Will the United States equip the Saudis with the Patriot?
What are the evolutions in the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia. The article by Giuseppe Gagliano
As reported by Al Jazeera , the United States, in addition to having condemned the increasingly frequent and increasingly lethal attacks by the Shiite rebels of Yemen against the Saudis, stressed the need to support the Saudi kingdom at a military level by contributing with the Patriot missile defense system.
US-Saudi relations have been strained since Biden took office. The president refused to deal directly with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and removed the Houthis from a list of designated terrorist groups.
On the other hand, the Biden administration last year published a declassified intelligence report concluding that the crown prince, son of the elderly King Salman and known as MBS, had authorized the team of Saudi security and intelligence officials who journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed in October 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Why this change of perspective? It should not be forgotten that the White House sent Brett McGurk, coordinator of the National Security Council for the Middle East and State Department Energy Envoy Amos Hochstein, to Riyadh last month to speak with Saudi officials about a number of issues, including the ongoing war in Yemen and global energy supplies.
In that regard, it should be remembered that the Saudis have so far refused to pump more crude to alleviate a spike in global oil prices that was spurred by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Not surprisingly, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson met with Prince Mohammed last week to lobby for higher production. Weapons and oil always end up prevailing over respect for human rights …
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/stati-uniti-arabia-saudita-patriot/ on Tue, 22 Mar 2022 06:54:20 +0000.