Situation Report by PALM Strategic
When US President Joe Biden took over at the White House a year and a half ago, he resolved to ignore Saud Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. However, the change in the international conditions, especially the war in eastern Europe, prompted the US administration to prioritise interests over any other considerations.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has raised oil prices to more than $100, leading to rising energy prices in the United States and widespread grumbling among the American people. Hence, the Democratic Party feared its fortunes in next November's midterm congressional elections.
Bin Salman took advantage of the energy price crisis to extort the US President, rejecting several requests to increase Saudi Arabia's oil production, so that Biden would recognize the legitimacy of the Saudi Crown Prince, desist from boycotting him, and rehabilitate the US-Saudi agreement in which the US would provide a security umbrella in exchange for affordable oil.
In addition to the main reason for the US President's visit to the region represented in increasing oil production, Biden hopes to advance normalization projects by strengthening secret ties between the Israeli occupation and Saudi Arabia, encouraging Saudi Arabia to go public. In this context, the US Administration is proposing the idea of a joint security umbrella, under the supervision of the Central American Military Command; (The United States, the Israeli occupation, the GCC countries, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq). The notion of a common security umbrella relates to early warning, air threats, whether ballistic missiles or suicide drones, through an early warning system covering the countries of the region, and an integrated air defence network dealing with long-range air threats, with a 2400 km radius.
The United States initiative, through the introduction of the Joint Security Umbrella, aims to achieve a number of objectives. The most important of these are:
1. Strengthening the normalization projects in the region by expanding relations between the occupation and other Arab States, and by transforming the Israeli occupation into a natural state in its Arab and Islamic surroundings.
2. Alleviating the United States’ security and military responsibilities in the Middle East, and transferring them to the region's States in order to devote its efforts to the threats coming from China.
3. Ending the air threats coming from Iran, whether drones or ballistic missiles, in the Zionist airspace and confining them to the airspace of the Gulf, away from the entity's State.
4. Transforming the Israeli occupation into a central state on the military and security level in its Arab surroundings, ensuring greater qualitative superiority in the region.
There are other goals the United States President hopes to achieve during the visit. They are strengthening the anti-Russian coalition because of its war on Ukraine, and emphasizing the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas through a quick meeting with the United States President in Bethlehem with some economic gestures.
At the end, it seems that the current US administration that came up with the same rights and a new democracy and determined to punish a number of Arab presidents, it returned to her traditional policies in the Middle East. It prioritized the security of the Israeli occupation and secured the oil supply to the world market so that oil prices will remain within reasonable limits for the United States citizens, requiring recognition of the legitimacy of a number of Arab monarchs and presidents and their support in front their peoples; thereby prolonging the lives of these regimes.
The proposed joint security umbrella, or the new NATO Arab alliance that is being talked about, will essentially constitute if it is dropped on the ground, is another gateway to normalization projects and another delegate of Abraham conventions, which heralds further Arab collapse and erosion of psychological, economic and security walls between the Israeli occupation and its Arab surroundings.