Faisal Alshammeri

Obviously, President Biden was looking for a sympathetic audience when he announced that he was going to visit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the middle of July 2022. This was a major reversal of his policy since he vowed to make a “parish” state out of the KSA. The defeat of President Biden personally and his policy on Saudi Arabia presents a chance to look at the thorough combination of subtlety and good principles of the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia. 

 Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy was the counterpart of what Biden tried to preach. It is directed toward the resolution of conflicts in so many parts of the world. It is also aspiring to solve global issues of concern for humanity such as poverty, disease, the environment and others. It does not rely on submissive instructions as Biden’s approach to many world crises have been revealing. It relies on persuasion and in soliciting the best outcome from contending rivals dealing with a specific issue. Biden’s concentration on morality hinders American foreign policy from assuming effective discourses with other nations in the world. Biden’s justification of the mishandling of his country’s relations with Saudi Arabia could be upheld under the pretext of realism, domestic factors in American politics, or disputes in his administration how to reach out to the Gulf Arabs. Nevertheless, these factors must not excuse his poor performance on U.S.-Saudi relations.

Biden has to address an intelligent audience looking for different routes for a complicated world politics than admonitions on human rights. Hopefully, his formal closing of his speeches should not be exhortations on how the countries in the Middle East should support the United States’ sanctions on Russia. It should not be a homily on how the Arab countries should coexist with Iran.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabian diplomacy exemplifies the good spirit of diplomacy and it excites interest, and it throws light on whatever the subject is which is to be discussed. It is based on strong principles and a fair degree of practicality. It brings before the world the best expressions of the looks of many interests and affections of a group of states toward a certain problem.

Biden wants a new phase of American foreign policy in the Middle East. But he was remiss on a very fundamental aspect of world politics.

For over seventy years the United States relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stood as the forefront of the two nations’ strategies in the Middle East. America’s security interests were served by the stability and progress of moderate governments in the Arab World. Obama and Biden gradually favored America to be neutral in the Middle East and in particular in the Gulf region. This ignored the challenge coming from radical regimes such as the Islamic Republic of Iran. This was a policy of self-isolation since the United States Government could not find any of the Arab states on agreement with her on such a reckless new political attitude. 

In this regard, Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy proved to be more mature than how recent America diplomatic steps indicated. Saudi Arabia believes that any formal or informal alliance is a community of political entities dedicated to the achieving of certain political goals that express important practical and ideal realities. Such a smart disposition gives the United States the opportunity to make  important shifts in its foreign policy when it finds herself dragged into many strategic quagmires as a result of the wrong decisions by its leaders. Al Riyadh considers diplomatic gatherings open forums for serious diplomatic deliberations. Saudi Arabia does not revive alliances but it engineers partnerships among many countries that it deals with, the United States of America included. Saudi Arabia is maintaining unity among the Arab countries by leading the process of modernization in Arab’s states and societies. Saudi Arabia’s centrality has always had the resource of being the potential transformer of the Arab and Islamic Worlds as well as the stabilizer of any crisis thst erupts based on ethnic, sectarian, strategic or political reason in the very same two areas.

President Biden has to understand the process of policy making in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to conduct successful foreign policy in the Middle East. The narrative from Washington is that Biden wants to make progress on Middle East peace. He wants to end the civil war in Syria and help Iraq and Lebanon. But all these questions have been deliberated and answered by Saudi foreign policy before Biden would convey them officially to the Arab leaders in his expected visit. This is why President Biden must listen more than talk when he attends the Arab-Gulf Summit in Al Riyadh. 

Biden has to understand thd narrative of Saudi Arabia on how it fixes its oil production and price and how it promulgates diplomatic and humanitarian initiatives in Yemen to end the war there. Biden must understand the value of Saudi Arabia to keep a minimum shared levels of interests between the two countries. The alternative will be another plunder by another American administration in foreign and security policy. 

 Writer and Political analyst *