Washington -

The US administration faces narrow options to confront the rise in oil prices, after blaming Russia and Saudi Arabia for this.

While Moscow has made no secret of its desire for this increase, Riyadh denies intentionally harming the United States by cutting production.

In light of the decision to cut production and increase oil prices, many US officials are calling for a review of relations with Riyadh, and say that it has chosen to obtain temporary narrow interests that have brought it closer to Russia.

A few days ago, OPEC Plus decided to reduce oil production, equivalent to 2% of global demand (Reuters)

A defeat for the White House

A few days ago, the "OPEC Plus" alliance announced a reduction in oil production by two million barrels per day, or about 2% of global demand.

The US government circles considered the decision, on the one hand, as a "slap" from Saudi Arabia to the administration of President Joe Biden, and on the other hand, they saw it as a "victory" for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who wants to raise oil prices to continue financing the war in Ukraine.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Riyadh refused to respond to US pleas to postpone the decision to cut oil production for another month.

The Saudi refusal represented a defeat for the White House, which relied heavily on Biden's visit to Saudi Arabia last July as a new, mature starting point for strategic relations between the two countries.

The American failure came at a time when President Biden wants to keep car fuel prices low before the midterm elections that will be held on the eighth of next month, especially with the increasing possibility of Democrats losing the House of Representatives, and to some extent the Senate.

Hence, it was not surprising that the White House announced on Tuesday that the US President is re-evaluating relations with Saudi Arabia after the decision to reduce oil production.

Director of the Institute for Gulf Studies, Giorgio Cafiero, expressed his fear that Washington would repeat the mistakes of the past in its view of today's issues.

And he said in his tweet to him, "I am afraid that we are repeating the mistake of the Cold War era by placing each country in a pro-Western or pro-Moscow camp. Just as we misread Mosaddegh (Mohammed Mosaddegh, the prime minister of Iran in the mid-fifties) and (Jamal) Abdel Nasser as Soviet pawns, he sees Many believe that the Arab countries cooperating with Moscow are part of a pro-Russian and anti-American camp! In fact, it is much more complicated."


Political interests or financial accounts?

The opinions of American experts were divided about Riyadh's motives behind the production cut, and some considered it a search for purely financial benefits, while others linked it to its desire to harm the Democratic administration and President Biden.

Speaking to CNN, Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said, "What interests me is that when gas prices go down presidents don't usually benefit, but when auto fuel prices go up, they pay." The higher the price, the greater the penalty. The issue of the elections is complicated. The voting pattern is very complex. You can't reduce it to just one thing."

David de Roche: The timing of the high oil price crisis creates a big problem for Biden (communication sites)

Timing is a big problem

As for David de Roche, a professor of security studies at the National Defense University and a former US military official, he said, “When the Saudis went along with the Russians and OPEC to cut production, Democrats considered it a slap in the face to Biden that reflected an active desire by the Saudis (in particular) to reduce production. from the authority of President Biden and paralyzed his administration."

De Roche considered that the timing of recent events and their close connection with the Russian war on Ukraine, "made this issue very problematic, as Ukraine's support against the Russians enjoys broad cross-partisan support in Washington. In this case, many view Saudi Arabia, which supports high oil prices, as supporting Putin's war in Ukraine.

In his opinion, "This is not a situation the kingdom wants to be in, and it will damage its reputation for some time."


The suffering of the Americans and the approaching elections

"Energy prices in general, and the price of gasoline in the United States in particular, are very emotional issues in Washington. There is the upcoming midterm elections in which President Biden's party is expected to lose seats and control at least one House of Congress," De Roche emphasized.

The ruling party - Biden's Democrats - is often blamed for anything wrong with the economy, and inflation under Biden has soared to historic highs.

President Biden's position was complicated, especially after he withdrew more than 200 million barrels of strategic petroleum reserves over the previous months, which represents a third of the 600 million barrels of American reserves.

And it took the United States 3 decades to fill this stockpile.

🔴 Urgent:


Minister of Energy, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, OPEC + has not practiced a hostile policy towards any party and has not endangered energy markets.


A new confirmation from His Highness that it is managed with a purely economic vision that has nothing to do with the political situation.

pic.twitter.com/rNNBfe2YWH

— Munther Al Sheikh Mubarak (@monther72) October 5, 2022

Biden's real predicament

Now that the kingdom has supported oil production cuts, those who have argued for a restoration of the relationship are being questioned, and the United States has few options to increase global oil supplies.

  • One option within Washington, de Roche says, is to waive the various restrictions on US domestic production.

    But this would be opposed by a large section of Biden's own party, and would have no effect on prices before the election.

    Biden has already withdrawn the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve and can't do it again because it needs to be replenished.

  • There is an option for Biden to reach out to oil producers that have been isolated due to US sanctions, most notably Venezuela.

    But this is politically questionable for Biden.

  • De Roche suggested that Biden might seek to force the Saudis to produce more oil by withholding sales of major weapons, such as the Patriot missile defense system.

    But he warned that "this kind of action would be viewed as a very dangerous game and would undermine the credibility of the United States as a supplier of arms and defense systems around the world."

For his part, Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official and now an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in a tweet that "there is a perception in the US administration that the US-Saudi relationship is too big to fail, in addition to being important ... and the United States has huge influence." On the security side with Saudi Arabia. But if the past is a guide to us, it is unlikely that this influence will be used. It is a real dilemma for Biden."

So Biden has a very thin list of options.

His only short-term option (before the elections) appears to be to blame Putin's war on Russia for inflation, and seek to shift voters' focus to other issues, such as abortion.

That may work, but the more the American public focuses on energy supplies and prices, the more clear Biden can do in the short term to deal with a major issue among American voters.