Is Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman is seeking to humiliate Biden as part of a global power play?

This week, a diplomat spat between the US and Saudi Arabia degenerated into petty name-calling, a public sign of the dire state of relations between the two countries.

The exchange, fueled by a dispute over oil production, is a further blow to an alliance which for decades has been marked by predictability: The US provides arms and security to the Saudis, and gains a key strategic partner in a volatile region in return.

It is a change driven by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who is deliberately snubbing the US in an attempt to chart a more independent path, an expert told Insider.

Giorgio Cafiero, the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, said: “With Mohammed bin Salman at the helm, Saudi Arabia is very determined to assert its autonomy from the US.

“The leadership in Riyadh has been sending many signals to Washington that the Kingdom will pursue its own national interests as perceived by Saudi officials, which includes deepening cooperation with Beijing and Moscow.”

Specifically, this has taken the form of Saudi Arabia joining Russia other oil-rich nations to announce a steep cut in production.

This was the exact opposite of requests from the Biden administration to increase oil production, in the hope of lower prices that would help tame US inflation and deprive Russia of revenue.

Per a report in The New York Times, US officials thought they had secured a deal with Saudi Arabia and were blindsided when their plan fell apart.

The result has been humiliation for President Joe Biden, who has sought to build an international coalition against Russia and to build bridges with the Saudis.

Biden risked the wrath of critics in his own party to visit the crown prince in Jeddah in July, embarrassingly walking back a campaign pledge to render Saudi Arabia a “pariah”.

“Let’s be clear: The Saudi move was done with the full awareness that it would undermine Biden’s political position at home and abroad,” wrote former US diplomat Aaron David Miller in Foreign Policy of the oil-production cut.

He noted that it came just ahead of the midterm elections, where Democratic candidates are vulnerable to criticism from Republicans over inflation.

Cafiero, the analysts, said that Crown Prince Mohammed believes that drawing closer to Russia and China will secure more “leverage” internationally.

The crown prince also shares with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin an obsession with crushing domestic opposition, and both men are “authoritarian to their core,” Cafiero said.

It’s not just geopolitical calculation that is drawing Americans and Saudis apart, but personal antipathy between Biden and bin Salman, reports say.

The Wall Street Journal on Saturday reported that the crown prince “mocks President Biden in private, making fun of the 79-year-old’s gaffes and questioning his mental acuity.”

Biden, for his part, has taken a stand against the assassination of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered then dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 by agents, an operation US intelligence has said was ordered directly by Crown Prince Mohammed.

On the campaign trail in 2020, Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the murder in rhetoric calculated to appeal to the Democratic base — but which caused fury in Riyadh.

“Bin Salman and others in Saudi Arabia took a tremendous amount of offense to that rhetoric. Such negative sentiments have informed Saudi officials’ perspective on Biden’s presidency,” said Cafiero.

Crown Prince Mohammed has done little to conceal that he would prefer former President Donald Trump to be in the White House, Cafiero said, assessing that the crown prince preferred his transactional style.

The Saudis recently funded a high-profile golf tournament at Trump’s resorts, where he has been an enthusiastic attendee.

Trump offered at best minimal pushback over the Khashoggi killing, which happened during his presidency.

His hardline stance against Iran, Saudi Arabia’s key regional foe, also aligned with Saudi interests, unlike Biden’s policy of seeking to revive the nuclear dear which the Obama White House struck with Iran.

Despite the cooling of the relationship under Biden, the US and Saudis have much to lose from a deterioration of the alliance, Cafiero said.

The Saudis are still reliant on US weapons and security guarantees, while the US wants the Saudis to stabilize oil markets and keep prices low at home.

“Washington and Riyadh have many shared interests that are set to keep the partnership alive, [but] the bilateral relationship has become much less friendly,” concluded Cafiero.

Read the original article on Business Insider