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PUPPET REGIME: the Really Bad People song
Exciting update - GZERO has won the Gold Telly Award for this Puppet Regime episode in the category of “Craft-Use of Comedy.” Thanks to all of our viewers!
With everyone focusing on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, bad people in other parts of the world are having a moment, as Mohammad Bin Salman, Modi, Bolsonaro, and others are here to explain.
Did you miss the performances from the PUPPET REGIME's MBS? Well, he's back. Sing along, and add it to your playlist: you too can #BeBadPeople!!
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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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Biden-MBS meeting was "total win" for Saudis, says expert
US President Joe Biden didn't get much out of his recent — and very controversial — trip to Saudi Arabia. Why?
His team didn't do their homework by getting the Saudis to agree on stuff in advance, says Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton University and confidante of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
"This was a total win for the Saudis," Haykel tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
Indeed, Biden's pledges to never allow Iran to get the bomb or defend Saudi Arabia from an attack are all "music to Saudi Arabia's ears."
What's more, Haykel adds, 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.
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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi upon his arrival in Cairo.
What We’re Watching: MBS on tour, Lithuania vs. Russia, Spain’s moderate swing
MBS makes BFFs ahead of Biden visit
With barely a month until his controversial summit with President Joe Biden, the Saudi crown prince is on a regional tour this week to show that he’s hardly the “pariah” that America’s president once promised to make him. In Jordan, Mohammed bin Salman will look to patch up a monarchy-to-monarchy relationship that became strained last year over allegations of Saudi involvement in a plot to overthrow King Abdullah II. The Jordanians hope MBS’s visit leads to a resumption of lavish Saudi financial support. In Egypt, Crown Prince Mohammed will be highlighting Riyadh’s tight relationship with the Arab world’s most populous country. Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi enjoys strong backing from the Saudis, who have gifted or invested billions of dollars in Egypt in recent years. But the most significant stop on MBS’s tour will be in Turkey, where always-dicey relations between the regional rivals nearly broke off entirely over the Saudi government’s 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. But with Turkey looking for financial help to right a listing economy, and MBS looking to shore up ties with a mercurial member of NATO, it seems that bygones are bygones.
Kaliningrad set to be next flashpoint?
Leaders of NATO countries have taken extraordinary steps to ensure that Russia’s war against Ukraine doesn’t extend into NATO territory. So far, they’ve been successful. But the Russian government says it’s furious that Lithuania – a former Soviet Republic that’s now a NATO and EU member – is blocking Russian goods shipments to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave set between Lithuania and Poland that’s hundreds of miles away from the rest of Russia. Kaliningrad, home to about 1 million people, is a strategically important spot. It’s home to Russia’s Baltic Fleet headquarters and, though Russia denies it, there may also be nuclear-capable Iskander missiles stored there. Lithuania is now blocking rail supplies from Russian territory to Kaliningrad, which Russia claims is a violation of international law. Lithuania says it’s simply enforcing an EU ban on the transport through EU territory of a range of Russian products, from heavy machinery to luxury goods. If Lithuania keeps it up, Russia would be forced to ship the equipment to Kaliningrad’s port on the Baltic Sea. But Moscow warns that Lithuania will face “serious” consequences unless it allows the trains to pass. The EU has backed Lithuania’s refusal to resume the rail shipments, so it’s up to President Vladimir Putin to decide how high tensions will rise.
Spain swings to the center
In late 2018, an election in the southern region of Andalucía upended Spain's politics after Vox became the first far-right party to win representation since the late 1970s. Vox later exploded nationwide and is now the third-largest force in parliament. But on Sunday, another vote in the same bellwether region, Spain's largest and most-populated, saw the traditional center-right People’s Party secure an outright majority for the first time, while Vox fell short of expectations. What's more, the ruling center-left PSOE party, which until recently dominated Andalusian politics, got its worst result ever there. The PP has been riding high in the polls since it picked the moderate Alberto Núñez Feijóo to lead the party following a messy internal crisis, and now its odds of returning to national power in 18 months are looking good. Amid an increasingly polarized political environment and rising inflation, Feijóo is pitching himself as an anti-populist nerd to voters fed up with parties that won’t talk to each other, and as a pair of safe hands to manage the economy in turbulent times. Will making Spanish politics boring again take him all the way to La Moncloa?
