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Saudi Arabia proved it's still the key player in the Gulf
Joe Biden's pledges to prevent Iran from getting the bomb and to defend Saudi Arabia from an attack were "music to Saudi Arabia's ears," Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton University and confidante of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World. Biden's controversial trip was largely viewed as a big win for the Saudis, while the US didn't get much out of the discussions because Biden's team didn't do their homework, says Haykel.
The Saudis "were able to show that they have tremendous convening power" by bringing in all the Gulf leaders, thus demonstrating that Riyadh is the most important player there — and the partner you need for political and energy stability.
Haykel discusses how MBS consolidated power, the kingdom's strategic value to the US in the Middle East, MBS's strategy to modernize his country, and the prospects for future warmer ties with Israel. After the international furor over murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Haykel says, "I don't think that they will ever do anything like that again."
Blowback on MBS from Khashoggi murder saved many other journalists, says expert
US-Saudi relations were strained after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA says was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS. And he knows it was a risky move.
"I don't think that they will ever do anything like that again," says Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton University and MBS insider.
Still, he tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, the regime will continue to be very repressive and authoritarian, doing things like mass executions of convicted terrorists from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State but also dissident Shiites.
Haykel says no one in the US will shed a tear for the former, but the latter "certainly did not deserve execution."
Watch the GZERO World episode: Saudi Arabia’s repressive power politics
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From Biden’s pariah to core partner: US Saudi visit a win for MBS
In October 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul. The CIA says de-facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, gave the order.
That led US President Joe Biden to ghost MBS, and even label him a "pariah."
But after Biden's recent Middle East trip, the Saudi crown prince now looks less like a pariah and more like a partner, Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World.
MBS, for his part, deserves credit for some reforms in the kingdom, and the Saudis have warmed toward Israel on his watch.
Still, Biden didn't get much out of his visit, and the trip was largely viewed as a big win for the Saudis.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Saudi Arabia’s repressive power politics
Saudi Arabia’s repressive power politics
US President Joe Biden famously said he would treat Saudi Arabia as a "pariah" for ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But with oil prices near record highs and Iran seen as a growing menace, he felt he had no choice but to go there to revive the US-Saudi relationship.
Biden didn't get much out of his trip, which Princeton University professor and MBS confidante Bernard Haykel says was a "big win" for the Saudis and the crown prince himself. On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks to Haykel, a Saudi expert, who discusses how MBS consolidated power, why the targeting of other journalists is unlikely, the kingdom's strategic value to the US, MBS's strategy to modernize his country, and the prospects for future warmer ties with Israel.
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Activist Loujain al-Hathloul is far from free in MBS's reformed Saudi Arabia
In 2014, Loujain al Hathloul did the unthinkable: attempt to drive into Saudi Arabia, the last country in the world with a driving ban for women.
That changed four years later after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, removed the restriction on women, she explains on GZERO World.
But just six weeks before the ban was lifted there, she was arrested in the UAE and flown to Riyadh against her will. Loujain later spent more than 1,000 days behind bars for her activism defending women's rights.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden's recent trip to Saudi Arabia has angered human rights groups like DAWN, founded by Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was murdered in a hit the CIA says was ordered by MBS.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Saudi Arabia’s repressive power politics
Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia is about more than pumping oil
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, shares his perspective on US politics:
What is President Biden hoping to achieve by visiting Saudi Arabia?
This week the White House announced that President Joe Biden would make a visit to the Middle East. The most important part of the trip will be a stop in Saudi Arabia and a visit with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The President came into office saying he wanted to make the Saudis pariahs for their history of human rights abuses, including the kingdom's involvement in the 9/11 attacks, the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and an ongoing war in Yemen that has resulted in tens of thousands of civilian casualties. But unfortunately for President Biden, his Middle East strategy has followed the Mike Tyson maxim that everyone has a plan until they're punched in the mouth.
