Saudis feel let down by Biden administration and their reaction to Iran backed Houthi rebels

 

File photo of the aftermath of a Houthi ballistic missile attack against Saudi Arabia. Reuters. 

Saudi Arabia feels let down by the Biden administration and their lack of action on security threats posed to the Kingdom by Iran backed Houthi rebels. Reuters. Prince Turki al-Faisal said that the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia was strategic but was being let down by the threat posed by the Houthi rebels. The Ukraine conflict has increased the worsening relations as Saudi Arabia famously refused to increase oil production or even take Joe Biden's calls. Prince Turki also noted that Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia a pariah in the international community. Biden has been extremely critical of Saudi Arabia and has ended US support of the war in Yemen. Prince Turki isn't a government official but is highly influential in Saudi Arabia.   

My Comment:

Biden's alienation of the Saudi government has largely gone unnoticed by the international media but it is a major change in policy from other presidents. The one thing that Trump and Obama had in common is that they had decent relations with Saudi Arabia. Not so with Biden. 

Much of the backlash can be traced to the murder of Jamal Kashoggi, which I still struggle to believe that anyone cares about. The murder of a third rate journalist isn't anywhere near the worst thing Saudi Arabia has done so it's crazy to me that Biden would damage relations with a critical US ally over it. 

And the backlash? It's been huge. It has backfired massively on the Biden administration. On the outbreak of the Ukraine war, Biden called Saudi Arabia and their ally, the UAE, and didn't get a response. He wanted them to pump more oil and that didn't happen. And why would they want to help Biden? He's clearly against them. 

So Saudi Arabia didn't pump more oil and US consumers paid higher prices at the pump. And Saudi Arabia got a lot closer to Russia in the process. Not to the point that they would be full allies, but to the point that they considered buying Russian weapons over US ones. 

I do think that the Saudis have another major reason to be upset. The Yemen war is a huge deal for them and it is widely known that the Iranians are involved up to their neck. There is a reason that a group of rag-tag Houthi rebels have access to insane weapons like ballistic missiles and drones and that reason is Iran. Until very recently Iran was our biggest enemy in the region but Biden has been trying to revive the Iran nuclear deal, which Saudi Arabia correctly believes will do nothing to keep Iran from getting nukes. 

In short, Biden has pissed away years of close US ties with Saudi Arabia. To be fair, there are a lot of good reasons to question our support of Saudi Arabia, I just don't think the ones offered by the Biden administration are valid ones. And even if there are criticisms against Saudi Arabia, now is a good time to ignore them At a time that the US needs allies like Saudi Arabia it's extremely disappointing that Biden burned that bridge.