Quick Take: Joe Does Diplomacy
On the world stage, the American president cuts a seriocomic figure
It was inevitable, I suppose, that President Biden’s Mideast visit would turn out to be another exercise in slapstick comedy. But of all the things that might have gone wrong, who knew that the headliner would turn out to be, er, FistBumpgate?
Like most of the disasters and misfortunes that have come Joe Biden’s way since January 20, 2021, this minor debacle was of his own making. As a candidate he excoriated Saudi Arabia and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for the gruesome murder of a regime critic, the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden went so far as to call Saudi Arabia a “pariah state” and pledged that as president, he would “reassess” the US/Saudi relationship. Seemed like a good idea at the time! But there’s moral posturing and then there’s Realpolitik. Churchill and FDR had to swallow hard and welcome that sinister mass murderer, J.V. Stalin, into the Grand Alliance, pretending to the world that the USSR was a partner in democracy. Now our lamentable president is choking down his own serving of reality.
Churchill and FDR may be pardoned for their embrace of Stalin: They recognized, correctly in the judgment of history, that an alliance with the Stalinist Soviet Union was necessary to defeat the equally heinous Nazi regime. Alas for Biden, there are no such world-historical issues at stake today. He went hat in hand to Saudi Arabia in hopes of inducing that country to pump more crude oil, thus moderating the pump price of gasoline in the United States—which just happens to be playing a big role in the relentless descent of the President’s approval rating. This against the background of the Biden Administration’s brain-dead jihad against American producers of coal, oil and natural gas, whom he has more or less promised to put out of business.
Biden’s problem, then, was to reconcile his past tough talk with his present needs. The resolution of this comundrum seems to have played out as an internal White House debate concerning the President’s mode of greeting when face to face with the Saudi crown prince. Should he shake hands with the pariah or not? Apparently it was decided to substitute fist bumps for handshakes, supposedly showing the world that Joe was still seriously, seriously vexed with the Saudi leader and his country.
This brilliant ploy backfired spectacularly, of course. Had I been asked for my advice, I’d have opined that a brief formal handshake—down, up, release—accompanied by a manly stare would have met the moment. Instead we got a barrage of fist bumps that managed to look staged and frivolous and even a bit craven. Everybody assumed that the gesture was a lame dodge, and thus did the seriocomical image of the fist bump come to symbolize Biden’s Mideast odyssey.
Even the President’s pals in the media gagged. “The fist bump between President Biden and Mohammed bin Salman was worse than a handshake—it was shameful,” said Fred Ryan, publisher of the Washington Post. “It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he was been desperately seeking.”
And what did Biden get out of it? Nothing much. The Saudis committed to a marginal increase in crude oil production, clearly insufficient to place serious downward pressure on gasoline prices here at home. As for the tough line he promised to take in private conversations with MBH, he claims he did so while the Saudis claim he never even brought up the subject of Khashoggi’s murder. Take your pick. Oh, and in his droning speech to the Gulf Cooperation Council the President pledged that “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran. We will seek to build on this moment with active, principled, American leadership.”
His audience, remembering Joe’s chaotic Afghanistan skedaddle, could be forgiven if they received this virile declaration with a certain skepticism.