I’ve spent the last few days canvassing sources who are deeply enmeshed in Middle East politics about the significance of Joe Biden’s recent visit to the region. (Some of these sources are people who informed my reporting for Kushner, Inc. about all the risky foreign policy-making they saw going on in plain sight during the Trump administration in the region—policy that now appears to have borne fruit with Jared Kushner obtaining a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment fund and with LIV, the new Saudi-backed golf tour, being played at Trump’s Bedminster golf course. Kushner has said there was no quid pro quo for his foreign policy-making.)
The universal consensus among my sources was that whatever was said or not said about Jamal Khashoggi, the visit was an unmitigated triumph for MBS, who hosted the meeting, and that it was not clear if the U.S. got anything at all out of it.