Biden has found his presidency overwhelmed by high and rising price levels coming out of the pandemic. Perhaps, nowhere as bad as in energy. The national average price for a gallon of gasoline topped $5 for the first time ever this week. It's likely the problem gets worse before it gets better, and there isn't much that President Biden can do about it. Domestic oil production is slow to come online and isn't as potent as it was five years ago because of industry concerns about the long-term ability to make profits off of new wells, which has left Biden looking around the globe for additional supplies to help ease the global crunch that is driving up energy costs.
The tangible results of a meeting with the Saudis are likely to overwhelm expectations in Washington and, potentially, force Biden to play a high political price by backing off of his commitment to isolate the Saudi Crown Prince in exchange for very little. Getting the Saudis to agree to a specific commitment to put more barrels of oil in the market is unlikely, though, a narrower agreement for the Saudis to increase production caps is possible. However, this would have very little impact on high domestic gas prices as refining capacity in the US continues to be overstretched, suggesting high prices, at least, throughout the summer.
Interestingly, however, this trip is about more than just pumping oil. The Biden administration wants to provide a counterweight to the Saudis' growing relationship with Beijing. They want to get help from the kingdom in isolating Russia in the wake of the war in Ukraine and get commitments to maintain the ceasefire in Yemen, which the Saudis may be open to if the US is willing to resume arm sales.
So this trip makes sense for Biden, even if it doesn't necessarily lower gas prices. But the fact he's making it at all shows how hard it is for a US president to fundamentally change the direction of US foreign policy, which has elevated the US reliance on Saudi Arabia for over 40 years.
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Will Biden say sorry to MBS?
Bizarre marriages of convenience dominate the geopolitical landscape: Russia and China; Iran and Venezuela; Israel and Turkey. The list goes on.
When President Biden came into office, he said he wouldn’t give a “blank check” to the world’s autocrats, including those associated with longtime US allies.
As part of his human-rights focused foreign policy, Biden rejected any dialogue with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the 36-year-old de facto Saudi leader who’s credited with big reforms like allowing Saudi women to drive. He’s also overseen acts of incredible brutality, including the murder of dissident-journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the scorched-earth military campaign in Yemen.
But two years in and ample crises later, Biden is ready to sit down for a face-to-face with MBS next month in Riyadh. Why the massive about-face?
Liquid gold. The US-Saudi relationship has always been driven by shared interests rather than values. The Saudis, for their part, sit on the world’s second-largest oil reserves and are the world’s second-largest producers of crude. Indeed, in an age where dirty energy still dominates, this gives the Saudis an enormous amount of control over global supply chains, inflation, and economic growth.
“Unlike Lehman Brothers, the US-Saudi relationship was too big to fail,” says Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow and Middle East policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
As the US became the world’s largest oil producer in recent years – surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia – a growing perception took hold in many corners of Washington that America would be insulated from global energy shocks, and that global reliance on Middle Eastern oil would significantly wane.
Clearly, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has thrown that theory on its head. Western sanctions on Russian energy exports have sent oil and gas prices into a tizzy, with US gas prices having recently soared to more than $5 a gallon, a 63% rise from the same time last year. President Biden – who is getting pummeled in the polls ahead of November’s midterm elections – is now pleading with the Saudis to scale up oil production to offset losses from Russia and keep gas prices down.
While Riyadh, the de facto leader of the OPEC producers’ group, has responded to market shocks in the past by increasing oil supply, the Ukraine crisis has made it clear that the Saudis, who have also cultivated ties with Russia, aren't willing to ditch existing oil production quotas. Indeed, they are also sending an implicit message to the Biden administration that it needs to treat its partners better.
What do the Saudis want?
MBS might not be a super sensitive guy, but even alleged murderers have feelings. Simply put: the crown prince “wants an apology,” says Miller, adding that MBS “believes he was wronged” and that the Biden administration “insulted his honor.”
