(CNN)In 2019, then presidential candidate Joe Biden mistakenly had it in Saudi Arabia Revealed without. Biden, angry at the role of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), a Washington Post columnist who was allegedly involved in the killing of U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, madepay Saudi Arabia and actually Make them Paria. " they are. "The current government of Saudi Arabia has little value for social reimbursement," he added.
Unfortunately, for Biden and the human rights community, much of the world does not seem to agree.
Since Khashoggi's 2018 killing and dismantling at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, MBS rehabilitation has been on track.
The Biden administration has released aCIA assessmentthat the MBS ordered murder and the United States imposed sanctions on many Saudi officials. Saudi Arabia's own trials against Saudi Arabia, several of whom were involved in the murder, reinforce the story that plotters are a fraudulent element unrelated to the crown prince. Turkeythen conducted atrial against 26 Saudi Arabian suspects.
However, paving the way for an MBS visit to Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan approved the transfer of the trial to Saudi Arabia,effectively ending the case.
On Wednesday, MBS met Erdogan, one of the greatest critics of Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Khashoggi murder, and. Driven by an interest in oil and a desire to expand and reach diplomatic options, Saudi Arabia's relations with Russia and China (no human rights issues) are closer than ever
Next month MBS will take over himHostThe most important step from the cold when he hosts an apparently conflicting Biden. It is clear that much of the international community, unlikeLehman Brothers, has clearly determined that their relationship with Saudi Arabia is too big to fail.
There wasn't much resistance to the MBS rehab project. Within a year of Khashoggi's murder, the president, prime minister, and business leaders flocked to Davos at the Saudi Desert Investment Summit. Several VIPs who withdrew from the 2018 Summit are back the following year. These include, including those responsible for HSBC, Blackstone, and BlackRock. And in December 2019, Saudi Arabia became President of the G20, effectively hosting a summitin Saudi Arabia in November 2020 for a pandemic.
Saudi Arabia has also found very ambitious partners in Russia and China. At the G20 in Argentina in December 2018, a month after Khashoggi was killed, Russian President Vladimir Putin was at the famouswhen much of the international community was at a distance. I threw a lifeline at MBS with the high touchthat was shot.
There have been ups and downs in relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia, including theprice competition over oil in 2020.
But Saudi Arabia has grown to question US security efforts-worsened by worsening relations between MBS and Biden-Russia has Riyadh as a non-US option Provided a convenient foil to show that you have. Putin made an official visit to Saudi Arabia in October 2019. And since Russia invaded Ukraine, MBS reportedly hadtalked with Putin several times.
And at leastonce, he explicitly refused to accept the call from Biden.
Similarly, China has overlooked Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses and has emerged as another important partner ready to offer another hedge against Saudi Arabia's dependence on the United States. Within a year of Khashoggi's murder, MBSvisited Chinaas part of a tour to Asia. By 2021, Saudi Arabia had become thelargest source of oil imports for China.
Last week's regional tour of the Crown Prince to Egypt, Jordan, and especially Turkey, reflects efforts to demonstrate that Saudi Arabia is an important regional player. This was especially true for the MBS meeting with Erdogan, who campaigned against Saudi Arabia to kill Khashoggi. According to Turkish sources, the meeting reflected the"new era"in Saudi Arabia-Turkey relations and closed a file on Turkey's efforts to seek an answer to Khashoggi's fate. MBS clearly wants to send a message to the United States to do the same.
Turks and Arabs are not the only ones trying to normalize their relations with Saudi Arabia. Israel is concerned that stagnant US-Saudi relations will hurt their own interests. They are also pressing the Biden administration to repair relations and hope thatPresident's next trip to Saudi Arabia will also help improve relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. ..
The final part of Saudi Arabia's efforts to bring MBS out of the cold is focused on the United States. The new Saudi-fundedLIV Golf Seriesaims to attract top players from the PGA to tournaments and pay millions of dollars in prize money. This is the calculated part of that effort.
However, the main event will be the US President's visit to Saudi Arabia next month. Saudi Arabia considers this visit to be the same as turning a page on the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, as it does not require casual comments on Biden's MBS and is a U.S. perception that Saudi Arabia is of considerable importance. I believe.
Saudi commentators are delighted with Biden's visit. "It's the popularity of the President's tank that brings him to us. It's his legitimacy that he wants to be strengthened by meeting our Crown Prince,"saysThe United States, which wrote Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi ambassador, was published in Arab News in an editorial.
There is increasing pressure to repair the fence within the Biden administration. Without the crisis in Ukraine, Biden would probably not have made this trip, boosted by the oil crisis as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and soaring gas prices. He was initially reported to be angry and refused to meet with MBS, who said "the president should support something." And his subsequent reaction to the trip seems to suggest that he is really in conflict. "I'm not going to meet MBS. I'm going to an international conference and he'll be part of that," Biden recently said.
The President tries to remove as much as possible from the meeting with MBS. He could put pressure on Saudi Arabia to pump up more oil. Work more closely with Israel. Support the Western efforts towards Russia in Ukraine. We will work with other Gulf countries and Israel on the containment of Iran. And he may succeed in some of it.
Hopefully Biden will put pressure on MBS (repressive authoritarians) about Khashoggi's murder and other ongoinghuman rights abuses. But Saudi Arabia's takeaway from the conference would certainly have been oil and influence dominated. MBS rehabilitation is almost complete and Saudi Arabia has escaped murder by avoiding Khashoggi's accounting and accountability.
