Middle East in which the Kingdom would play a major role and strengthen its own economy and that of its neighbours,” she said.
The London-based Rai Al-Youm online newspaper said that Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia failed to achieve most of its goals, including promoting normalization between the Kingdom and Israel. According to Rai Al-Youm, the Saudi media ignored Blinken’s visit, while playing up the arrival of former Real Madrid soccer player Karim Benzema in the Kingdom after he joined the Saudi club Al-Ittihad.
