Embarrassment and Joe Biden seem to be Siamese twins; where one goes, the other follows. Biden’s upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia to beg for more oil is no exception to this sad state of affairs. Even the leftist media can’t help show the embarrassing situation surrounding this visit.
In the presidential race, Biden claimed that as president he’d take major actions against the current Saudi royalty to punish them for the barbaric murder of The Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Biden specifically named the Saudi Crown Prince as the one ordering the murder of Khashoggi and stated that he’d make Saudi Arabia a pariah. For a refresher, here’s what he said in the Democratic presidential debate in November 2019.
Soon after taking the oval office, however, Biden backed off his determination to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for “murdering children and innocent people.” Instead, he allowed the U.S. arms sales to continue as The Washington Post on June 15 and tasted other compromises. But the Arabs are difficult to appease and when Biden tried to call them in March this year to ask for more oil because of his failed policies, both Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the UAE Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan refused to take his call. This was a direct insult to the old man who just wanted to save face as his popularity plunged among his own voters owing to the economic disaster his incompetence brought them.
The leftist media, with unquestioned political loyalty to the Democrats, can still not help remind of Biden’s campaign promises for action against the Saudi royals. And it’s not Biden that is answering; he hardly takes challenging questions among whatever few he takes in the first place. His officials are trying to make it sound like not a big deal. Just a few days ago, Secretary of State Antony Blinken avoided answering the question by CNN whether Biden’s promise of action against Saudi Arabia was broken for cheaper oil. Blinken struggled to put together a coherent and relevant answer but hinted tacitly that the relationship with Saudi Arabia can’t be ruptured.
The mortifying part of this theater of compromise for the Biden administration is the absence of Biden’s voice. Neither the media is reminding him of the pariah promise nor he is addressing it. To make things worse, a recent video of his time around the G7 leaders showed French President Macron telling Biden not to count on Saudi oil. The video was tweeted by Michael Shellenberger and many others and made news.
A European leader telling Biden what he should have known from his own administration and diplomats sounds as awkward for the leader representing the U.S. as it looked on video.
Criticizing Biden’s foreign policy in the Middle East, The Bulwark on June 21wrote:
Because of the Biden team’s awful Middle East policy, now the Arabs have the upper hand, and relations are awful.
As a presidential candidate, Biden pretended tough on Saudis to get public attention and some votes; now he can’t roll over enough to be pardoned for what he said. His Siamese twin—embarrassment—has never looked shining so bright on the horizon of global politics as it does with Biden’s upcoming visit to seek oil from the Saudi royals that he had pledged to turn into pariah.
