Mohammed bin Salman has had an easy four years, in many respects. No matter who he wanted to be killed, where he wanted to bomb, or which countries he wanted to be sidelined, he knew his man in the White House had his back.
MBS knew that offering the occasional flattering comment to Donald Trump would ensure that little would happen after bombing Yemen into famine, murdering Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi or throwing women in jail for having the audacity to suggest they should have the right to drive a car.
And it probably never even crossed his mind that there would be repercussions from the US government when it came to building the Neom megaproject on land belonging to the Huwaitat tribe for centuries, seeking to expel 20,000 of them to make way for his vanity project.
Joe Biden, now officially the president of the United States, has made it clear – perhaps feeling the pressure of his electoral base – that he will look again at US relations with Saudi Arabia. He has signaled that the US would no longer support the war in Yemen, which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and a humanitarian disaster. He is also expected to attempt to restart talks with Saudi Arabia’s mortal enemy, Iran, after Trump ditched the nuclear agreement drawn up by Barack Obama.
Biden is not expected to usher in a new era of peace and justice across the Middle East. He is a staunch supporter of Israel, for example, and was perhaps the most ardent Democratic Party supporter of the “war on terror” in the first decade of the 21st century. Indeed, without Biden, the war on Iraq may never have happened.
Insider accounts suggest that Biden was often the “hawk” while playing vice-president to Barack Obama, often seeking military assaults as a means to stamp US authority on the Middle East and beyond.
Biden is an imperialist through and through, and only time will tell if his words of caution over Saudi Arabia will be anything other than rhetoric, while cheap oil and geopolitical realpolitik remain dominant.
But he also has to distinguish himself from his predecessor and keep favour with his base, a base that despises the totalitarianism of MBS and his regime.
Biden has said little – if anything – about the Neom project. But MBS must be wary that the free ride offered by Trump might be coming to an end. Will Biden make it more difficult for MBS to win over international investors to Neom? Will the regime become seen as even more toxic if even the president of its key ally, the United States, cools its relations with the kingdom?
Now is the time for human rights defenders to make sure demands about Neom are heard. The Neom project is so far little more than a series of over-hyped announcements – other than the very real harassment being dealt out on the Huwaitat as they are forced from their land to make it a reality. The Biden presidency must be made to feel the level of anger at this mistreatment, and not give Biden a free pass to continue the American love affair with MBS.
READ MORE: NEOM: Saudi territory with Israeli partnership and foreign administration
