The Wall Street Journal reported today that leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have refused to take phone calls from President Biden, who wanted to talk to them about supporting Ukraine and, yes, oil prices. I can’t get past the WSJ subscription firewall, but I picked up the details elsewhere. Josh Marshall:
The WSJ reports tonight that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have both signaled to Washington that they won’t help ease the global squeeze on gasoline supplies and surging prices unless the Biden administration falls into line on Yemen and other regional issues — one of these being immunity for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. The specific hook of the article is that the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the UAE have both declined calls from President Biden in recent weeks.
Well, bleep them. Crown Prince MBS is one who specifically refuses to talk to the President, btw, according to other sources. Josh Marshall continues,
It has seemed clear to me since early 2021 that the Gulf states have been working to undermine the Biden administration in part because of these issues in the Gulf and also because of their close ties with ex-President Trump and Jared Kushner. But over the course of the year energy prices have become a key driver of inflation. Now the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made the need to open up new supplies of oil a matter of acute urgency for the United States and really much of the globe. What it amounts to is that at a moment of acute and profound economic and geopolitical need they’re squeezing us.
Saudi Arabia and UAE are sovereign states. Yemen and Iran are huge issues for them. They’re entitled to make their choices. But it goes without saying that the U.S. has directly and indirectly underwritten their security for decades. It is a reminder that they are on Team Autocracy. And in a moment when autocracy versus civic democracy is suddenly the central factor in global politics, we shouldn’t forget that. They produce products that the whole world is deeply dependent on but which are also driving the global crisis of climate change.
Yes, we should not forget this. The Daily Mail (UK) reports that MBS is asking Wall Street to bankroll a new project of his, “a $500 billion futuristic city-state, powered by robots and artificial intelligence, that would cover 10,000 square miles of Saudi Arabia‘s Tabuk province.” I seriously hope no one invests a penny. Arms sales? Nope. See also The top 11 favors the Trump administration has done for Saudi Arabia from 2019.
MBS’s snub of Biden’s phone call is perhaps not surprising.
Since becoming president, Biden has made clear that he did not see the crown prince — the de facto ruler of the country — as an equal and that Saudi Arabia was a US partner, not an ally. Russia and Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, have strengthened ties.
On the campaign trail in 2020, Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the murder of the Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi and the war in Yemen.
After Biden took office, the White House effectively demoted MBS to the rank of defense minister, and the two leaders have not spoken.
The news of the snub came in the wake of the publication of a rare interview with MBS in The Atlantic, in which the crown prince made clear his view of Biden and the US.
Here is a link to the Atlantic article, which I have not read. I do not care to know what this depraved piece of crap thinks about anything.