How to resume language with a strategic ally without giving the impression of absolving him? The White House certainly repeats at will that the visit of the American president on July 15 and 16 to Jeddah is not a rehabilitation of Mohamed Ben Salmane (“MBS”) – just as the Elysée had hammered it, before Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Riyadh in December. But the time when the Democratic candidate declared that the Saudis had to “pay the price” for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 and be treated as « outcasts » seems well over.
This Saudi stopover – the last of his trip to the Middle East – earned Joe Biden strong criticism, even among Democrats hostile to a crown prince deemed highly toxic. In its place, ” I will not go. I wouldn’t shake his hand (…) This is someone who slaughtered an American resident, cut him to pieces in the most terrible and premeditated way,” said Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in early June. Four senators sent the president a letter saying that any interaction with MBS would be “deeply disturbing”.
What photo of Biden with MBS?
In an attempt to defuse discontent, Joe Biden split from a rare platform on July 9 in the Washington Post, emphasizing his views “clear” et « durables » on human rights. And recalled having himself declassified the intelligence report which claimed that MBS had ” valid “ the assassination of the Saudi journalist.
The White House insists that it will not be a bilateral meeting but an expanded meeting around King Salman, in the presence of MBS. The question of the photo, and the message it will convey, remains a point of vigilance for Washington, which must nevertheless put the forms in it. Relations between the two allies are old – they date back to 1945 and the signing of the Quincy political and military strategic pact. The last presidential visit to date, that of Donald Trump, dates back to 2017, on the eve of the Gulf crisis linked to the embargo against Qatar.
The dynamics have since changed in the region, as the arrival from Tel Aviv of Joe Biden will symbolically testify. He will become “the very first president to take a direct flight between Israel and Jeddah, aboard “Air Force One”, he himself points out in the Washington Post. A small symbol of the budding relations and ongoing advances in normalization between Israel and Arab countries, a normalization that my administration is working to deepen and broaden. »
A future Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization?
Because unlike its neighbors Emirati, Bahrain and Morocco, Saudi Arabia is not a signatory of the normalization agreements, known as Abraham, sealed in September 2020 with Israel. Biden’s visit could be an opportunity to lay the groundwork for future normalization. “The big decision is unlikely, but small gestures (…) are possible, if not essential for this visit”, said on Twitter Dan Shapiro, former American ambassador to Israel, researcher at the Atlantic Council.
The Jewish state and the Saudi kingdom share a common enemy, Iran, whose nuclear project and “proxies” (Hezbollah, Hamas, Syrian regime, Shiite militias in Iraq or Houthis in Yemen) constitute threats to their security. The future of the truce in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is intervening militarily against the Houthi militias, will be among the topics discussed. Joe Biden will also try to send a message during the enlarged Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit, in which he will participate: the United States remains invested at the security level in the turbulent region, increasingly courted by Russia and China.
Lower energy ambitions
The time when Washington hoped to be able to move away from the Middle East and free itself from its oil seems to be over. The war in Ukraine helped change the situation. Joe Biden, who has his eyes on the price of oil and the midterms in the fall, has in recent months pressed Saudi, the first exporter of crude, to increase its production. “But the Biden administration seems to have lowered its expectations on energy issues,” estime Ben Cahill, expert au Center For Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
So what is the purpose of this trip, during which, according to analysts, no major decision should be taken? « L’administration Bidendiscovered what all American administrations have discovered for decades, summarizes Jon Alterman, expert in the same think tank. It’s much easier to do things in the Middle East and around the world if the Saudis try to help you, and much more difficult if they don’t. »