This past Saturday, President Biden capped off a four-day trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia, his first to the Middle East since being elected. We’ll admit that we were concerned about his possible public flubs that would undermine his credibility, his show of, or lack of support for Israel and his acceptance by the Saudis, whose help we now need to lower our prices at the pumps well as the strengthening of the Abraham Accords in the area. We now have taken a breath of relief at some of the outcomes of his visit.
With a positive beginning, Biden opened by meeting warmly with Israeli leaders to expand America’s security with them and to plan, jointly, how to counter Iran’s never-ending efforts to destabilize the region. And that’s the basis for the Abraham Accords. On Thursday, he committed the U.S. to support this agreement that seeks to build a coordinated, Israel led, anti-Iran alignment in the area. He spoke: “We will also continue building on the Abraham accords which I strongly support because they deepen Israel’s integration into the broader region and establish lasting ties for business cooperation and tourism.” He also flew, the first flight directly from Israel to his meetings in Saudi Arabia, which is seen as a strong signal of progress on relations between the kingdom and Israel. Incredible! It’s significant to us that the Biden administration has embraced the accords that also included among its members, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain. We believe his visit will help the Saudis to join in this vital membership group.
Biden also had the courage to meet with Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, whom Biden previously publicly accused of sanctioning the murder of journalist Jamal Khashaggi. When they were together, Biden said he raised this issue with MBS and hoped this discussion might lead to the growth of future human rights acceptance and practices by the Arabian government. Can’t hurt! The issue of the “Fist Bump,” in our minds is a minor one. The initial greeting fades in importance to the real issues of the visit. And that appears to be the effort to solve the political one back home; rising gas prices.
High energy prices are reflected in all markets, including food, travel and housing construction, all vital considerations sure to be on the minds of voters in 2022 elections. Sadly, we feel Biden came away from Jeddah with no immediate solution to the oil crisis. There was no indication that Arabia would pump out more oil in order to alleviate the energy crisis back home. It seems Biden will have to face the possibility of backtracking on his promises to shut off the petroleum valves and restart pumping in order to have any chance for the Democrats to escape destruction on Election Day. He must apologize to the public for his mistakes on this issue. If we have huge oil and gas deposits laying beneath our soil, why not bring them up cleanly (as opposed to the methods of Arabia, Venezuela and Iran) and keep the supply plentiful and lower the costs of all industries that utilize this type of energy?
President Biden has many burdens ahead of him, some relating to his apparent loss of political control to the more Progressive radicals in his party and his obvious physical and mental infirmities that are becoming more apparent in his daily talks and videoed meetings. However, during this trip to the Middle East we feel he did motivate Israel and Arabia to get closer together to face up to Iran and eventually to become real neighbors and partners in the region. And honestly, this was more than we thought he was capable of. Kudos to him on this visit to the region.
