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On the 26^th of February 2021, five weeks after officially taking office, Joe Biden drew the attention of the daily news consumers through two moves he made in less than a day – his first orders with regard to the US foreign policy, as the US President at the beginning of a mandate.

We are firstly referring to an air raid that targeted several locations of the pro-Iranian armed militias located at the Eastern border between Syria and Iraq. Commentators interpreted Joseph Biden’s order as a “tough” message the new Washington Administration sent to the theocratic regime in Tehran at a difficult moment in time, when the US-Iranian dispute is at a crossroad, especially with regard to the “nuclear crisis” and to the fate of the 2015 agreement – the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” – that the USA withdrew from, a decision taken by the former US President, Donald Trump.

The second step was taken when, at his initiative, the US President had a phone conversation with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud. What came as a surprise this time, was not how reluctantly the US leader approached the head of the Wahhabi monarchy, one of USA’s oldest allies in the Middle East – after all that reluctance was seen when he approached another fundamental regional ally, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – but the context and the content of the conversation.

Firstly, the most surprising fact was that when he addressed the 80-year-old king, Joe Biden distanced himself from the approach adopted by Donald Trump, to whom, the constant dialogue partner was the royal son, and heir, Mohammed bin Salman, the true force and the de facto leader of the Saudi Kingdom, as well as the spiritual leader of the Yemeni war. Obsessed with his desire for power, he became famous due to the futuristic-reformist actions he took for the Saudi society and politics, as well as due to another fact, completely ignored by Donald Trump and his advisors, however, known to the US intelligence services – he was suspected of having ordered the assassination of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, murdered and dismembered by a Saudi commando, on the 2^nd of October 2018, inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Mohammed Bin Salman (www.daily-sun.com)

During the conversation Joe Biden had with the monarch in Riyadh, he insisted on highlighting the fact that the USA would stick to the strategic and security partnership it has with Saudi Arabia, and, at the same time, he informed him that Washington intends to declassify and publish a report of the US intelligence services, concerning the “Khashoggi case”. The Administration itself insisted on the need to “recalibrate” the bilateral relations, so that they do not violate human rights and are in accordance with the values and principles of the US people.

Joe Biden kept to his word and the incriminating document became public, unleashing a mayhem that foretold the imminence of a storm. The royal council protested ardently, labelling the American initiative as “inconclusive and counterproductive”, as it “prejudiced the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its leadership”. A phrase that was adopted by all oil monarchies in the Gulf, which stood together to defend the “sovereignty of the Saudi Kingdom and its leadership”. They were joined by Egypt, Sudan, the Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Nayef Fallah Al-Hajraf and even by the Arab League, through the voice of its Secretary General, Ahmed Abul-Gheit.

Coincidence or not, all this was prefaced by a long series of cold showers that Joe Biden directed at the Saudis, and caused confusion, raised oppositions and concerns at the top of the ruling pyramid in Riyadh. The first step was the decision taken by the US Administration to suspend all military supply deliveries for the Saudi ally and the Yemeni campaign, where the monarchy and Islamic Iran have been engaged for the past six years, in a fierce proxy war. Then Joe Biden revoked the decision adopted by Donald Trump that designated the Houthi rebels – supported by Iran – as a foreign terrorist organisation and included them on the list made by the US Department of State. Last but not least, there came the sanctions imposed by the USA on more than 70 Saudi officials and entities, among which the “High Readiness Reaction Forces” – a military elite corps whose mission is to protect the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman – the Lieutenant General Ahmad Al-Assiri, a close confidant and advisor to the Crown Prince, former deputy of the Saudi Intelligence Service, former spokesperson for the coalition that is engaged in Yemen, suspected of having been involved in the assassination of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Lieutenant General. Ahmed Al-Assiri (Source: me-confidential.com)

Finally, according to the White House spokesperson, Ned Price, the US Administration asked the Saudi government to proceed immediately to the dissolution of the High Readiness Reaction Forces, after the US had enforced sanctions on them.

In this succession of events, neither President Biden, nor his secretary of state, Antony Blinken ever mentioned the name of the Crown Prince, Why?

Aside from mobilising the media sector, the Saudi diplomatic corps took two political actions, clearly ignoring the “US Connection”. And we are referring to a first intervention from the Saudi Permanent Representative to the UN, Abdullah Moallemi, who was outright and to the point in declaring that the document that the US intelligence services declassified was irrelevant, and consequently Saudi Arabia saw this matter as closed. Then, on the 2^nd of March, the same diplomatic representative pathetically appealed to the UN Security Council (not to the White House) to ask the international community to act in order to end the actions and aggressive attacks of the Yemeni Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia’s territory and air space.

