[Music]
this week
i want to look at a vital early test of
joe biden's presidency
congratulations mr president it's been
six weeks since joe biden became
president
six weeks for him to begin the work of
turning campaign promises
into policy promises like this
on saudi arabia president trump has not
punished senior saudi leaders
would you yes and i would make it very
clear
we were not going to in fact sell more
weapons to them
we were going to in fact make them pay
the price and
make them in fact the pariah that they
are that was on the campaign trail
this is the biden administration in
power
we are very focused on future conduct
uh and that is part of uh why we have
cast this not as a rupture but a
recalibration i want to look at how this
complex bond between the us and saudi
arabia
won't easily be broken regardless of
who's in the white house
and how a murder and a war are
presenting this early test
for the president this is a story of a
superpower
and how the saudis are part of its
effort to stay that way
at first glance america and saudi arabia
have little in common one's a democracy
one is an authoritarian monarchy one's
majority christian one is sunni muslim
one has freedom of speech the other
routinely jails activists
and their relationship is under constant
pressure
in part because of a murder in 2018.
mr khashoggi was strangled shortly after
he entered the saudi consulate
on the 2nd of october a hood was placed
over his head
and his body was later dismembered jamal
khashoggi was a saudi journalist and a
u.s resident
in october 2018 he was in istanbul in
turkey
we see him entering the saudi consulate
not long afterwards he was killed
and dismembered and us intelligence
believes this was approved
by the saudi crown prince mohammed bin
salman he's effectively the leader of
saudi arabia
and he denies involvement in the killing
this though was the conclusion
the un reached there is absolutely no
doubt no doubt under international human
rights law
that the responsibility of the state of
saudi arabia is involved it is involved
in the killing
it is involved in the lack of an
effective investigation
it is involved in the lack of an
effective prosecution
and if the saudi state was involved it
would be unlikely that the crown prince
wasn't well shortly after the murder the
then president donald
trump was asked about this what are you
considering for possible consequences
for saudi
based on those well it'll have to be
very severe i mean it's
it's bad bad stuff but the punishment
wasn't severe in fact very little was
done
less than three weeks after the murder
the then u.s secretary of state mike
pompeo visited riyad and as you can see
it was handshakes and smiles with
muhammad bin salman
that set the trump approach the veteran
reporter bob woodward later reported
that donald trump said of the crown
prince
i saved his ass i was able to get
congress to leave him alone
i was able to get them to stop while
trump called that book fake news
but there's no reason to doubt it and in
any case it is true
the u.s did leave muhammad bin salman
alone
joe biden promised to be different and
this week
the senior democrat adam schiff has said
the biden administration should explore
ways to ensure the repercussions for the
brutal murder of mr kasoji
to go beyond those who carried out to
the one who ordered it the crown prince
himself
he has blood on his hands but what's
actually happened this week is that
first we have a report confirming that
u.s intelligence believes the crown
prince approved the murder
and second we have confirmation that he
won't be targeted
my colleague nick bryant had the story
as it developed
while they've announced what they're
calling a kasogi ban which is targeting
foreign nationals who they say
have intimidated or harassed or
assaulted dissidents and journalists
they haven't imposed sanctions on
muhammad bin salman the crown prince
will go unpunished and that development
has been
fiercely criticized jamal khashoggi
wrote for the washington post and its
publisher fred ryan has written
it appears as though under the biden
administration despots who offer
momentarily strategic value to the u.s
might be given a one free murder pass
we've also heard from jamal khashoggi's
fiance who put out a statement saying
if the crown prince is not punished it
will forever signal that the main
culprit can get away with murder
which will endanger us all and be a
stain on our humanity
and some us journalists and biden
supporters
have arrived at this point is the only
difference between trump
bragging about saving mbs's ass
and biden acting as if he has no choice
but to save mbs's ass is the only
difference
the words surrounding the decision well
let's try and answer that
first of all here's the official
explanation our objective is to
recalibrate the relationship prevent
this from ever happening again
and find ways as there are still to work
together with saudi leadership while
still making clear
where we feel action is unacceptable
that may be the objective but others are
suggesting
there's an evergreen rule of politics at
play here
really easy to to to preen and and
promise
that you're going to do very tough
things when there's nothing you can do
the moment the the reigns of power in
your hand it's a lot more complicated to
do the things you promised when you were
just the campaign
guy and it is a lot more complicated
that's true for every leader assuming
power
but there are longer term reasons too
why the biden administration
won't just break with the saudis and
they reach back
to 1945. the arabian monarch goes aboard
the president's cruiser to be received
amid impressive and colorful ceremonies
here we're seeing the then u.s president
franklin roosevelt meeting the saudi
king
and from this point american oil
companies began working with the saudi
state
that made both sides a lot of money and
there were benefits beyond that
susan maloney of the brookings
institution puts it this way
every american president in the last 50
years has considered the free flow
of oil through the persian gulf as a
vital national security interest
for the united states and while u.s
imports of saudi oil have been
decreasing
the security dimension of this
relationship very much remains
america has a number of military bases
in saudi arabia
and right across the gulf from saudi
arabia
is iran which the u.s sees as a major
security threat
it doesn't trust iran's nuclear activity
and it knows iran supports militia
in lebanon syria iraq and yemen
america believes it needs saudi arabia
to counter
the iranians and if you want an
illustration of the tangle
that america finds itself in with saudi
arabia
while the hasaji murder is definitely
one the war in yemen
is another
on one side of this conflict we have the
yemeni government backed by a saudi-led
coalition
on the other are houthi rebels backed by
iran
and president biden has acted he
suspended u.s military sales to saudi
arabia for offensive purposes
we'll have to see if this de-escalates
the conflict
there are though already consequences
the loss of arms sales for u.s
firms and there's evidence the houthi
rebels in yemen are emboldened
but these are calculations that
presidents have to make
and while there may be a moral dimension
in the end
america's interests are the dominant
consideration
it's a point made by this obama-era
ambassador to saudi arabia
talking about the issue of the crown
prince and jamal khashoggi
doing sanctions right now i do not on
mbs
would not have done very much to advance
u.s interests
other than to give some other
satisfaction
donald trump was equally blunt when
viewing arms sales to the saudis
they're spending 110 billion dollars
purchasing military equipment
and other things if we don't sell it to
them
they'll say well thank you very much
we'll buy it from russia
or thank you very much we'll buy it from
china that doesn't help us
not when it comes to jobs and not when
it comes to our companies losing out on
that work
donald trump saw the world as america
first america
versus everyone else joe biden has a
more global perspective but he knows
all american presidents know that
empires don't last forever
and nor do superpowers america can see a
surging china
a resurgent russia and if you listen to
this commentator
that means decisions that are both
unpalatable and inevitable
the reality is you'd rather have a
flawed and perhaps even deeply flawed
ally
than an adversary in this era of new
power
and big power competition where saudi
arabia might depend
more on china more on russia for its
arms deliveries
for its economic strength and that is
why the u.s won't walk away
it didn't after a number of saudis were
involved in the 9 11 attacks in 2001
it hasn't after the hasaji murder
president obama
understood this he went to saudi arabia
and met the king despite
profound reservations about its human
rights record a dancing president trump
understood this he made saudi arabia his
first
foreign trip and president biden
understands this too
in their very different ways all three
expressed disapproval of saudi actions
all three placed american interests
above that
this is an exchange not an alliance and
it's about the maintenance of american
power
and for all that joe biden positions
himself as a break from trump
on this marriage of convenience with the
saudis continuity
is the word
you