President Biden has been president nearly two years, and I have expressed very little criticism of him and things he has done. Now, however, he has made a huge mistake and it has really disillusioned me about him, about his relationship to our non-ally Saudi Arabia, and his commitment to mitigating climate change. It no longer seems to me that Biden is serious about climate change. The Saudis are a giant oil producing nation and they just threw a wrench into the COP27 climate talks by maneuvering to remove critical language from the summary statement. (See part II for that).
But what the Biden administration did recently that was so confounding was the announcement that MBS, the new prime minister of Saudi Arabia, would not be held accountable for the murder and dismemberment of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and prominent critic of the Saudi government. This is after experts have declared that he was behind the murder. And that’s after Joe Biden once remarked that MBS should be a “pariah” for that murder. What changed Biden’s mind? These are his remarks in 2019.
FOREIGN POLICY took center stage in Wednesday night’s Democratic debate, with former Vice President Joe Biden saying he would not sell weapons to Saudi Arabia — marking a sharp contrast with the Obama administration — and stressing he would make the Saudis “pay the price” for their killing of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi.
“I would make it very clear we were not going to in fact sell more weapons to them,” Biden said. “We were going to in fact make them pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are.” Biden also said there is “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” and, in reference to Yemen, said he would end “end the sale of material to the Saudis where they’re going in and murdering children.
This new article is a very personal reaction story to the change in Biden to the murderous MBS. Here is an excerpt from that story.
Soon after Khashoggi’s death, reports emerged that the crown prince had ordered the assassination — a conclusion later endorsed by U.S. intelligence. Then-President Donald Trump unsurprisingly downplayed the accusations against his authoritarian friend, and during his administration there was little hope that there would be justice for Khashoggi’s family.
Nevertheless, in October 2020, Khashoggi’s fiancee Hatice Cengiz sued bin Salman and other Saudi officials for their roles in the killing. Biden’s election the following month offered some hope. After all, as a candidate he correctly described Khashoggi’s killing as “flat out murder.” Recent spats between the U.S. and Saudi governments seemingly increased the chances, though slim, that American deference to Saudi Arabia’s worst actions was coming to a long-overdue end.
The Saudi government was worried enough about the case that in late September, the crown prince was named prime minister, a title usually held by the king. The promotion came just days before the deadline the judge in the case had set for the U.S. government’s view on whether bin Salman could be subject to the lawsuit. Observers predicted the move would strengthen his case for sovereign immunity, which typically applies to heads of state, heads of government and foreign ministers.
That prediction came true; the Saudis got what they wanted. Defenders of the administration have argued that the White House was bound by international law. But Biden and his administration could have argued that existing U.S. laws provide an exception in this case, or at least refused to affirm bin Salman’s claim of immunity, and leave the decision to the court….”
I was very disappointed and mystified by Biden’s change of heart towards MBS and the Saudi coverup of Khashoggi’s killing. Though he wasn’t personally responsible for this change, his administration could have said no to this outcome, and he chose not to. We all suspect that this is because of oil, and lesser so, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and we’re probably right.
Part II will deal with the COP27 climate conference and the Saudi interference.
