There he stood. The US president who promised to treat the Saudi crown prince as “a pariah” gave Mohammed bin Salman an amicable boxing – an image that instantly spread around the world, hurting all those who care about human rights and freedom of the press. .
Especially with Hatice Cengiz it must have felt like a slap in the face. She is the widow of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was tortured, murdered and dismembered in 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The CIA concluded that same year that the Crown Prince had ordered this.
painful reality
Biden would never get involved with this man, he said, but the painful reality is that everything shifts to self-interest. As inflation rose, energy prices rose, Biden’s popularity declined and the midterm elections approached, the US president boarded a plane to Saudi Arabia anyway.
The US is not the only one who prefers the merchant to the pastor: on Monday, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, her signature under a strategic energy partnership with Azerbaijan – an autocracy that fought a bloody war with Armenia two years ago, but also a country that could potentially supply Europe with extra gas.
wash nose
Tragically, Biden’s journey has yielded very little. According to optimists, he has at least revived relations with the Arab world, at a time when the influence (or threat) of Russia, China and Iran in the region is growing. But the short-term goal, a promise by Saudi Arabia to pump more oil so that prices fall, has not been met: the crown prince refused to make any commitments. Just as the deal with Azerbaijan is a sham, because no new firm commitments have been made here either.
While Biden’s journey is a sign of the US’s waning power, it also shows that the need for energy continues to lead to weakness. While the West has been horrified by its dependence on Russian gas, it is now begging for fuel from other autocrats, and is once again willing to turn a blind eye to human rights violations – just as it did with Russia.
The position of the newspaper is expressed in the Volkskrant Commentaar. It is created after a discussion between the commentators and the editor-in-chief.