Think Twice Before Doubling Down on U.S.-Saudi Alliance

Six years ago this month, Saudi operatives murdered and dismembered U.S.-resident Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi under direct orders from de facto Saudi leader Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS). The crime was so brutal and so shocking that for a brief period, even politicians and business leaders who had long profited from looking the other way at Riyadh’s misdeeds were calling for a re-evaluation of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.

The devastating U.S.-backed Saudi war in Yemen received greater attention in the wake of the Khashoggi murder, and Congress voted down a proposed bomb sale to Saudi Arabia, only to be reversed by a Donald Trump veto. On the campaign trail, candidate Joe Biden called the Saudi regime a “pariah,” and shortly after taking office he pledged to stop selling the kingdom offensive weapons that it could utilize in its brutal war on Yemen.

Six years later, all appears to be forgiven, at least in official Washington. The Biden administration has pursued an expansion of the Trump-inspired Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia. The accords were a vehicle for persuading Arab states like the UAE and Morocco to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for stepped up U.S. arms and political support. The plight of the Palestinians was an afterthought, with vague noises about addressing the issue of the Israeli occupation at some future date.