President Biden’s meeting in Saudi Arabia this month with King Salman will include his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of the Kingdom, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council said Thursday.
“The president will sit down in a bilateral meeting with the Saudi king and his leadership team,” NSC spokesman John Kirby said. “As you know, the crown prince is on that leadership team. So he will be a part of that meeting.”
Biden has tried to downplay his plans to meet with MbS by characterizing it as part of a broader meeting. “So certainly, the president will be seeing the crown prince in the context of that larger bilateral discussion,” Kirby said.
Biden has come under heavy criticism for planning to meet with MbS because of the crown prince’s role in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was slain at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. US intelligence concluded last year that MbS was behind the killing.
The media focus around Biden’s trip has been on the issue of oil prices, but the president has said that the Saudi visit is more about increasing Israeli-Arab military cooperation in the region. Israel is looking to build an anti-Iran alliance in the Middle East with the US’s Arab allies that has a focus on integrated air defense systems.
Israel has normalized relations with the UAE and Bahrain under the US-brokered Abraham Accords. The Biden administration wants Saudi Arabia to normalize with Israel and is reportedly working on a deal that will transfer Red Sea islands from Egypt’s control to the Saudis.
If the agreement is reached, the Saudis will take steps toward normalization with Israel, including opening its airspace to Israeli flights and allowing direct flights from Israel for Muslim pilgrims.
Biden will be visiting the region from July 13-16. He will stop in Israel and the West Bank before heading to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Besides the meeting with King Salman and MbS, Biden will also attend a summit of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders while in Saudi Arabia.
Talk with Putin and honorable compromise with Putin or genuflect before this obnoxious despot who murdered an American journalist in the most dreadful way.Biden chose the latter.
But liberal world order. Our values. The rule of law.
Biden would rather meet with bone-saw murdering monarchs to beg for more oil rather than admit that his Russia sanctions are a failure and brought misery upon everyone in the West.
MBS is a scoundrel of the first order. Biden is a p*ssy of the first order. Really.
This is akin to a following. The president of a foreign country comes to Washington to plea for the increase of US weapon sales to his country. He tells his people: I will meet only with VP Harris but I may have just a very brief tete a tete with president Biden.
The cowardice of our president reeks to high heaven.
King Salman might have been the lesser of two evils. But I suspect his influence is nearly gone. Biden must deal with MBS. It’s not going to be pretty. I really don’t know what he thinks he can accomplish with this trip.
He doesn’t have to deal with bin Salman, he could just not go there. One of his election promises was to make Mohamed bin Salman a pariah. That went the way of “I’m going to end covid”.
Peter van Buren:
Sad but true.
“We are fighting for the liberal world order. Now chop those limbs and bomb those villages, Saudis. We’ll provide the tools. Please give us more oil.”
Well on the one hand you have a dead guy and principle on the other side you have billions and billions of dollars