Eurasia Review website said in a recent report that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has nowhere else to go as Russia has written itself out of the equation, and China is neither capable nor willing to step into the United States’ shoes any time soon.
The report also pointed out that US President Joe Biden may need Saudi Arabia’s oil only to break Russia’s economic back. By the same token, Saudi Arabia, despite massive weapon acquisitions from the United States and Europe as well as arms from China that the United States is reluctant to sell, needs the US as its security guarantor.
Critics of Biden’s apparent willingness to bury the hatchet with Bin Salman argue that in the battle with Russia and China over a new 21st-century world order, the United States needs to talk the principled talk and walk the principled walk.
Wall Street Journal also commented on the issue, saying that President Biden and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may not like each other, but they desperately need each other—and time for rapprochement is running out.
“Imagine for a moment that Saudi oil suddenly disappears from world markets—or its supply is severely curbed. The immediate effects would be massively higher prices at the pump, further collapse of the Democrats’ bleak prospects at the polls, disruption of the crown prince’s modernization agenda, and a greatly emboldened axis of Russia, China and Iran. Both Iran and Russia, with China their silent partner, have strong incentives—and real capabilities—to make this scenario a reality and force the world to lift embargoes against their oil sales.”
Riyadh is preparing to host US President Joe Biden, coinciding with the recent visit of Saudi Deputy Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman to Washington. During this visit, the deputy minister held a series of meetings with a number of senior US officials, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
The visit was one of Salman’s longest in the US, and it was reported that the main objectives of the visit were to reach agreements on oil supplies, as well as talks that would have included the ongoing conflict in Yemen.
In this sense, the oil issue is one of the issues that most concern the Biden administration as it tries to isolate Russia since it decided to invade Ukraine at the end of February, an operation that continues today in the face of resistance from the Ukrainian army and international aid.
Observers point to the fact that the White House delegation is currently in Riyadh as a response to the US need for a significant increase in oil production. US sources also indicate that Biden is preparing to travel to Saudi Arabia at the end of June as part of his Middle East trip.
They also claim that Biden is trying to obtain pledges from Prince Mohammed bin Salman to respond to the US demand for increased production before the visit.
For the moment, it does not seem that Saudi Arabia is going to give in, at least not in a simple way.
