In whose "national interest" is an alliance a with a criminal state that sponsors terrorism, viciously suppresses domestic dissent, acts against democratic movements, and promotes war in the region? Phyllis Bennis and Larry Wilkerson join Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news with Paul Jay.

Paul Jay

Hi, I'm Paul Jay. Welcome to theAnalysis.news. Please don't forget there's a donate button at the top of the webpage. On February 26, The New York Times reported that, quote, "President Biden has decided the price of directly penalizing Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is too high, according to senior administration officials, despite a detailed American intelligence finding that he directly approved the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident and Washington Post columnist who was drugged and dismembered in October 2013...

The New York Times continued the decision by Mr. Biden, who during the 2012 campaign called Saudi Arabia a pariah state with no redeeming social value, came after weeks of debate in which his newly formed national security team advised him there was no way to formally bar the heir to the Saudi crown from entering the United States or to weigh criminal charges against him without breaching the relationship with one of America's key Arab allies. Officials said a consensus developed inside the White House that the price of that breach and Saudi cooperation on counterterrorism and in confronting Iran was simply too high, end quote. That was The New York Times.

So in the national interest, this grotesque murder of an American-based journalist by the Crown Prince goes unpunished. Just what is the national interest that so constrains Biden from living up to even a modicum to the human rights rhetoric that this administration espouses? Well, first, obviously, energy. The Saudis work with the U.S. in terms of oil prices and strategic control and return. The U.S. protects the monarchy against foreign enemies and supports its suppression of domestic dissent.

Second, as the defenders of Mecca, the Saudi influence in the Islamic world helps justify U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and helps suppress popular Arab nationalism and socialism. Saudi airspace is important to projecting U.S. global military power. It's been the largest market for military and other goods between Morocco and India. The Saudis have helped the U.S. government finance covert operations off the books, as in Nicaragua and Afghanistan, and the Saudis share intelligence on terrorist groups that might attack the U.S. and fund terrorist groups that work in the U.S. military strategic interest.

This is how the foreign policy establishments of both parties have defined the national interest in the Saudi relationship and are the reasons the Biden administration believes they cannot alienate the future king. The saying is being used to justify all this is in geopolitics. You have to deal with bad people.

Of course, what's left out of that truism is that it's usually the U.S. that leads the pack of the bad people. Now, joining us to discuss just what is the U.S. national interest in the relationship with Saudi Arabia, Phyllis Bennis is the director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. Among her latest books are Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror: A Primer, as well as the updated edition of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. Thanks for joining us, Phyllis.

Phyllis Bennis

Great to be with you, Paul.

Paul Jay

Also joining us is Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired United States Army colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Thank you,