Travel to the Middle East | Joe Biden returns with a meager record

(Jeddah) Joe Biden hoped to reassert US influence in the Middle East during his first tour of the region as president, but his visit unsurprisingly ended with very little notable progress, analysts say.

After a first stop on Wednesday and Thursday in Israel and the Occupied Territories, the American president spent the last 24 hours of his tour in Saudi Arabia, where he did not achieve any major diplomatic breakthroughs, neither on oil prices nor on human rights or on Israel’s role in the region.

Saudi Arabia was the trickiest leg of the trip, as soaring energy prices after the invasion of Ukraine forced Joe Biden to woo the kingdom, which he had promised to treat as an “outcast”. after the 2018 assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Oil boost

Washington was hoping for a boost from the world’s largest crude exporter to bring down the high oil price, which is hurting Democrats’ chances in the November legislative elections.

“I’m doing everything I can” to increase oil supply, Biden said after bilateral meetings with Saudi leaders on Friday, adding that the results would not be visible “for two weeks.”

His national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, however, tempered expectations, telling reporters that any action “will be carried out within the framework of OPEC”, the alliance of the main exporting countries which notably includes Russia.

On Saturday, at a summit bringing together the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain), as well as Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, oil “ wasn’t really on the menu,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhane told a news conference.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s promise to increase production capacity to 13 million barrels a day had already been made in May, and is not expected to come true until 2027.

Relations with Israel

In terms of relations with Israel, the kingdom has never adhered to the Abraham Accords negotiated by the United States in 2020, which allowed the Jewish state to normalize its relations with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, ensuring that he will recognize Israel only within the framework of a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Riyadh, however, appeared to make a move hours before Mr. Biden’s arrival by announcing the opening of its airspace to “all carriers”, including Israelis.

But Washington’s hopes were quickly dashed, as the kingdom downplayed its decision, one of the few concrete announcements of this trip. This is “in no way a prelude to any step” towards normalization, tempered the head of Saudi diplomacy, barely the presidential plane took off from Jeddah.

In addition, the trips of the American president to Israel and the Palestinian Territories have not marked any progress in the level of the peace negotiations which have been at a standstill since 2014.

Mr. Biden was content to meet with leaders from both sides, announcing financial aid for the Palestinians and a plan to deploy 4G in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The American president and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid have also signed a security pact committing the United States never to allow Iran, Israel’s pet peeve, to acquire nuclear weapons.

The two men, however, displayed their differences on the approach to adopt in this case, Mr. Biden favoring the diplomatic route and Mr. Lapid not excluding the use of force against the Islamic Republic.

“Setback” for rights

The most controversial moment of Mr. Biden’s visit was his meeting with Crown Prince and de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), named by US intelligence as the sponsor of the 2018 assassination of critical Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The “fist bump”, a fist-to-fist salute between the two men, made the front page of the washington posta newspaper for which Mr. Khashoggi wrote, and was described as “shameful” by the editor of the daily.

“The greeting between President Biden and MBS is painful as a visual representation of our failure to hold ourselves to account,” says Kristin Diwan of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

For Saudi Abdullah Alaoudh, who lives in the United States and whose father – a prominent cleric – has been detained in the kingdom since 2017, it is “a huge setback”.

However, the Saudis were unlikely to make major concessions on human rights, and for some experts this does not necessarily make the trip a failure.

“The visit itself is a success, especially for the Saudis, especially Mohamed bin Salman,” said analyst Hussein Ibish.

For Biden, the goal was to improve personal and political relations between his administration and the kingdom.

“It seems to have been accomplished,” he adds.