• Diplomacy Biden breaks ties with MBS and changes US strategy towards Saudi Arabia

  • Middle East US bombs pro-Iran militias in Syria in first attack ordered by Biden

The Biden Administration has kept its word and has declassified the full report of its intelligence services on the murder of

Jamal Khashoggi

.

According to their findings, the heir to the Saudi throne, Prince Mohamed bin Salman, approved the plan to capture or kill Khashoggi.

The document indicates that the Saudi agents could not act without the knowledge and authorization of Bin Salman and, therefore, that they could not carry out the assassination against the dictates of the heir, known by his initials, MBS.

According to the declassified information, the Saudi heir viewed Khashoggi as a threat to the kingdom.

The decision to disclose the report's findings means the US is putting

human rights

back on the agenda.

The dossier points directly to the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohamed bin Salman, as responsible for the death of the Washington Post columnist.

Khashoggi was assassinated on October 2, 2018, when he went to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, by a command of agents expressly arrived from the kingdom.

His body was dismembered in the basements of the diplomatic headquarters and has never been found.

Riyadh blamed Saudi agents outside state control for the murder and tried the alleged perpetrators in 2019.

Five Saudis were sentenced to death, although their death sentences were later commuted to 20 years in prison.

US President Joe Biden continued his task of

reshaping US policy in the Middle East on

Friday

.

This time, the focus has been on two axes: Iran, where he seeks to revitalize the nuclear agreement, and Saudi Arabia, with whom the democrat is redefining his bilateral relationship.

In recent days, Biden has multiplied his actions to finish shaking off Donald Trump's heritage in the region and make clear his position of opposition to the escalation of

proxy wars between Riyadh and Tehran

.

An attitude that will be open to dialogue, but not soft.

That it is clearly committed to seeking the end of conflicts such as those in Syria or Yemen.

But that will also have a firm hand.

And his latest movements are framed in this key: the telephone conversation he had last morning with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, the publication of the full report of the conclusions of the US Intelligence services on the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the bombardment of pro-Iranian militia positions in Syria, the first attack order of his mandate.

Five weeks after his inauguration, the US president undertakes the recomposition of the strategic board in the Middle East by sending messages to the two rival powers.

In his conversation with King Salman, Biden "affirmed the importance that the US places on human rights and the rule of law," the White House revealed on Friday.

Both leaders discussed the conflict in Yemen and the US commitment to the defense of Saudi Arabia.

Washington has not disclosed whether Biden mentioned the Khashoggi report to Salman, but the impending release of the document when the call was made was floating in the air.

When he was a candidate, Biden was very critical of the policies of the crown prince, popularly known by his initials, MBS, and pointed out that the petromonarchy should be treated as

a "pariah" state

because of the Khashoggi case.

During the call to King Salman - more than a month after taking office as a tenant in the White House - Biden also tried to find common ground and expressed his satisfaction at the recent release of several political prisoners.

Biden evoked "the US commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend its territory against attacks by pro-Iranian groups" and the king was grateful, always according to the White House account.

After dealing with the Saudi flank, Biden set his sights on his regional rival, Iran, sending a message of firmness to the Islamic Republic.

In this way, he tries to reassure those who think that his dialogue approach to reissue the 2015 nuclear pact, which Trump abandoned in 2018, can give carte blanche to Iranian interests in the region.

Thus, in the same morning from Thursday to Friday, he ordered an airstrike in eastern Syria targeting Shiite forces sponsored by Iran.

The operation is the response to an attack on a base that housed US troops in Erbil, in northern Iraq, on February 15.

Now, Biden is returning the pulse to pressure Tehran, after last weekend he pushed his commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the limit.

Suzanne Maloney

, from the US think-tank Brookings Institution, applauds the message of the Democrat in the double sense of dialogue and firmness.

"Nuclear diplomacy can (and must) coexist with the willingness of the US to respond to Iranian agents who seek to harm Americans. Signs that the policy towards Iran will not be a new version of Obama's," he wrote in his twitter account.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • U.S

  • Iran

  • Saudi Arabia

  • Syria

  • Yemen

  • Joe biden

  • Iraq

  • Barack Obama

  • Jamal khashoggi

  • Donald trump

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