In 2020, candidate Joe Biden made it as clear as Joe Biden can make anything that the days of looking past the atrocities committed by the Saudi Arabian government would be over should he be elected. An October 2, 2020 post on his campaign website read,
“Under a Biden-Harris administration, we will reassess our relationship with the Kingdom, end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”
Less than two years later, President Biden is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia in hopes of persuading the kingdom he disparaged as a candidate to increase oil production. Biden is suffering the worst approval ratings of any president in recent memory due to runaway inflation, in part the result of his own energy policies.
The trip follows Biden’s attempt to bully U.S. oil producers into boosting production, something they rightly pointed out is being strangled by the president’s own policies in the short term and economically unviable in the long term given a sitting U.S. president who has vowed to put them out of business.
Meanwhile, the president’s supporters are demanding Biden try to keep his campaign promises regarding Saudi Arabia. In an article in Foreign Policy, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy demands Biden procure real concessions from the kingdom on human rights abuses. His screed is emblematic of the departure from reality that pervades Washington on all issues, foreign and domestic.
Remember, Biden is not traveling to Saudi to offer the kingdom help. He is asking for help from them. What leverage does Murphy believe the president holds over a government that not long ago wouldn’t even answer his phone calls?
Murphy claims, “Over and over again, the Saudi government acts in ways that are directly contrary to U.S. security interests.” But he gives no examples of legitimate security interests that have anything to do with Saudi Arabia. The bulk of the complaints against the kingdom relate to its human rights abuses, which, however deserving of condemnation, do not threaten the security of American citizens in any way.
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Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