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.”People participate in the March for Our Lives on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
What We're Watching: US gun-control deal, Indian protests, Macron's majority, Biden goes to Saudi
US Senate reaches compromise on guns
On Sunday, a group of 20 US senators announced a bipartisan framework on new gun control legislation in response to the recent wave of mass shootings. The proposal includes more background checks, funding for states to implement "red-flag" laws so they can confiscate guns from dangerous people, and provisions to prevent gun sales to domestic violence offenders. While the deal is much less ambitious than the sweeping ban on assault weapons and universal background checks President Joe Biden called for after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, it's a rare bipartisan effort in a deeply divided Washington that seeks to make at least some progress on gun safety, an issue on which Congress has been deadlocked for decades. Biden said these are "steps in the right direction" and endorsed the Senate deal but admitted he wants a lot more. The announcement came a day after thousands of Americans held rallies on the National Mall in the capital and across the country to demand tougher gun laws. Will the senators be able to turn the framework into actual legislation before the momentum passes?
Prophet protests grow violent in India
Protests across India over the government's failure to punish two officials from the ruling BJP party for making derogatory remarks about Islam and the Prophet Mohammad turned violent over the weekend, with two demonstrators shot dead by police in Jharkhand state. In Uttar Pradesh, cops razed houses belonging to Muslim protesters as hundreds were arrested and mass gatherings were banned. Although India has seen communal tensions for decades, the new wave of protests is growing, with Muslims clashing with police, Hindu mobs, or both, ranging from as far east as Bengal to as far west as Kashmir. Why? Because the BJP handled the controversy like just another day at the office, suspending one official and firing the other after almost all Islamic countries in the region — including Saudi Arabia and Iran, which rarely agree on anything — demanded corrective action from the government. PM Narendra Modi's foot-dragging on this issue is deeply resented by many of India's 200 million Muslims, who feel they've been marginalized under Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, and by many Islamic countries that trade with India.
Vote throws Macron's parliamentary majority in danger
French President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Ensemble (Together) Party looks set to win the most seats in parliament after the first round of voting on Sunday, but projected results show it might fall short of an outright majority. Ensemble was tied at 25.2% of the vote with Nupes, the resurgent left-wing coalition led by firebrand candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Macron's party is projected to secure 260-310 seats in the National Assembly, where the magic number is 289. The French president needs a parliamentary majority to carry out his ambitious reform agenda. Without it, his government will have to form ad-hoc parliamentary alliances to win votes on individual proposals like raising the retirement age from 62 to 65, which Mélenchon strongly opposes. Far-right leader Marine le Pen, who lost the presidential election to Macron in April, called on her supporters to abstain wherever Ensemble candidates are running against Nupes challengers in the second round of voting next Sunday, when voters will have another go in constituencies where no one candidate got 50%.
Risks and rewards await Biden in Saudi Arabia
The White House, after changing the itinerary, is expected to announce President Joe Biden’s first trip to Saudi Arabia as early as Monday. What an about-face for Biden, given his earlier rebukes about the Saudi human rights record and not giving dictators blank checks. The trip includes a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, who an American intelligence report says was the signing authority on the Jamal Khashoggi murder (this obviously hasn’t gone down well with Khashoggi’s widow). But there’s an element of realism at play here: MBS is likely to rule Saudi for decades, and Riyadh needs to sign the Abraham Accords in order to really stabilize the Middle East. The groundwork has been set by friends: the Israelis have been lobbying for the trip, while British PM Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron have already met MBS and encouraged Biden to do the same. In a big get for Washington, the Saudis might have some welcome gifts: ousting Russia from the OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries led by Riyadh or perhaps announcing the normalization of ties with Israel. But don’t expect anything to change on the Saudi human rights front.
More oil? MBS & the moral dilemma
With energy prices soaring, Boris Johnson and Joe Biden are turning to some dodgy friends for help.
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