Under Trump, Saudi’s Crown Prince Was Able to Dominate The Middle East. Will Biden Reel Him In?
Bilateral Arábia Saudita by Palácio do Planalto, Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman
Bellefonte — Reports out of Saudi Arabia are suggesting that the Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, is seeking to end the Kingdom’s blockade and boycott of Qatar.
The move, as reported by The New Arab, is seen by experts as a would-be “gift” for President-elect Joe Biden and his incoming administration. However, following the assassination of the head of Iran’s nuclear program, regional tensions are again rising. President Trump has dispatched his son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner to Saudi Arabia and Qatar to mend the rift and secure a last minute foreign policy victory.
What is the “Gulf Crisis”?
In May of 2017, an article was published on Qatar’s state media website. The article claimed that during a graduation ceremony for the small country’s national guard, Qatar’s leader Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani made a speech that was riddled with criticism for Saudi Arabia and the United States. Al-Thani allegedly also praised groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood, while stating that antagonizing Iran was not an effective or sound strategy.
The article, despite being quickly scrubbed from the internet, drew intense backlash from pro-Saudi voices.
The Qatari government denied the entirety of the contents of the article, stating that the news agency had been hacked. Qatar quickly pointed to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as local outlets in those countries were covering the article minutes after the story was published. These claims of innocence would do little to halt the tide of outrage.
Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani meeting with Maithripala Sirisena, Sri Lankan Minister of Defence Photo by: President of Sri Lanka
By June, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the UAE had placed an air and sea blockade on Qatar, while also boycotting their goods and removing any of their nationals from the country. Saudi Arabia went as far as to close its land border with Qatar.
The nations involved in what would be called the Gulf Crisis cited Qatar’s alleged support for Islamic terror groups as the reasoning for the blockade, with the article being a sort of “last straw”. While Qatar has been accused of funding political Islamist and terrorist groups for decades, the accusers provided little in terms of damning evidence.
In fact, US intelligence officials believe that Emirati leaders orchestrated the hack which sparked this international incident, likely working in tandem with their Saudi, Egyptian, and Bahraini counterparts.
Regardless of who hacked who, the driving force behind Qatar’s isolation following the article’s publishing was none other than Mohammed Bin Salman. While MBS’s rise to power was rife with subterfuge and strong-arm tactics, this event marked the beginning of the Crown Prince’s aggressive foreign policy.
MBS & The Trump Administration: A Mutually Beneficial Relationship
The incident— and subsequent boycott and blockade of Qatar — warped the Middle East’s political landscape, but also made clear who was in charge. While Saudi Arabia is a major US strategic partner both economically and militarily, Qatar’s importance was obvious as well. The Al Udeid Air Base in Doha has been vital to American forces and their allies while fighting ISIL and other militant groups in the region. While officials weighed these considerations, President Trump took to Twitter.
Just like that, the narrative that MBS and his allies had constructed was validated by the most powerful office in the world. This was not the first time that the Crown Prince utilized the 45th president and his administration to his advantage, and it would not be the last.
This symbiotic partnership blossomed thanks to the efforts of Jared Kushner. The two bonded on a personal level in the early days of Kushner’s tenure as a senior advisor to the President. Their relationship was anything if not unconventional; Kushner and MBS would often meet alone without translators or other officials, and communicate through WhatsApp messages rather than official channels.
Kushner’s colleagues in the White House were purposefully left in the dark on developments between himself and the Prince. The duo’s connection actually sparked major anxieties amongst the upper echelons of the government. In his book MBS: The Rise To Power Of Mohammed Bin Salman, Ben Hubbard of the New York Times describes these concerns.
“As time went on, officials in the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, as well as others in the White House, grew concerned about the direct relationship between Kushner and MBS, much of which was conducted through private channels and not reported to other parts of the government. Was Kushner mixing private interests with government affairs? Was MBS swaying him in ways that were detrimental to U.S. interests? No one could be sure, so efforts were made to restore White House protocols and have other staffers on calls with foreign leaders.”
More than anything, MBS benefited from the validation of Kushner during his struggle for the position of Crown Prince with his cousin, Mohammed Bin Nayef. Kushner asked an intelligence official how the US could influence Saudi politics in a way that would give MBS an advantage over his familial adversaries.
Even without Kushner, MBS went above and beyond to appeal to the Trump administration. By utilizing both his personal relationships and appealing to American interests in the Middle East, MBS was able to secure multi-billion dollar arms deals, garner support for his conquest in Yemen, and ostracize any nations or individuals who threaten Saudi influence.
Where former presidents and administrations routinely criticized the nation for its numerous human rights violations, Trump has been much more passive.
“We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship,” he said in a speech during his visit to Riyadh in 2017.
But now, Joe Biden is the president-elect, and his attitude toward the Kingdom is takes a far stricter tone.
President Barack Obama speaks with Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia following a meeting with Arab coalition leaders in the fight against the terrorist group ISIL in Iraq and Syria, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, N.Y., Sept. 23, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Will Obama’s Legacy Be Biden’s Bane For US-Saudi Relations?
Though Democrats and Republicans have both butted heads with the oil-rich nation, maybe none of America’s leaders was less popular amongst Saudi royalty than president Barack Obama.
Obama had long been an open critic of Saudi Arabia’s various human rights issues, namely the status of women and the persecution of the country’s Shi’a minority. Though the majority of the world praised Obama’s diplomatic efforts with the now-defunct Iran Deal, Saudi Arabia was a loud opponent of the plan, and its success doomed Obama’s image amongst Saudis. At the end of his second term, relations between the US and KSA were arguably at a historic low. These tensions culminated in a meeting where Obama argued with both King Salman and MBS over a variety of issues.
Despite standing up to the royal family on some issues, even president Obama knew how costly losing an ally like Saudi Arabia would be. Standing against Congress, Obama vetoed a bill which would have allowed victims and the families of victims of 9/11 to sue the Kingdom for its alleged ties to the terrorist plot. Sure enough, Congress and the president were able to set aside their differences to pass a bill allowing a $1 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia to move forward. While dwarfed by the multi-billion dollar deal Kushner helped negotiate, the move was widely criticized for perpetuating the Kingdom’s war for control in Yemen.
It remains to be seen if Obama's antagonism towards the Kingdom will have any effect on Biden’s working relationship with the Saudis. Biden is expected to try and ease tensions with Iran and may even try to salvage the nuclear agreement which Trump nullified after taking office. The president-elect has also signaled that he will put pressure on Riyadh to halt their campaign in Yemen, even threatening to stop weapon sales to the Kingdom entirely.
He also promised to hold them responsible for their human rights violations, specifically the killing of journalist Jamal Kashioggi.
Whether Biden honors these vows remains to be seen. After being emboldened for four years by Trump and his administration, the Crown Prince is no longer the angry son of the King who confronted Obama in 2016. The de-facto ruler has established himself as a global icon, but more importantly, a cunning tactician. His attempt to appease the incoming president by easing up on Qatar is both an olive branch and a demonstration of the influence he wields. Mohammed Bin Salman has a vision for the Middle East. Biden’s success in working with him largely hinges on his ability to escape Obama’s legacy and his willingness to draw lines where Trump wouldn’t.