Joe Biden entered the office to reshape American foreign policy in the Middle East and place a high value on advancing democracy and human rights.
In practice, he has had trouble substantially distinguishing his strategy from that of former President Donald Trump on several fronts.
As part of his trip to the area this week, Biden will meet with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the oil-rich nation who U.S. intelligence agencies say gave the go-ahead for the killing of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in 2018.
After Trump’s more accommodative stance, Biden promised as a candidate to reassess the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, which he called a “pariah” country. He also promised to increase military sales to Riyadh while ignoring the country’s human rights record.
But Biden seems to be realizing now that engaging the nation rather than alienating it will yield greater rewards.
Israel will be the first country Biden visits during his Middle East trip. Again, since making his hard statements about running for president, his position has changed.
As a candidate, Biden criticized the West Bank settlement policies of the Trump administration.
As president, he has been powerless to persuade Israel to stop constructing Jewish settlements and has made no new proposals to revive the long-stalled peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Furthermore, Biden upheld Trump’s decision in 2019 to reverse more than 50 years of American policy by recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
The Biden administration “has had this rather confusing policy of continuity on many issues from Trump — the path of least resistance on many different issues, including Jerusalem, the Golan, Western Sahara, and most other affairs,” claims Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
At a time when Israel and some Arab countries are demonstrating a greater willingness to work together to isolate Iran, their common enemy, and to consider economic cooperation, Biden appears to be attempting to find greater equilibrium in his Mideast policy. Biden is focusing on what is possible in a challenging region of the world.
Biden is essentially entering and making a decision, Sachs said. The alternative is to embrace the newly developed regional architecture.
In a Washington Post op-ed published on Saturday, Biden argued that in his nearly 18 months in office, the Middle East has become more “stable and secure” and rejected the idea that his trip to Saudi Arabia amounted to a step backwards.
These are the same pages where Khashoggi wrote much of his criticism of Saudi rule before his death.
In Saudi Arabia, Biden wrote, “we changed the blank-check policy we inherited.” Additionally, he recognized that “there are those who disagree” with his choice to travel to the kingdom.
He cited his administration’s initiatives to persuade the Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition to accept a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, which is now in its fourth month and has seen 150,000 people killed in Yemen over seven years of conflict.
Additionally, Biden listed the reduction in power of the Islamic State terrorist organization in the area and the termination of the U.S. combat operation in Iraq as successes of his administration. These events occurred during the 11-day Israel-Gaza War last year.
But Biden’s record in the Middle East as a whole is much more nuanced. Most of the time, he has refrained from addressing some of the most pressing issues in the region, including ones that he has blamed Trump for making worse.
The value of relationships in foreign policy is a topic that Biden frequently discusses. His choice to travel to the Middle East for a trip that offers nothing in the way of immediate success shows he is aiming to make a longer-term investment in the area.
He has discussed in public the knowledge he gained through spending many hours over the years assessing Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China.
He has enjoyed forging relationships with a new generation of world leaders, such as Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, and Fumio Kishida, the foreign minister of Japan.
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Biden has a close friendship with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and has met every Israeli prime minister since Golda Meir.
As vice president, he played a significant role in helping President Barack Obama end the Iraq War.
But Biden, who grew up in the Cold War era of foreign policy and sees the emergence of China as the most urgent threat facing the West, has been more focused on Europe and Asia than the Middle East.
“He doesn’t have the interpersonal connections. He lacks the longevity of relationships, according to Jon Alterman, the Middle East Program Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He shows up when Israeli leadership is in a precarious position. Last month, the Knesset was dissolved by Yair Lapid and former prime minister Naftali Bennett after their coalition’s political disarray. Currently, Lapid, a former foreign minister, serves as acting prime minister.
