Catching flack from his party’s left-wing, 79-year-old President Joe Biden did what he said he wouldn’t do, vist 36-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salaman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia. Fist-bumping in the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah, the birthplace of Sep. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, President Biden met the Crown Prince, regardless of his involvement in the Oct. 2, 2018 of Saudi critic, Washington Post part-time columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Since Khashoggi’s alleged brutal death at the hands of a 15-member Saudi hit squad inside the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, the Democrat Party and media have demonized Bin Salman as the culprit responsible for the carefully planned assassination. Khashoggi entered the Saudi embassy in Istanbul whole, and allegedly left cut into little pieces, a gruesome murder that disgusted the U.S. and global media.
Biden’s decision on going to the Middle East stems from his abysmal approval ratings, hoping to get some traction before the important November 8 Midterm elections. “I said very straightforwardly, for an American president to be sent on an issue of human right is inconsistent with who we are and who I am,” Biden said, hoping to beat back his critics for visiting with Bin Salaman. Biden claims he brought up the issue of Khashoggi’s death and said he thought he was responsible. Biden said Bin Salman said he was “not personally responsible” for his death. “ I indicated that I thought he was,” Biden said, before moving on to more substantive issues. Biden hoped he could secure a commitment from Bin Salman to increase oil output to offset the boycott of Russian oil since the Feb. 24 Ukraine War. Few people think Bin Salaman will increase oil production to help Biden.
Biden and Bin Salaman found agreement on extending the fragile peace in Saudi’s war on the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Whether or not Bin Salman got more stature meeting with Biden, the two countries have many shared interests, especially when it comes to keeps nukes away from Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Bin Salman has close private relations with Israel, quietly going about developing strong business and technology ties. Despite his party’s rebuke, Biden looks more competent trying to reestablish better ties with the Kingdom. Russian fears of Biden expecting Bin Salman to publicly denounce Russia’s war in Ukraine never happened. Biden’s three-hour meeting in Jeddah found new areas for the U.S. to cooperate with Saudi’s key part of U.S. Mideast foreign policy. U.S. has always relied on Saudi Arabia as an ally, especially in the war on terror.
U.S. media’s obsession with Khashoggi’s death won’t disappear anytime soon. Biden’s decision to meet with Bin Salman was the right one, regardless of the role Bin Salman played in Khashogi’s Oct. 2, 2018 murder. ‘The fist-bump between President Biden and Mohammed bin Salman was worse than a handshake—it was shameful,” said Fred Ryan, the Washington Post’s publisher. “It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking,” Ryan said, oversimplifying U.S.-Saudi relations. Publishers like Ryan operate only on vindictiveness for Khashoggi’s loss, one being part of the Washington Post family. But Ryan knows the U.S. has bigger fish to fry than beating a dead horse on Khasoggi’s murder. When former President Donald Trump was in office, he didn’t let the Khashoggi incident interfere with U.S.-Saudi relations.
If Trump were in office today, he’d be accused by Ryan and other liberal publishers of cozying up to dictators, a common refrain from Democrats looking to demonize Trump before the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election. Democrats and the press made it next to impossible for Trump to have diplomatic relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pro-Democrat newspapers and broadcast outlets got what they wanted under Biden, nearly a break-off of diplomatic relations with Russian. Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia should remind Democrats and Republicans that the business of U.S. foreign policy goes on regardless of bumps in the road. When it comes to Russia, Biden has all but killed U.S.-Russian relations with the blessing of liberal publishers. No one could imagine that Biden would destroy U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese relations, leaving U.S. foreign policy in shambles.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
