For the first time after Joe Biden came to power, the US administration has said that the country will be making attempts to “recalibrate” ties with Saudi Arabia, however, through communicating with King Salman as he is the counterpart of Biden. The statement is being seen as a downgrade in relationships with the Crown Prince Mohammed who shared strong bonds with the US’s former president, Donald Trump.
During a conference on Tuesday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki told the reporters, “We’re going to recalibrate our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Part of that is going back to engagement counterpart-to-counterpart. The president’s counterpart is King Salman.”
Factually, Biden’s counterpart is King Salman, 85, who is suffering from poor health while Prince Salman has to communicate primarily with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as he officially holds the position of a Deputy Prime Minister and the Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia since he was appointed in 2017. He was declared as the heir to the throne on 21st June 2017 by King Salman who was crowned on 23rd January 2015.
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The latest developments provide a glimpse of the Biden administration’s take on the Gulf country and how differently it aims to go about with their relationship since Trump’s exit from the White House.
Donald Trump was vocal about his strategy to form Saudi Arabia as the central entity in reaching the Middle East and had even landed in the Arab land.
However, Biden turned things after entering the office as within the first few days, the United States stayed the sales of prime weapons to Saudi in an attempt to put an end to the war in Yemen, led by Saudi. The President also urged the kingdom to scale its human rights record following the murder of the Washington Post columnist.
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Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Mideast official at the State Department, said that the move suggests the US is returning to the routine channels and traditional ways of engagement.
Speaking about the statement, he said, “This is a slapdown of MBS, who the administration views as reckless and ruthless. The king’s health is not great, but it’s less about the king than it is about making it clear that MBS is no longer the main point of contact.”
Despite the announcements, the ties between the two countries haven’t got cut completely. This is due to the statements given by few officials of the Biden administration expressing their desire to aid the kingdom in defending itself from Iran along with the US’s involvement in working closely with the authorities to end the Saudi-led Yemen war.
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As for the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, despite being the de facto ruler of the kingdom, he received major backlash from Washington following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the WP columnist. He was killed inside the Saudi consulate of Istanbul, Turkey in October 2018. An investigation from the UN pointed out the involvement of the senior Saudi officials who worked by reporting directly to the Crown Prince. However, the officials rejected the accusation.
In spite of the reports, Donald Trump remained cordial with the prince, especially his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who shared close bonds with him after the killing, protecting the crown prince’s name.
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A prominent fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, Martin Indyk, said that the change in ties is “meant to send a signal that President Biden wants certain things from the crown prince, such as an end to the war in Yemen and a different approach to dissent at home.”
He added saying that the US President “will really want to see the crown prince respond to those things sooner rather than later. Until MBS does that, I think Biden will be dealing with the king,” referring to the Crown Prince’s abbreviation, MBS.
