Yesterday President Biden spoke with the Saudi king ahead of the release of a long-awaited CIA report on the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives in 2018. While it is likely that the Biden administration will take the report’s conclusions as further reason to create more daylight between Washington and Riyadh, Dennis Ross and Robert Satloff urge the White House to find the right balance when it comes to dealing with this important but problematic ally:
Our disgust at certain Saudi actions notwithstanding, [the U.S.] retains real stakes in Saudi Arabia, as there is no significant issue in the Middle East where a successful strategy is possible without active Saudi support. From containing Iran to combatting terror, to building on Arab normalization with Israel (and using that to break the stalemate between Israelis and Palestinians) or trying to end or reduce conflicts in Yemen and Syria, we need Saudi cooperation. Moreover, to manage the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, we need a stable and predictable price of oil that makes wind, solar, and hydrogen alternatives competitive in terms of cost—while also preventing the sudden collapse of our oil and gas industry. Here again, the Saudis remain important.
Perhaps most of all, we have a stake in the fundamental change of Saudi social and economic norms being led by the same leader responsible for those impulsive, reckless actions [that have sparked recent American criticism]: the crown prince Mohammad bin Salman. For all his faults, the prince understands that his kingdom—and his family—won’t survive the eventual demise of a fossil-fuel economy without dramatic adjustment. His answer has been to implement a “revolution from above.”
In practice, this has meant expanding civil rights and economic opportunities for women, since the Saudi economy would forever languish without the contribution of half its population. It has meant reforming the legal code and school textbooks in ways that may seem modest to a foreign observer but are dramatic in the Saudi context. And it has meant empowering clerics that advocate a more tolerant, inclusive Islam, while imposing tight controls on those who refuse to discard the old ways. The U.S. has an interest in the success of this effort.
Read more on The Hill: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/540446-balancing-act-biden-must-redefine-the-us-saudi-relationship