Biden’s Middle East Visit Captures the Incoherence of U.S. Policy

Biden’s Middle East Visit Captures the Incoherence of U.S. Policy
President Joe Biden walks to the Oval Office of the White House after stepping off Marine One, June 13, 2022, in Washington (AP photo by Patrick Semansky).

I had planned this week to write about my impressions of Beirut from my first visit there in more than three years. But I’ll save that for next week’s newsletter, because U.S. President Joe Biden’s upcoming visit to the Middle East is screaming out for corrective analysis. The problem with the trip is not so much the fact of its occurrence, but the framing of its purpose by U.S. officials, which appears to be based on an outmoded understanding of how foreign influence works in the region’s functional but eroding system of states.

Biden is scheduled to make stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel next week, but the messaging and substance of these visits has been an incoherent mess. The U.S. president has decided to reverse his stance on isolating Saudi Arabia’s ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite failing to extract any commitments to improve human rights in the kingdom in exchange. The White House has also insisted that Biden won’t directly ask Riyadh to increase its domestic oil production, even though sky-high oil prices may be the single most important policy issue ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. Biden has insisted the issue is “not the purpose of the trip.”

In Israel, Biden’s visit comes weeks after the collapse of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s coalition government. The country is headed for yet another round of elections, which might return former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to power. Biden wants to claim that his administration has supported the Palestinian cause, but that is a difficult position to defend, given that he did little to limit the damage Israeli forces caused in Gaza during last year’s war. Washington has also taken very few meaningful steps to halt the spread of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review