It took less than 24 hours in Saudi Arabia for the president of the United States, Joe Biden, to tarnish his image as a staunch defender of human rights that he has tried to carve out for a long time.
The life of any politician is dotted with campaign promises that they end up breaking, and for Biden that list now includes the one made in 2019 to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” for its human rights record.
There is also his solemn declaration, delivered on July 4, 2021, on America’s place on the international stage: “We lead by example, not by showing our strength. We are part of something bigger than ourselves. We are a compass for the world.”
For many it is difficult to reconcile those words with the most shocking photograph of Biden’s first trip as president to the Middle East, in which he is seen bumping fists with Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman.
US intelligence services believe that the crown prince, de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, “approved” the 2018 operation that led to the murder and dismemberment of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The photograph, taken in front of a palace in the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah, was immediately distributed by official Saudi media before circulating on social media.
And it was published by several newspapers, including by The Washington Post, where Khashoggi was a columnist.
Shameful
Before Biden’s arrival in Jeddah, the White House took several measures to try to mitigate the repercussions of this meeting.
The American president published a column in the Post in which he explained his reasons for making the trip, saying that he wanted to “strengthen a strategic partnership”, and insisted that “fundamental freedoms are always on the agenda when I travel abroad”.
At the start of his tour, which took him to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Saudi Arabia, his communication team said that Biden would limit physical contact with people he would meet, due to covid-19.
Some journalists speculated that the measures – which Biden ended up not fully complying with – were motivated less by health and more by fear of an uncomfortable photo with Prince Mohamed, who is popularly known by his initials MBS.
In the end, the fist bump with MBS “was worse than a handshake, it was embarrassing,” estimated the general director of the PostFred Ryan, in a statement.
The autocrats are smiling
Biden told reporters that he spoke about Khashoggi’s murder “at the beginning” of his meeting with Prince Mohammed. I told him “clearly what I thought then and what I think now,” he said.
On Saturday, Biden told the leaders of nine Arab countries gathered at a summit that “the future belongs to countries (…) where citizens can question and criticize leaders without fear of reprisal.”
But the fist bump with MBS has already become the defining image of their tour.
Beyond human rights, Biden explained that his trip was intended to “advance the interests of the United States,” a likely allusion to the need to boost higher oil production from the world’s largest oil exporter, as rising Gasoline prices are hurting his party’s prospects ahead of November’s midterm elections.
“Autocrats must be smiling, Biden’s support for human rights can be sold for a drop of oil,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, commented on Twitter on Saturday.