After Three Incidents, What Is the Fate of the Tension Between Biden and Bin Salman?

Three successive incidents in US–Saudi relations during April 2022 are likely to precipitate the expected confrontation between the Saudi Crown Prince, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom, Mohammed bin Salman, and US President Joe Biden.

The first of which is the mockery of a Saudi channel in an unprecedented form of senility and forgetting Biden, through a satirical clip that achieved millions of views around the world.

The second is that 30 members of the US Congress have called on the Biden administration to be more strict with Bin Salman, and the third is an American intelligence report that monitors Washington’s damage to the behavior of the Saudi crown prince.

 

Unprecedented Step

On April 11, 2022, the private MBC channel, in which the Saudi government owns a majority stake, published a video clip in a series called Studio 22 that mocks Biden and shows him how he forgets to talk and sleeps in press conferences.

The clip, in which Saudi actor Khaled Al-Faraj played the role of Biden, showed his deputy, Camilla Harris, through an actress who kept reminding Biden whenever he forgot and fell asleep, and then pulled him in the end while he was asleep, and asked the audience to applaud him.

This is the first time that a Saudi television mocks the American president or his deputy. However, this step comes at the same time that the tension between the two sides has reached its peak, which indicates a sharp deterioration in relations and its entry into a worrying path.

Within three days of publishing the clip, which garnered nearly 7 million views; American newspapers demanded that Saudi Arabia be held accountable because it is political and not a comedy, according to AFP on April 13, 2022.

After the Saudi sarcastic video, there was renewed talk about what the Biden administration intends to do with Saudi Arabia in general, and Bin Salman in particular because of the conflict of his positions and policies with America's interests.

On April 12, the New York Post considered that the skit broadcast on Saudi government television reflects the coldness in Riyadh's position towards the Biden administration and the low level of relations.

Relations between the two countries had declined during Biden's era after he pledged to make the Saudi crown prince a pariah, and he refused to talk to him, receive him or visit him, as was customary by the majority of American presidents.

Relations deteriorated further due to the anger of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, which they see as America's negative reaction to the attacks of the Yemeni Houthi group against them.

The Wall Street Journal also claimed, in March 2022, that Bin Salman and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, refused to receive a phone call from Biden asking them to increase oil production, in light of the current energy crisis that has worsened with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

 

Bad Partner

Two days after the satirical video was published, 30 congressmen called on President Biden to a serious reassessment of US–Saudi relations, to ensure that it advances Washington's interests, according to CNN.

In their letter to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the lawmakers wrote: “Recently, reports indicate that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman declined a phone call from the US government to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent oil crisis.”

They said, “America's continued support for the Saudi regime, which systematically and mercilessly represses its citizens, targets its opponents around the world, wages a brutal war in Yemen, and bolsters Arab authoritarian regimes, runs counter to Washington's interests and damages the credibility of its values.”

“This refusal came instead of accepting calls from our government to produce more oil, and it's an initial step that would immediately lower prices for Americans across the country,” they added.

They noted that Saudi Arabia has chosen to enter into talks with Beijing to discuss the pricing of part of its oil sales to China in yuan, which would weaken the dollar's arrival.

On its part, The Intercept confirmed on April 13 that “the leaders of the Democratic Party demanded that Blinken take a clear American position between their country continuing to support a tyrannical ally, or standing against it by defending human rights and restoring balance in relations.”

On the same day, Representative of the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee, Jerry Connolly, was quoted by the Associated Press agency as saying that the representatives demanded the US administration to become more strict with Saudi Arabia, and described the kingdom as a bad strategic partner.

 

Relationships Review

It was not only the satirical video and the letter of congressional representatives that moved the American storms towards Saudi Arabia.

This was preceded by the issuance of a National Intelligence report assessing relations with Saudi Arabia, and it was handed over to President Biden's office to determine how to review relations, according to American media.

The National Intelligence Agency is the main coordinating body among 16 US intelligence services, and each of them operates separately, and they are all called the American Intelligence Complex.

The estimates issued by this intelligence, which focus on the annual threats facing America, are among the most reliable because it relies on highly classified information obtained from all US intelligence agencies.

Collecting them often takes months or even years, and the seriousness of the last report is that it focused on Bin Salman’s hostile policies towards America and how to confront them.

