XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.politics.usa, talk.politics.misc   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: whatsthatmean@washingtonpost.com   
      
   In article    
   governor.swill@gmail.com wrote:   
   >   
   > I believe Biden is insane.  Facts speak for themselves.   
   >   
      
   President Joe Biden made a big show of only fist-bumping de   
   facto Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman on Friday, then bragged   
   about how he’d made the killing of Jamal Khashoggi their first   
   topic of conversation. But he also implicitly admitted that, for   
   all his vows to the contrary, he’d gone ahead and begged MBS to   
   pump more oil, by saying he expected gas prices to ease soon.   
      
   Good on the prez for making at least one concession to reality,   
   even if he put himself in a needlessly tough spot, in at least   
   two ways.   
      
   First, of course, is Biden’s war on US oil and natural-gas   
   production, which has restricted domestic energy production so   
   that prices were soaring even before the Ukraine invasion.   
      
   Second is his tough talk on the Khashoggi killing, vowing before   
   taking office to make MBS a “pariah,” then as prez pointedly   
   making public the CIA assessment that MBS ordered the atrocity.   
   Given how much US intel gets dead-wrong in the Mideast, that was   
   pure political posturing at the expense of America’s national   
   interests.   
      
   The combination forced Biden to eat crow by visiting Riyadh and   
   so legitimizing the “pariah,” no matter how much our president   
   wants to pretend otherwise.   
      
   Like it or not, Washington and Riyadh need each other, obliging   
   leaders on both sides to swallow a lot. The nations are natural   
   allies against the Iranian regime, for starters, and against   
   revolutionary Islamic extremism generally.   
      
   Plus, the world needs Saudi oil — even more so as Western   
   nations refuse to fully exploit their own carbon resources.   
      
   The Saudis, and other US allies including Israel, are also upset   
   at Biden’s efforts to revive the Obama nuclear deal with Iran,   
   which everyone in the region sees as a win for Tehran. It   
   doesn’t help that US policy in the Obama years let both Russia   
   and China make major Mideast inroads — leaving all our allies   
   there obliged to play nice with Moscow and/or Beijing.   
      
   That was another reason for Biden’s Middle East tour: to shore   
   up a whole host of alliances, not just with Riyadh.   
      
   Yes, the Saudi regime has been a human-rights disaster, and it   
   long fueled the rise of radical Islam. But MBS has broken with   
   the radicals and even fostered markedly greater women’s rights —   
   albeit at the cost of cracking down on all other threats to his   
   absolute power, even within the royal family.   
      
   In foreign affairs, even presidents have to take what they can   
   get; Biden seems to finally be learning that, even if his   
   various gaffes on the trip (talk of “honoring” the Holocaust;   
   comparing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Northern Ireland’s   
   troubles) show he’s still the same old Joe.   
      
   Saudis don't like faggots and people who promote their cause.   
      
   https://nypost.com/2022/07/15/biden-reluctantly-faces-reality-in-   
   saudi-sitdown/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)