Engaging the Saudis does not require Biden to forego our concern for human rights

American presidents wrestle with how to balance interests and values in our foreign policy. Internationally, we have long stood for democratic principles and the protection of human rights. Yet, we have also long maintained close relations with states that have been violators of human rights and are not democracies. Our presidents have to make choices and set priorities — and those choices, oftentimes, seemingly elevate interests over values. 

No one would question whether Jimmy Carter made human rights a centerpiece of his foreign policy.  Yet, he maintained strong support for a number of countries whose human rights records were not stellar, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. With Egypt, peace with Israel was understandably his priority.  With the Saudis, it was oil — especially, given the memory of the 1973 oil embargo, his fear of another one, and the gas lines that emerged along with the Iran-Iraq war in 1980.

President Biden now plans to visit Saudi Arabia when he travels to the Middle East next month. His visit is drawing criticism. His critics see him giving the Saudis a pass and rehabilitating its Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, without creating accountability for the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The murder was horrific. President Trump should not have dismissed it the way he did, and could have imposed a price without rupturing relations. 

However, those who criticize President Biden now for his upcoming visit, act as if there are no other considerations. There are.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a seismic event internationally. Imposing an unmistakable cost on Russia requires doing as much as we can to deny it the oil revenues that help sustain its war effort — one that Vladimir Putin acts as if he can win through attrition and outlasting Ukraine. But getting as much Russian oil off the market as possible also drives up the price and requires expansion of oil production to make up some of the loss. The only country in the world with any significant spare oil production capacity is Saudi Arabia. 

Russia’s war reminds us that there is no such thing as oil independence so long as there is one oil/ energy market globally and its disruption produces a much higher oil price for us and everyone else. Five dollars a gallon here is a testament to that. Yes, real independence will come when renewables take the place of fossil fuels, but we are decades away from that reality, with the peak of oil consumption probably still 10-15 years from now. Just as Jimmy Carter understood that Saudi Arabia was important to us, so, now we must be mindful of that as well.

Of course, there are other oil-producing states like Iran and Venezuela whose oil could be added to the market if sanctions were lifted against them. But just as we do not want to sustain Russia’s aggression with its oil revenues, both Iran and Venezuela are under sanctions for good reasons, including their support for terror and the threats they pose to their regional orders. Saudi Arabia is not a revisionist state, trying to upend the regional and international orders. Both Iran and Venezuela are. (In the case of Iran, when it is increasingly removing the IAEA’s ability to monitor its nuclear program, installing two new cascades of advanced centrifuges, enriching to near weapons grade, and reducing its break-out time, this is not the moment to give them an infusion of cash by permitting their oil back on the market.)

Precisely because we are in a longer-term competition now with Russia and China, we need to broaden the coalition of states that will work with us. Yes, we start with the other democracies, but we also need states that are not revisionist states, like the Saudis, to be part of the coalition. Their resources matter and alienating them is not smart, especially given what is at stake in this competition — whether we can preserve a rules-based system or Russia succeeds (with China’s tacit support) in redefining the international landscape so:

borders are not inviolate and force is legitimate to change them;

bigger nations can impose on smaller nations and have a right to a sphere of influence in which they dictate both the internal and external policies of the states and peoples within them; and

targeting civilians is deliberate with the aim of terrorizing, demoralizing, and depopulating. 

Preventing these from becoming the basis of a new international (dis)order is both an interest and a value. In a similar vein, when President Biden speaks of going to Saudi Arabia, he speaks of promoting peace. He clearly wants to foster a normalization process between Saudi Arabia and Israel. In discussions I just had in the Kingdom, it was very clear that Saudis believe relations with Israel are inevitable and not just because of their common fears of Iran but because the Saudis want to build a resilient, knowledge-based economy and see Israel as a natural partner. Such a partnership would be good for those who want to build a more hopeful Middle East. (It also could be part of a plan to break the stalemate between Israelis and Palestinians since for every public step the Saudis take toward the Israelis, they could ask the Israelis to take a step toward the Palestinians.)

None of this requires us to forego our concern for human rights.

The Saudis should know what will trigger public responses from us. We should establish boundaries in the relationship and a “no surprises” understanding with them. Today’s international challenges give us a stake in Saudi Arabia — a stake that involves both our interests and our values.

Dennis Ross is counselor and the William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He served as special assistant to President Obama, as Special Middle East Coordinator under President Clinton, and as director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff in the first Bush administration. He is the author, with David Makovsky, of “Be Strong and of Good Courage: How Israel’s Most Important Leaders Shaped Its Destiny.” Follow him on Twitter @AmbDennisRoss