In this regard, The Intercept on April 13 quoted a US security official as saying that the report was completed at the beginning of 2022, and was included in the daily briefings of President Biden and the relevant authorities in his administration.

This report on relations with Saudi Arabia is the first since the administration of George W. Bush, which is a sign of the deterioration of relations between Washington and Riyadh, according to the security official.

These three developments indicate that the Biden administration is heading for more firmness with the Saudi crown prince and that the comprehensive intelligence report, although its details have not been published, may have developed undeclared plans to deal with Bin Salman.

The Wall Street Journal reported on April 13 that leaders of the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees said they plan to pressure the Biden administration to take a tougher line on Saudi Arabia.

Biden, during his 2020 election campaign, described Saudi Arabia as a pariah state and promised to hold its government accountable for human rights violations, but he has taken only a few concrete steps to implement it.

 

Isolate Bin Salman?

When America declassified the intelligence report on the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on February 11, 2021, which suggested a role for Bin Salman in killing him, observers indicated that this was an indication that Bin Salman was close to being removed.

Bruce Riedel, a political expert at the Brookings Institution, told the Guardian, on March 5, 2021, “If the goal of the United States is to make Saudi Arabia stable and moderate in the region, then there is no place for Mohammed Bin Salman in it.”

While political expert Gregory Goss wrote in the Financial Times on February 24, 2021, demanding that Washington should control the Saudi prince and not isolate him.

“Washington may not intend to isolate Bin Salman, but only wants to end the pampered state caused by former President Donald Trump, and thus make him escape accountability and punishment,” he pointed out.

This is why Saudi Arabia's donation to Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and former advisor, worth two billion dollars, angered the American public and raised questions about Bin Salman’s purchase of more influence in Washington, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and published on April 10.

On its part, the Washington Post editorial wrote on April 14, that “the dictator Bin Salman’s use of his deep pockets to exercise his influence at the highest levels of the American political system is a cause for deep concern.”

“The Biden administration and Congress must carefully consider these suspicious transactions, and there should be a legal and security review to protect the American political scene from foreign actors, especially dictators whose hands are stained with blood,” it stressed.

“Attacks on American democracy are not only through terrorist operations but the corrupt deal between Saudi Arabia and Kushner is considered an attack on democracy as well,” the newspaper confirmed.

It said, “Bin Salman does not consider the Saudi government an ally of America, and sees it as an ally of one party in the local partisan politics. That is why he supports Kushner, as he hopes to return to the White House if Trump runs and wins again.”

 

Indifference

But this also does not mean that the Biden administration is seeking to isolate Bin Salman, not because he does not want to do so, but because the crown prince has become a well-established pillar in the Saudi decision-making structure, with the support of his father, King Salman.

“Attempting to isolate the crown prince will not lead to his removal from power, but rather will destroy Washington’s ability to rein in his behavior abroad and, to a lesser extent, at home,” says Professor Gregory Gause in an article published in Foreign Affairs on March 30, 2021.

The American expert on Middle East affairs asserts that “the United States needs cooperation with Saudi Arabia in security matters in both Yemen and the region, and for this, it will have to deal with Mohammed bin Salman.”

“Any effort to remove Mohammed bin Salman from his current position would amount to regime change, which is dangerous thinking, and the Biden administration has chosen the wisest path, which is to communicate what it wants and will not allow to the Saudi crown prince,” he stresses.

But it seems that bin Salman does not care about this; when asked by The Atlantic on March 03 about whether Biden had misunderstood things about him, he said: “I simply don't care.”

Bin Salman called on Biden to think about America's interests, and for the two countries not to interfere in each other's internal affairs.

Therefore, an important question pops up to the surface: Does the unpublished National Intelligence Report on Saudi Arabia change this equation? And Will the Biden administration, spurred by the support of Congress and the intelligence services, jump to actually think about isolating Bin Salman?

It is most likely that the Biden administration will escalate against Bin Salman in the coming days, according to observers, but at the same time, it is trying to address the mistakes in dealing with Saudi Arabia in the Houthi file, because the relations are not between it and the current crown prince, but with the Saudi state.

Perhaps America’s announcement of the formation of a new multinational naval force in the Middle East on April 13, to address arms smuggling in the surrounding waters, was an attempt to correct mistakes and improve relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.