WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Human rights campaigners say U.S. President Joe Biden has broken his pre-election promise to re-evaluate relations with Saudi Arabia over the state-sponsored murder of insider-turned-critic Jamal Khashoggi.
Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist, was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate on October 2, 2018.
A subsequent investigation by the U.S. spy agency CIA concluded that the murder had been committed on the orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
On his 2020 presidential campaign trail, Biden pledged that his administration would seek to make Saudi Arabia “the pariah that they are” and signaled that “they have to be held accountable” for rights abuses.
He also called for justice for the slain journalist and pledged to “reassess” Washington’s relationship with Riyadh and make sure America “does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”
The U.S. president, however, has since performed a volte-face by saying that the United States “will not walk away” from the Middle East and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran.
Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins, said the accusations that the Biden administration had abandoned its stance on Khashoggi’s brutal assassination were justified.
According to The Guardian, Nasr argued that “realpolitik” had driven Washington to deepen ties after China brokered a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March.
“The U.S. wants to drive a wedge between China and Saudi Arabia,” Nasr said. “The increased involvement of China in the Persian Gulf has been a concern to Washington, and when the Chinese were able to resolve an intractable problem between the Saudis and Iran, it told Washington that China’s involvement in the region was more than just commercial.”
The U.S. is currently pushing for a mega-deal, which could include a normalization pact between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Under the deal, Riyadh would secure American backing for a civilian nuclear program, as well as access to advanced weapons. In exchange, the kingdom would take major steps to distance itself from China and Israel would allow an independent Palestinian state.
Activists said Biden’s latest diplomatic overtures to Saudi Arabia sully Khashoggi’s memory.
“It is a betrayal not just of Jamal Khashoggi and the millions of people of Saudi Arabia whose lives Prince Mohammed has destroyed, but also of the promises President Biden made to the American people to end support for this autocratic, sociopathic government,” said Sarah Leigh Whitson, executive director of pro-democracy group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).