According to Frederick Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, US President Joe Biden is caught between “two opposing forces” when it comes to Saudi Arabia.
During his presidential campaign, Biden said Washington would make Riyadh the “pariah they are” and hold the kingdom accountable for human rights issues. However, the president now sees Saudi Arabia’s support as important to his Middle East agenda, Kempe said.
“If you want to control Iran, if you want to build on the positive impact of Arab-Israeli normalization through the Abraham Accords … if you want to bring some peace to Syria and Yemen, then you can hardly do anything in it. Middle East [without Riyadh], Kempe told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” Tuesday.
“Let’s not forget to control oil prices so that you can actually have stable prices for the energy transition to renewable energy sources, all of that cannot be done without Saudi Arabia, so how do you implement your human rights policy?” he said.
The US last week imposed visa restrictions on 76 Saudis who were “believed to be involved in threatening dissidents abroad, including but not limited to the murder of Khashoggi.”
But Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is not directly targeted by Washington, despite an intelligence report showing that in 2018 he approved an operation to capture or murder journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Critics have accused Biden of not defending human rights, but the White House has so far resisted pressure to punish the Crown Prince, though it reserves the right to take action in the future.
United States President Joe Biden in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday, March 1, 2021.
Anna Moneymaker | The New York Times | Bloomberg | Getty images
Kempe of the Atlantic Council, who is also a contributor to the CNBC, said the importance of Saudi Arabia is one of the reasons why the State Department’s changes in relations between Washington and Riyadh “not as a break, but. as a recalibration “.
While many in the Democratic Party may not be happy with this approach, it is “probably the right way forward,” Kempe said.
The reality is, you’d rather have a flawed, and maybe even a very flawed ally, than an adversary in this era of new power and intense power competition, where Saudi Arabia may depend more on China, more on Russia for its arms supplies. its economic strength, ”he said.
Kempe said the US president is “weighing all these things up”.
“I think he will learn very quickly that it is much more difficult to be president of the United States than to be a candidate,” he added.