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The unclassified report into the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, released last week, has underlined the limits to Joe Biden’s commitment to human rights in his foreign policy.
The report’s conclusion — incriminating Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of the Saudi journalist in 2018 — was long known by insiders and widely suspected by many. More interesting were the potential consequences of making this conclusion public and official.
The response has disappointed many in Biden’s own party and the proponents of a tougher stance on human rights. Not only did the US president stop short of sanctioning Saudi Arabia’s day-to-day ruler, but he also punted discussion of the issue to spokespeople. When the state department declared that the US “will never check our values at the door even when it comes to our closest security relationships”, some analysts derided the comments as hollow.
The realists leading Biden’s Saudi policy have made clear their lack of enthusiasm at publishing the report on their watch — a task the Trump administration avoided despite its legal obligations, handing the new administration a dilemma.
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