“The rules are changing,” Biden said in an interview Friday, teasing what he said would be an announcement of “significant changes” to the US approach to Riyadh in the coming days.
By Tuesday, those changes had added up to the release of a declassified intelligence report blaming Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and sanctions on 76 individuals. He also pointedly held a conversation with the kingdom’s octogenarian King Salman, and not its powerful crown prince, to discuss ending the war in Yemen and committing the US “to help Saudi Arabia defend its territory… from Iranian-aligned groups.”
“Saudi Arabia is a hugely influential country in the Arab world and beyond,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday, explaining the not-quite-pariah approach. “What happens in Saudi Arabia will and has had profound implications well beyond Saudi Arabia’s borders.”
The new US approach to Saudi Arabia — human rights sanctions on one hand and security cooperation on the other — appears to be an indicator of how it will handle its relationship with other key US allies in the Middle East. In Egypt, the administration approved the sale of nearly $200 million worth of missiles and, days later, stressed its commitment to human rights there. READ MORE
