Biden’s Saudi Disaster – USA Gov Policy

There has rarely been so substantial, and detrimental, a turnaround in foreign policy equal to that in U.S.-Saudi relations over the past several years.

During Trump’s tenure, Washington and Riyadh were unprecedently close. It was part of a larger success in the Middle East, headlined by his Administration’s peace deals with Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi’s were a major asset in countering Iran’s malign influence in the region.

That happy turn of events swiftly deteriorated under Joe Biden.

The disastrous result has been the alienation of a key Middle Eastern ally. The Saudi’s have moved substantially closer to China. The two nations agreed to 35 deals valued at $29.6 billion. Even more worrisome, Riyadh and Beijing inked a “comprehensive strategic partnership agreement.”

Many members of the Senate have decried the current White Houses’ missteps in the region, noting that:

“President Biden entered office with a Middle East united against the Iranian threat and on the heels of the Abraham Accords, an unprecedented boon to Middle East peace. Under these agreements, struck in 2020, four Arab states – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan – agreed to recognize the State of Israel and opened the door to further cooperation. The Biden administration quickly undid that progress. From the start, he put politics ahead of policy in his zeal to restart the failed Iran nuclear deal, simply to make good on a campaign promise. In courting Tehran, the administration removed the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations and ended U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s and the UAE’s war against the group. The administration delayed an arms deal with Saudi Arabia and the UAE and withdrew air defense systems, caving to progressive demands to end the war while our allies faced Houthi attacks against civilian infrastructure. Buoyed by the administration’s actions, the Houthis launched renewed offensives in Yemen and increasingly threatened our partners. When Iran-supported militia groups targeted Americans in Iraq and Syria with rockets and drones last summer, the administration barely reacted. In a dogged effort to keep the nuclear deal alive, the Biden administration has not conducted a strike against Iranian proxies since October 2021, and regional deterrence is sorely lacking. The Israelis, to whom Iran poses an existential threat, have deeply and publicly disagreed with the administration’s approach. President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan last August confirmed fears that he was willing to abandon our allies…”

The inexplicable tilt towards Iran by the Biden Administration (similar to that by the Obama White House) is a major factor. The Saudis depended on the U.S. as a bulwark against Tehran’s expansionist threat. Despite Iran’s ongoing nuclear program (now believed to be mere months away from the ability to construct atomic weapons,) its support for violence throughout the region, its provision of weapons to Putin for use in the invasion of Ukraine and its purchase of Russian advanced fighter aircraft, the current White House continues its softness on the nation.

A New Republic review called Biden’s 2022 Middle Eastern trip “Nothing short of a disaster.”

Author Joel Pollack notes that “President Trump signed the Abraham Accords, creating a network of peace deals between Israel and many Arab and Muslim states. Biden has punished many of the key players: raising tariffs on the United Arab Emirates (UAE); withholding arms sales to the UAE and Saudi Arabia; de-listing the anti-Saudi, pro-Iran Houthi militia as a terror group; publishing an intelligence report naming the Saudi Crown Prince as a key player in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi; and appointing the same pro-Iran diplomats who crafted the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. All Biden had to do was continue where Trump had left off, rewarding Arab and Muslim countries that made peace, and maintaining pressure on Iran. But Biden’s foreign policy team, apparently blinded by the conviction that everything Trump did must necessarily be wrong, continues to repeat the mistakes of the Obama administration, which appeased Iran and allowed it to cause regional chaos.”

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

U.S. Navy Losing Dominance

From the Caribbean to the Mediterranean to the Pacific, the naval forces of Russia and China have challenged the once-dominant position of the United States. On July 18, U.S. Army Gen. Laura J. Richardson, in a speech at the Aspen Institute, warned that Russian warships have been making port visits to Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and 22 nations in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility has signed on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the commander of Southcom told attendees of the Aspen Security Forum. Army Gen. Laura J. Richardson said the nations that have signed on to the Chinese initiative don’t see the investments the U.S. has been making in their countries. “All they see are the Chinese cranes,” she said. “These projects are in the billions of dollars. … They are big-time projects.” Richardson said it would be OK with her if those investments were for doing good in the hemisphere. “But it makes me a little suspicious when it’s in the critical infrastructure.” Critical infrastructure, she said, includes deep-water ports, cybersecurity, energy and space. “I worry about the dual use nature of that. These are state-owned enterprises by a communist government. I worry about the flipping of that to a military application,” Richardson said, referring to China. Regarding the Russian port visits, Richardson said U.S. vessels have been shadowing those vessels to ensure the safety and security of the United States. Also, the Russians continue to make high-level government visits to Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua with their foreign affairs minister and the head of the Russian legislative body, she said, adding that the U.S. could be doing more in its own government exchanges. “I really believe that economic security and national security go hand in hand here in this hemisphere, and we have got to work both of them together very, very quickly,” she said. In the Mediterranean, according to the Bulgarian Military A fleet, including the missile cruiser Varyag and the frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov, has successfully navigated the Suez Canal, transitioning from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, as confirmed by the Pacific Fleet [PF] on Wednesday. The authoritative GIS Reports notes that “In the crucial Indo-Pacific, the tide has changed dramatically against America. the balance of naval power in the Western Pacific has been altered in favor of the Chinese Navy. For instance, the U.S. Navy went from having a 76-warship advantage over China in 2005 to having a 39-combatant deficiency in 2023, based on similar ship and submarine comparisons. That is a swing of 115 naval platforms in 23 years. This is a strategic trend that will continue uninterrupted for at least the next decade.” Rep. Mike Rogers has previously pointed out that The Biden Administration’s 30-year ship-building plan reduces the Navy’s ability to protect its aircraft-carrier strike groups and eliminate enemy minefields, reduces the Marine Corps’ ability to conduct forcible-entry missions, and reduces by almost 10 percent the Navy’s capacity to launch missiles. Public estimates indicate that China will eventually develop a global force of submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles, posing an obvious risk to the U.S. China’s surface-combatant forces already greatly exceed that of the U.S. Photo: Vessels attached to a flotilla with the navy under the PLA Southern Theater Command sail toward the designated area during a comprehensive combat training exercise in late June, 2024. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Huang Jiacheng and Wang Jian)