The Wilson Center for Studies has published a new report, describing the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) as a dictator and enemy of democracy and human rights.
The centre said that Biden should consider carefully beforehand what MBS, as the crown prince is called, might be willing or capable of delivering as a quid pro quo for abandoning his “pariah policy.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created a major international oil crisis that is forcing President Biden to consider seriously abandoning his presidential campaign promise to render Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, a pariah in Washington. This was the penalty he imposed on the kingdom’s de facto ruler for his involvement in the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had become his foremost critic as a Washington Post global opinion writer, the centre underlined.
Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest reserve oil production capacity, two million barrels per day, and is the only producer capable of making any dent in the price of gasoline for American consumers. Furthermore, the kingdom is expanding its production capacity by one million barrels a day, more than a third of Russia’s current exports to Western Europe which the Biden administration seeks to block.
Biden, the report reads, should consider carefully beforehand what MBS, as the crown prince is called, might be willing or capable of delivering as a quid pro quo for abandoning his “pariah policy.”
He should also consider the possible damage his embrace of the crown prince would inflict on his own image and other policies. If he did so, he would appear to be accepting MBS’ ever more dictatorial rule, and it would make a mockery of his commitment to promoting democracy and human rights worldwide. It might well also drag his administration deeper into the Saudi Iranian rivalry for regional primacy.
These costs might be worth it. In the best-case scenario, MBS agrees to produce significantly more oil, withdraw from the Yemen war, recognize Israel, and accept accommodation with Iran. The central question posed today is whether MBS is willing or capable of changing his current policies on any of these pressing issues.
On the first count, there has been no indication of Saudi willingness to break the agreement the 13-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries struck with Russia and nine other non-OPEC producers, to only increase production collectively by 400,000 barrels a day each month. This line essentially depends on MBS and Russian President Vladimir Putin, leaders of these two groups, holding fast. So far, they have decided to milk the present supply shortage to maintain the highest prices possible.
The seven-year-long Yemen civil war has become an albatross MBS has little prospect for lifting from his shoulders. There has been no progress on multiple UN and US diplomatic efforts to negotiate a diplomatic settlement. A Saudi unilateral withdrawal would leave Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in control of the capital, Sanaa, and all of northern Yemen bordering the kingdom. Iran would be in Yemen to stay. This prospect is intolerable to the crown prince.
In Congress, many Republicans and Democrats alike would raise a hue and cry if Biden resumed US military support for the Saudi-led Yemeni venture.
MBS also opposes the Biden administration’s policy of reviving the nuclear deal with Tehran from which Trump withdrew in 2018. It would at least delay Iran’s perceived drive to build a nuclear bomb but do nothing to tackle the Iranian missile threat to the kingdom. This has become the kingdom’s primary concern ever since Iran’s missile-and-drone attack on two Saudi oil facilities in September 2019 that knocked out half the kingdom’s production. Trump’s justification for not retaliating against Iran was that he saw no US interest at stake.
There is obviously no love lost, or even to be gained, between these two leaders who won’t even speak to each other. But it is questionable as well whether even realpolitik would suffice to unlock their deadlock. Both seem short on deliverables to make even a bare-boned transactional deal attractive to each other.
