When Washington Post part-time columnist Saudi Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated by a Saudi hit squad at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Oct. 2, 2018, Western powers and the Democrat-controlled press blamed 36-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. At the time, former President Donald Trump was in office, preferring to take a more cautious approach to the Kingdom, recognizing U.S. and world economic entanglements with the world’s biggest oil producer. Khashoggi’s murder gave the press a field day attacking Trump for his refusal to condemn the defacto leader of Saudi Arabia. Instead of following Trump’s lead, 79-year-old President Joe Biden took the opposite path, condemning the son of 86-year-old King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Since taking office Jan. 20, 2021, Biden condemined Bin Salman, thinking he could do business with King Salman.
Any savvy observer of Saudi politics knows that Bin Salman took over as the de fact leader of Saudi Arabia for years, knowing King Salman, while still alive, is too old for any official duties as head of state. Yet Biden completely rejected King Salman’s son, thinking he could placate his base, seeking to break off diplomatic relations with the Kingdom for Bin Salman’s alleged killing of Khashoggi. Who’s ever responsible for Khashoggi’s death, they’ve been dealt with by the Saudi justice system. Only the U.S. press wants to exact a pound of flesh from Bin Salman. Whether the CIA believes that Bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s hit or not, U.S.-Saudi relations must go on without interruption. When 45-year-old National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met on Zoom with Bin Salman last September, he brought up Khashoggi again, prompting an apparent shouting match with Bin Salman.
Trump’s foreign policy was lampooned by Democrats and the press saying he pandered to dictators and oil barons, not realizing that maintaining some workable relation are necessary for U.S. national security. Today we’re left with that alternative, with the U.S. having abysmal relations with Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. So when the Feb. 24 Ukraine War started and the U.S. boycotted Russian oil, supply and prices went through the roof . Biden asked Bin Salman to produce more oil to compensate for the U.S. boycott of Russian oil. Bin Salman told Biden, “now way.” So Biden no longer has a reliable partner with Saudi Arabia all because Sullivan had to rub in Bin Salman’s face the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Bin Salman essentially ignored all of Biden’s calls to get Saudi Arabia to make up losses in oil inventories after the Ukraine War. Bad relations with the Kingdom has hurt U.S. consumers.
Biden’s relations with Saudi Arabia are eclipsed by the antagonistic relations with China and the Russian Federation. Things are so bad with Russia and China, Biden has taken to making threats against Beijing for not denouncing Putin’s Ukraine War. Chinese President Xi Jinping made his feelings known, saying that denouncing Putin does nothing at this point to bring warring factions together. State Department’s senior adviser Derek Chollet to 59-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there’s no end in sight to the Ukraine conflict. Biden continues to send more lethal weapons to Ukraine hoping to repel any Russian advance on the Donbass region of Southeastern Ukraine. Whatever the past U.S. relationship with Russia, China and Saudi Arabia under Trump, it doesn’t exist now under Biden. Biden has made clear human rights abuses are more important than energy prices to U.S. consumers.
Under Biden’s foreign policy, the U.S. has alienated China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, leaving the country in the most vulnerable place in decades. No president has done more to damage U.S.-Chinese, U.S.-Russia and U.S.-Saudi relations than Biden, all because Biden wanted to tell China they committed genocide against Muslim Uyghurs in Western China, tell Putn to release dissident Alexi Navalny from prison and the latest, refuse to acknowledge Bin Salman as the defacto leader of Saudi Arabia. Biden’s foreign policy has put the U.S. on a dangerous limb, hoping to be bailed out by the European Union or the U.K. Never before has the U.S. had so little clout in foreign relations, watching WW III get closer in Ukraine. Biden and Ukraine’s 44-year-old leader Volodymer Zelensky actually believe they can defeat the Russian Federation militarily, something preposterous and dangerous.
Saudi Arabia didn’t break off diplomatic relations with the U.S. when Trump ordered the predator drone assassination of Iran’s Al Quds Gen. Qassem Soleimani. No other Western power admonished Trump for doing what he thought was right for U.S. national security. When it comes to Khashoggi or Navalny, Biden was willing to trash U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Saudi relations. If Biden’s trend of alienating world leaders continues, the U.S. will be left only with the Western Alliance, a group of European states ready to rubber stamp U.S. policy. Unlike Biden who’s willing to risk WW III or nuclear war on the European Continent, no one in the EU wants to take on Biden’s vendetta with Putin. Instead of feeding Ulkraine more lethal weapons, Biden should take the Istanbul ceasefire talks seriously, find a way to convince Zelensky that the time for peace talks is long overdue.
