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Can Biden Get U.S./Saudi Relations Back on Track?
President Biden is trying; the press is helping him. Will it be enough?
In 2020, candidate Joe Biden was squarely committed to holding Saudi Arabia accountable for the assassination of Saudi dissident journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
On the campaign trail, and even after he was elected, Biden promised to make Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a geopolitical and diplomatic “pariah” for his role in the killing.
Fast-forward to June of 2022, just as gas prices were climbing above $5 per gallon in the United States. Suddenly, President Biden was singing a different tune.
“‘Pariah’ no more? Democrats grit their teeth over Biden’s Saudi trip,” chimed POLITICO on June 8. “The president’s Middle East reset raises human rights concerns for some fellow Democrats. Others are prepared to get pragmatic.”
“Just a year after concluding that Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader ordered the brutal murder of an American resident and journalist, and after winning the White House with a vow to make Riyadh a ‘pariah,’ Biden is weighing travel to the kingdom next month as well as a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” wrote Andrew Desiderio for POLITICO. “It’s a stunning reversal in the president’s treatment of a bilateral relationship that the U.S…