Saudi Arabia has become another brick wall into which the Americans have run. How do you say “shove it” in Arabic? From Hasan Illaik at thecradle.co:
Despite the threat of US economic sanctions, MbS tells Blinken that Saudi Arabia will financially invest in Syria as it is in Riyadh’s interest to do so.
In his interview with CNN on 9 July, US President Joe Biden announced that “we are still far away” from reaching agreements to normalize Saudi-Israeli relations, establish a Saudi civilian nuclear program, and a Washington guarantee for Saudi security.
What Biden revealed was based primarily on his feedback from a 7 June post-midnight meeting held in Jeddah between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
During their tete-a-tete, the two men spent an hour and forty minutes discussing various issues of mutual interest. But the first goal of the meeting was to improve US-Saudi relations, which have not yet reverted to pre-2018 levels when the US accused MbS of masterminding the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
New US ‘rules’ on engaging with Saudis
US Ambassador to Riyadh Michael Ratney is the policy architect leading the charge to improve bilateral relations. Sources familiar with the contents of Saudi diplomatic reports tell The Cradle that Ratney has previously sent the US State Department a set of “rules” which he be
