![Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during their meeting at the Kremlin in 2018]()
Russia’s
president Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
during their meeting at the Kremlin in 2018 © Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty
Images A piece of footage sometimes tells you all you need to know. I ask Swampians to watch this 30 second clip
of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russia’s president
Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires in 2018. Context is
everything. Their long-lost brotherly delight in greeting each other
took place just a few weeks after the horrific murder of Jamal
Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist, which was
carried out by a team under Prince Mohammed’s authority. I
challenge Swampians to find footage that shows such undisguised glee on
either of their faces when meeting with any other leader at any venue.
You could save time by taking my word that you will fail. The two men
are birds of a feather — birds of prey that is. The thing about
autocrats is that they can do what they want. We should not be in the
slightest bit surprised that Saudi Arabia is now overtly helping Russia
in its war on Ukraine with the latest 2mn barrel a day cut announced on Wednesday by Opec+. The
move is a twin salvo aimed at Joe Biden’s administration. One salvo
will boost US petrol prices less than a month before the US midterm
elections — an inflationary hit that will weaken Democratic chances of
retaining control of Congress. The other will help Russia’s coffers in
its illegal and brutal war on Ukraine. None of this should come as a
shock. As I wrote in a column
two weeks ago, Prince Mohammed is an autocrat’s autocrat with no
respect for Biden. Like Putin, he makes no secret of his preference for
Donald Trump. I
cannot forecast the precise impact the Opec+ move will have on oil
prices, though they are expected to go above $100 a barrel again. It is
conceivable that the world’s almost unanimous shift towards monetary
tightening will rob Russia, the Saudis and the rest of the cartel of the
higher revenues they want. China’s slowdown in particular may more than
counteract a 2mn barrels a day cut. I have a far better idea of what
this means in terms of geopolitics. As I write in my column
this week, America’s relative decline has gone into reverse in the past
couple of years — partly because of China’s slowdown and growing
totalitarian bent under Xi Jinping, but also because of Putin’s
catastrophic blunder in Ukraine, which rivals Napoleon’s winter invasion
of Russia. But that does not mean that America is in good shape. The
country is more rigidly and bitterly divided than anyone can recall. For
better or for worse, Biden has proclaimed democracy-versus-autocracy as
his chief foreign policy principle. This leads to easily predictable
self-harm, such as his humiliating visit to Saudi Arabia in July to
plead with Prince Mohammed to raise oil production. This is a regime
that carries out mass executions — the most recent one, of 81 men, took
place in March. Half of those executed were from the Shia minority and
did not receive due process of law, according to human rights groups.
But Biden’s real motive in elevating democracy-versus-autocracy was to
highlight his domestic opponent’s indifference to such niceties. Trump,
as we all know, cannot hide his envy and admiration of men such as Putin
and Prince Mohammed. The
other side of Biden’s foreign policy coin is that enemies of America’s
liberal democracy — men such as Putin and now, I think it is safe to
say, Prince Mohammed — will respond by reaching into US domestic
politics to back their ideological horse. We saw this before with
Putin’s interference in the 2016 US election. Saudi Arabia is now an
increasingly overt backer of the Republican party too. This is not a
drill. Every 10 cents increase to the petrol pump price will create
another few hundred thousand disgruntled US voters and fund another
production line of artillery shells to fire on Ukrainians. St
Augustine famously said: “Please Lord make me virtuous but not yet.” I
feel the same way about oil prices. I want them to go up to incentivise a
far more rapid shift to renewable energy everywhere. But not until
Russia has lost. Since the Lord looks unlikely to answer my immediate
prayer, perhaps he can schedule a short-to-medium-term lightning strike
for the Saudis and other petro-autocracies. Their strengths derive
mostly from the luck of nature’s bounty. We should take this week’s
Opec+ move as a reminder of the urgent need to reduce its jugular grip
over the world’s economy, and our warming climate. |