JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA – U.S. President Joe Biden may have compromised Washington’s foreign policy bona fides with Saudi Arabia by fist-bumping Saudi leader Mohammad bin-Salman before their high-stakes meeting over the weekend, potentially setting up the U.S. for heavier, mutually antagonistic yet deeply satisfying regular fisting.
Experts interviewed by Breaking in Asia said Biden was not wrong to follow normal diplomatic protocol in greeting the crown prince with the Covid-Appropriate Fisting Salute (CAFS), but may have given the wrong impression not only to the Saudi political establishment but to the entirety of the Middle East that Washington was totally ready to leap from easy, bro-style fist-bumping to full-on German-style knuckle-caking as it caved in to foreign geopolitical pressure.
“Biden really now needs to speak in detail about how far the U.S. is willing to go in acquiescing to Saudi political grandstanding while at the same time staking out the moral high ground on human rights,” said Darlene Buechner, a foreign policy analyst with the RAND Corporation. “Will the benefits the U.S. derives from the relationship, like cheaper gas, subsidized holidays to the Saudi-occupied parts of Yemen and President-on-Crown-Prince diplomatic frottage really work to square the circle of the Saudi-U.S. entanglement?” she asked.
“After all, we have seen this movie before,” Buechner added. “‘Caligula‘ represented a sort of cinematic blueprint for what happens when scheming, perverted and murderous dictators are enabled by their international cohorts – with both sides ending up with potentially empire-destroying anal leakage that seeps out and poisons all around them.”
But other experts said a good arse-pounding by a highly leveraged Middle Eastern potentate could be a refreshing change for a Washington that has largely stood on the sidelines watching while other Western powers have been at the receiving end of tyrannical regimes’ largesse. Canada was the most recent country to just wilt completely and happily take it when it agreed to base a Russian hockey team in its northernmost province in a bid to appease Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The new team, the Qikiqtaaluk Squidmen, will play under the aegis of the Canadian government in exchange for regular supplies of Russian Standard Platinum Vodka and diplomatic cover at the U.N. for whenever a vote comes up on the issue of Russian takeovers of nominally independent nation-states.