Biden’s Courting Trouble With Policy on Saudis

President Biden is seeking to burnish his human rights credentials — and once again distinguish himself from Donald Trump — by putting a bullseye on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Playing politics with an ally in such a dangerous part of the world risks unanticipated and unfortunate consequences for the United States.In releasing a three-year-old American intelligence report that blames the Crown Prince for the murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, and then immediately saying he won’t penalize the Crown Prince, Mr. Biden has opened himself to relentless pressure from Democrats on the left of his party to do something more to punish the Saudi Crown Prince.The President’s petty insistence that he will speak only with King Salman, 85, and not his 35-year-old son, the primary power in the kingdom, can’t hold. So completely has Price Mohammed already taken control of the levers of power that Saudis call him “Mr. Everything.” The ailing King could die during the Biden presidency, making his son king.Meantime, Mr. Biden has humiliated the Crown Prince, but at a price. The Crown Prince has demonstrated repeatedly in recent years that he believes the best defense is an aggressive offense. As a result, he sometimes acts and then confronts the often unpleasant consequences of his actions — whether the death of Khashoggi or the war in Yemen.For his part, Mr. Biden has already illustrated a tendency to act to demonstrate he’s not Mr. Trump and then get pushed into further actions by his party’s leftists. This collision of brash certitude versus weak resolve could produce a cycle of action and reaction that go awry.Critics of Saudi Arabia are already demanding further punishment of the Crown Prince, in part because he was close to President Trump. The last time a president was bent on promoting human rights to distinguish himself from predecessors it was Jimmy Carter destabilizing the Shah of Iran, who was overthrown and replaced by a brutally repressive Islamic theocracy. Mr. Biden best beware of unintended consequences.For one thing, the Biden team is exposing its own hypocrisy. The President says his number one foreign policy goal is to talk to Iranian leaders to secure a new nuclear deal. The blood on the hands of Iranian leaders who imprison and execute critics doesn’t seem to bother the president. At least he hasn’t called them out.By contrast, Saudi Arabia, is undergoing a “reassessment” of its relations with the United States. Already the president has blocked our arms sales for the war in Yemen. Ironically, he supported the Yemen war when it began during the Obama administration though he now calls it a human rights disaster.Riyadh would love to get out of the war, which has cost it an estimated $100 billion already. The Houthis and their Iranian backers, though, want to bleed Saudi Arabia with an eye to destabilizing the kingdom. So President Biden’s envoy likely won’t succeed at ending the war.Beyond the war, the Crown Prince faces a host of other problems. Despite his public bravado, he has angered many of royal relatives by taking their wealth and keeping them under house arrest. Some resentful royals say King Salman’s death would be an opportunity to remove MBS, as the crown prince is known. Mr. Biden’s efforts to humiliate and isolate MBS can only encourage his opponents, not only royals but also conservative religious officials angry at their lost dominance.Moreover, MBS’ economic reforms are lagging. The privatization of the economy with jobs for young Saudis is slow. Unemployment is stuck at around 15% with double that for young Saudis, who are MBS major supporters. Saudis endure VAT taxes and higher energy and water prices, painful to citizens accustomed to government handouts. Foreign investment needed to fuel economic modernization also is lagging.One of the ironies of the situation is that while Saudi human rights can be improved, MBS has, over the past four years, engineered a breathtaking expansion of individual liberty by relaxing the religious control of citizens’ private lives. Gender segregation is dead. Saudi women work in all kinds of fields, drive, travel abroad without permission of a male guardian.These are changes no American administration demanded or even dreamed possible. So instead of berating the kingdom for past human rights failures, America should be encouraging more economic and cultural liberalization. The Crown Prince wants strong relations with the United States. Never doubt, though, that survival is his top priority.When confronted by angry mobs and American pressure for human rights, the Shah dithered and departed. If, under pressure from President Biden, MBS faces a backlash from religious conservatives, royal relatives, or frustrated youths, he won’t repeat the Shah’s error. The Crown Prince will crack down and reach out to China and Russia. Maybe he succeeds; maybe he fails. Either way, he exposes our interests to unpleasant choices with unpredictable consequences.________Ms. House, author of “Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines — and Future” (Knopf), won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for her coverage of the Middle East. Dow Jones photo.

Biden’s Courting Trouble With Policy on Saudis

Biden’s Courting Trouble With Policy on Saudis

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