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Will there be hard times for the relations between the first Great World Power and for the world leader of the oil market? There may be, however not necessarily. 76 years ago, on the 14^th of February 1945, aboard the US cruiser “USS Quincy”, the US President Franklin Roosevelt and the founding King, Ibn Saud agreed that the USA should engage in guaranteeing the security of the Saudi Kingdom and the stability of the Wahhabi monarchy. In exchange for this protection, Saudi Arabia committed to satisfy – under the USA’s own terms – its need for hydrocarbons. Ever since then, the bilateral relation would meet numerous ups and downs, tensions and uncertainties, for various reasons, pertaining either to the Americans, or to the Saudis. However, the bilateral relations have never been interrupted, or threatened by long-lasting crises.

Jamal Khashoggi (Getty Images)

Today, the bone of contention is Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist and columnist for the “Washington Post”, assassinated on the 2^nd of October 2018, inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The investigations ordered by the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan as well as other investigations ran by the US intelligence services, suggested that the order to end the journalist might have been given by the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, himself. The authorities in Riyadh strongly denied it. In Washington, the conclusions of the investigations led by the National Intelligence Community were classified by order of the former US President, Donald Trump. By the end of February, during the “detrumpization” process, the new president, Joseph Biden declassified them. The reaction of the Saudis was immediate. “The Saudi Government completely denied the erroneous, harmful and unacceptable conclusions of the report concerning the leadership of the Kingdom”, highlighted a communique of the Foreign Ministry in Riyadh. While other official sources, taking a formal step back, accepted the fact that Jamal Khashoggi had been murdered, stating that the assassins had been Saudis who had acted on their own. A Saudi court organised a discreet trial, where five Saudi citizens were sentenced to death, and another three to prison, serving for various periods. Subsequently, their death sentences were changed. Officially, to the Saudi Government the Khashoggi issue had ended.

The USA did not see it the same way. The US Senate, who had access to the conclusions of the intelligence services, decided that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The new president, Joe Biden let the Saudis know, at the highest level, that the US Administration decided to act in order to “recalibrate” and re-establish the relations between the USA and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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President Biden did not elaborate on the meaning of the “recalibration” about which he had warned King Salman. However, we can attest to two things. Firstly, on one hand, the new president – who before coming to the White House stated that Saudi Arabia “must be considered a pariah”, while the royal son and heir to the throne was labelled a “drifter” – wanted a conceptual and pragmatic change of the arbitrary despotism vis-à-vis the rights and liberties of the Saudi civil society. He wanted them to be in accordance to the universal values and principles the American democracy was built on. Secondly, the new President’s harsh tone directed at the Saudis, can be regarded as his attempt to establish a reasonable balance between his approaches, taking into account the rising tensions in the Gulf area in general, and between the theocratic Iranian government and the Saudi Sunni monarchy, in particular.

The clouds that darken the sky of the relations between Washington and Riyadh are a certainty, which – taking into account the previous differences and the primitive ego of the purest Arab descent of the Al-Saud family – may take a while. However, it is hazardous to say that the “Khashoggi affair” will lead to a rupture. The relations between the two countries belong to a geopolitical reality that came to be because of strategic needs, but also because of economic, energy, and military interests, an area where the kingdom is and will remain an absorbent and stable market for the American military industries. To this, we add the USA’s interest to have, when needed, permanent access to the Saudi military bases in Taif and Tabuk, or to the naval base in Yanbu, at the Red Sea.

Under such circumstances, we must not rule out the possibility that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – “MBS” to everyone – could be cast aside, which would question his ambitions to succeed his father to the Wahhabi throne.

To the Biden administration Saudi Arabia remains an important element of the political and geostrategic equation, but also in the equation of peace and war, including in the ending of a destructive conflict such as the one between the Sunni Saudi Wahhabism and the revolutionary Iranian theocracy. However, at least in the light of the declarations and the decisions adopted by President Biden during the first month of his mandate, the new head of the administration in Washington wishes to end the artificial paradigm that dominated the US regional policy in the past years – starting with the two Bush (Senior and Junior), all the way up to Clinton, Barack Obama, and especially Donald Trump. A paradigm that, out of mercantile and, often enough, hypocritical reasons, under the light of the “universal beacon of democracy and liberty” that the USA pretends to be, promoted intense relations that ignored the declarations of principles with regard to totalitarianism, despotism, human rights and liberties, women’s rights, the civil society – unknown issues to the actions and mindsets of the ultraconservative Saudi regime that Joe Biden wishes to erase through “re-establishing”, and “recalibrating” the relationship, in a way that puts an end to the discretionary autarky, in exchange for material conjuncture advantages.

In order to accomplish this, Joe Biden must have clear answers and take decisions that can be seen through. Limiting himself to timid sanctions on pawns that do not play decisive parts, and delicately going around the real sources of evil do not and will not help to achieve the “re-establishment” that Joe Biden is aiming at.