Biden Leans Towards Visiting Saudi Arabia

“President Joe Biden is leaning towards making a visit to Saudi Arabia — a trip that would likely bring him face-to-face with the Saudi crown prince he once shunned as a killer,” the AP reports.

“The White House is weighing a visit to Saudi Arabia that would also include a meeting of the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) as well as Egypt, Iraq and Jordan.”

Playbook: “The White House’s thinking here is pretty straightforward. The president has a gargantuan domestic political liability — high gas prices — that Saudi Arabia is in a position to help with. Combine that with the international political realities — MBS is young and will likely lead the kingdom for decades, the West needs new sources of oil given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia’s role as a regional power — and you have the makings of a rapprochement.”

“But even as the calculation is understandable, there are obvious moral costs to wooing MBS.”