But apart from atonement, there are other tangible things that Riyadh wants from Uncle Sam, including increased security guarantees, particularly as Iran, Riyadh’s arch nemesis, is going rogue on uranium enrichment. (Even though US-Saudi relations were strong during the Trump years, the Saudis were furious that the US barely responded to a 2019 Iranian attack on major Saudi oil facilities.)
While the US certainly is not prepared to be dragged into a war with Iran, Biden is likely willing to “talk [with MBS] about integrated air defense systems not only with Saudi Arabia but also with other Gulf countries,” Miller says.
The indignity of global politics: What will Biden get?
Israel and Saudi Arabia have long been cooperating – surreptitiously – on a host of strategic interests, and there are reports that Riyadh might be willing to formalize that relationship by signing onto the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and a host of Arab countries. If nothing else, Biden could cast such a development as a win back home.
What’s more, Biden could use the Saudi meeting to “encourage more movement to solidify the ceasefire in Yemen and lift the Saudi blockade,” that’s preventing humanitarian aid shipments, says Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project. “That will save lives, especially children,” he says. Many Republicans and Democrats would likely get behind such a push.
However, it’s unlikely that Biden will make much progress on the oil front: “The Saudis will do very little to lower oil prices because they are making a fortune,” from the current global energy implosion, Riedel says, adding that they also won’t want to undercut budding relations with Moscow.
Still, Biden will try his best to sweet-talk MBS, a man he once vowed to treat as a “pariah.” But come July, “Biden will be pilloried in the US and accused of hypocrisy,” Riedel says, adding that “if oil prices don’t dramatically fall, which they won’t, he will be seen as a weak failure.”A vigil is held at the Saudi embassy in Washington for journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
What We're Watching: Saudis brace for Khashoggi report, Sri Lanka blasts UN, political unrest in Niger
US to release Khashoggi report: The Biden administration's intel chief is expected to release on Thursday a report on the murder of Saudi dissident journalist — and US resident — Jamal Khashoggi. In line with previously reported findings, the assessment will say that Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman was involved in the plot to kill and dismember Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Aside from a sprinkling of new details, we don't expect much from the report itself, but we are keen to see how it shapes US-Saudi relations under Joe Biden, who has promised to take a harder line with Riyadh over human rights and security issues than his predecessor did. Part of that new approach is that the US president will no longer speak directly to the Crown Prince himself as Trump did — from now on, only his dad, King Salman, gets calls from the White House.
Sri Lanka slams UN over human rights: Sri Lanka is demanding the UN Human Rights Council junk a resolution that is expected to blast the country over alleged human rights violations, including those committed during the government's bloody 37-year civil war against the separatist Tamil Tigers. The Sri Lankans say the resolution is a smear campaign led by UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, who wants the International Criminal Court to indict Sri Lankan generals for war crimes. The UN says the current government — headed by war hero Gotabaya Rajapaksa and packed with former military officials — is blocking an independent investigation and, moreover, has used the COVID emergency to crack down on the predominantly Buddhist country's Muslim minority. To be fair, UN resolutions don't accomplish much these days, but we're watching to see whether the Human Rights Council — which the US plans to rejoin under President Biden — is able to make any headway with investigations that could bring long-awaited justice to thousands of victims.
Post-election trouble in Niger: Just two months ago one of the world's poorest countries was looking forward to its first-ever peaceful transition of power, when the sitting president voluntarily agreed to step down after two terms. It would have been a rare feat in Africa, where presidents increasingly seek to stay in power indefinitely through constitutional changes. But that hope is now fading. Last Sunday, ruling party candidate Mohamed Bazoum and Mahamane Ousmane, a former president deposed by a coup in 1996, went to a runoff vote that was marred by violence. On Tuesday, after Bazoum was declared the winner, Ousmane refused to accept the result, citing vague claims of fraud, and his supporters are now burning tires on the streets of the capital, Niamey. With no peaceful resolution in sight, any political instability in Niger will likely benefit jihadists, who have been making inroads in the country and the broader Sahel region for some time.