Since the 9/11 attacks, US elite opinion on Saudi Arabia has finally met where public opinion has been heading for some time, according to an analysis in Atlantic Magazine He noted that American elites – including elected and appointed officials – resent the historically close relationship between the United States and the kingdom, and among these, “progressives in the Democratic Party” were the most discontented, according to the analysis.
The analysis, written by Andrew Aksum, the former US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy from 2015-2017, indicates that Biden’s planned visit to the kingdom represents a determination to enhance the amount of attention the administration pays to the region, and to formulate a foreign policy that acts on behalf of the middle class. American.
But Aksum said that would make anyone happy in the short term, and would cost Biden “precious political capital for his party”.
Aksum says Biden is “sacrificing his values” today for something we haven’t seen much of in the past two decades: realism.
He adds that the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the kingdom’s de facto leader has accelerated the deterioration of relations between the two countries, and for many Americans, including Biden himself, alike, the brutal murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, “approved by my crown prince. The same covenant,” according to the US intelligence report – the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Talking regarding the possibility of Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, which he had promised in his election campaign, to make the kingdom a “pariah state”, “infuriated his supporters and critics alike,” according to the analysis.
Writer Aksum says that progressives were genuinely hoping that the Biden administration would refocus on human rights as part of US foreign policy following years of President Donald Trump in office, and see sitting with Mohammed bin Salman as a “betrayal of those hopes.”
Their argument, Aksum says, was also that the United States spends a lot of time and resources on the region, and that Washington’s policy in the region has been successful as it has helped secure the State of Israel, protect sea lanes in and around the resource-rich Arabian Peninsula, and effectively counter most of the major threats it poses. Terrorists and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
But these successes have been costly, whether in terms of thousands of soldiers constantly in the region, or billions in military and non-military aid to Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, or the long and costly war in Iraq that has left thousands of Americans dead and burned more than $1 trillion.
The writer says that this money and time might have been spent focusing on domestic and other external challenges.
For all this, the Abraham Accords, according to Aksum, represent an opportunity to ease the direct US commitment to the region, and these agreements will not be effective without Saudi Arabia joining them.
“Even if you criticize foreign leaders in speeches or tweets for domestic consumption, you can still seek to negotiate with them on friendlier terms in the private sector,” Aksum says, asking, “Why, I ask my progressive friends, we can’t do this in Saudi Arabia? Why might it be?” We have an ambassador to China, or even to Russia, but not to Saudi Arabia? Why can the president sit with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro – the man who enthusiastically and loudly asserts that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump – but not Mohammed bin Salman?”
