Two events last week offered a jolting reminder that though we may have exchanged an authoritarian president for a mainstream one, dangerous tendencies of U.S. foreign policy that predated the Trump administration still continue. Airstrikes on Iranian-backed militias in Syria, and a Biden administration decision not to punish the Saudi Arabian leader who ordered the killing of dissident Jamal Khashoggi, signal that violence and accommodation of anti-democratic governments remain sickeningly close to the heart of American foreign relations.
The airstrikes remind us that the United States, no matter who the president might be, remains committed to a series of open-ended, undeclared wars around the globe. The presence of U.S. troops in Syria, a sovereign country on which we have not declared war, and bombings in its territory — even those aimed at terrorists — have never gotten anything close to the public debate or open political discussion they merit. On multiple fronts, of which Syria is only one, the U.S. government — from the president and the bureaucracy he commands, to members of Congress responsible for oversight of the executive — have consistently failed for years to make such momentous decisions the focus of appropriate political debate, treating them instead as unobjectionable, natural features of our role in the world.
The second story speaks directly to the U.S.’s long-standing alliance with Saudi Arabia, and more generally to the perennial tradeoff between democratic values and realpolitik. The Biden administration has officially determined that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the killing of Khashoggi, but has determined not to punish the prince directly. Instead, the administration is sanctioning various other Saudi officials; not insignificant, but not a full reckoning, either. As for the reasoning that went into this decision after Joe Biden had called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” during the 2020 election campaign, the New York Times notes that, “The administration concluded it could not risk a full rupture of its relationship with the kingdom, relied on by the United States to help contain Iran, to counter terrorist groups and to broker peaceful relations with Israel. Cutting off Saudi Arabia could also push its leaders toward China.”
These justifications have some power. After all, the U.S. has an obligation to make foreign policy decisions that protect American lives and interests, and there will always be a balancing of risks and rewards. However, the assassination of Khashoggi was so brazen, shocking, and overwhelmingly meaningful that it should continue to focus attention on what exactly the American long game is, not just towards Saudi Arabia but towards other murderous dictatorships. After all, given that Khashoggi was an American resident and a columnist for a major U.S. newspaper, his killing was not just an attack on a single person, but indirectly an assault on our own freedom of the press and ability to provide security for those who call the United States home.
Likewise, if U.S. policy is to promote democracy and human rights around the globe, then how exactly do we expect Saudi Arabia to progress towards democracy when its leader kills and intimidates his political opponents? For Bin Salman is responsible for many more Saudi dissident deaths beyond Khashoggi (and this is to say nothing of the thousands upon thousands of civilians slaughtered in the Saudi-led war in Yemen). As Nicholas Kristof writes in response to the administration’s decision:
[E]ven through the lens of realpolitik it’s a missed opportunity to help Saudi Arabia understand that its own interest lies in finding a new crown prince who isn’t reckless and doesn’t kill and dismember journalists [. . .] it’s precisely because Saudi Arabia is so important that Biden should stand strong and send signals — now, while there is a window for change — that the kingdom is better off with a new crown prince who doesn’t dismember journalists.
Particularly inflammatory in the death of Khashoggi is how it constitutes such a wholesale inversion of democratic, liberal values. Bin Salman ordered the full power of the Saudi state against a single man because that man refused to submit to the leader’s will. Without due process, without any particular charges against him being necessary, without a trial, the Saudi state summarily executed him in a brutal and chilling manner. In the United States, in contrast, we recognize the importance of laws and rules that ensure that even a single person can stand against the power of the state — that no person can be wiped away by the government as if they never existed. The United States is far from perfect in the practice of this ideal — but seeing it so grotesquely violated by a country deemed to be an essential ally should make us all question the value of such an alliance. Certainly it should prompt a harder look at what we consider to be common interests with such a monstrosity.
Though the Biden administration may be able to justify its measured response to the killing of Khashoggi, can it justify looking away from the larger pattern of Saudi violence and violations of democratic norms? And looking farther afield, will there be any sort of hard look at America’s stance toward other countries that actively wish us and our democratic values harm, but which we continue to consider as allies out of expedience? What is the strategy for moving toward a better world?