There are quite a few things that you can point at President Joe Biden and laugh about.
For example, Biden’s astonishingly frequent tendency to forget where he is, who he’s talking about or what he’s done is always good for the smile of the day.
The president’s inability to string together consecutive coherent thoughts is also worth a chuckle or two.
That being said, there are also numerous issues plaguing the Biden administration that are no laughing matter.
Perhaps chief among those mirthless concerns is the fact that Biden and his team appear to be asleep at the wheel while one of America’s most bitter geopolitical rivals continues to amass power and influence.
Trending:
That rival, China, just helped broker a major move on the world stage — and it’s a move that should be setting off all sorts of alarms in the White House.
Now, if there were ever two countries that disliked each other more than America and China, it’s Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The Middle East has always been a hotbed of conflict, honestly since Biblical times. The mutual disdain and hostility that Iran and Saudi Arabia harbored for each other has always been an emblematic encapsulation of the issues plaguing that part of the world.
Having those countries, any of them, play nice in the long term has always been a goal for world leaders. It’s something that even former President Donald Trump worked ceaselessly on with his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Is China furthering its goals with diplomacy?
Yes: 0% (0 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
And yet, thanks to the Biden administration’s utter dereliction of duty when it comes to all foreign matters not involving Ukraine, the first step toward any sort of reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia can be credited to China. It’s a genuine feather in the cap of China.
According to both the Iranian news agency IRNA and the state Saudi Press Agency, the two Middle Eastern powers have “agreed to resume diplomatic relations and reopen embassies” after talks that China helped broker.
Of note, the SPA’s statement went out of its way on numerous occasions to gush over China and President Xi Jinping.
The SPA’s statement begins right off the bat lauding the “noble initiative of His Excellency President Xi Jinping” and for “China’s support for developing good neighborly relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
“The Saudi and Iranian sides expressed their appreciation and gratitude to the Republic of Iraq and the Sultanate of Oman for hosting rounds of dialogue that took place between both sides during the years 2021-2022,” the SPA statement reads. “The two sides also expressed their appreciation and gratitude to the leadership and government of the People’s Republic of China for hosting and sponsoring the talks, and the efforts it placed towards its success.”
According to CNBC, aside from “resuming diplomatic relations and reopening their embassies and missions in each other’s countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to affirm ‘the respect for the sovereignty of states and the non interference in internal affairs of states.”
That sounds awfully close to some sort of peace agreement, perhaps stopping just short of one. That’s massive news, given that Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been at odds with each other, often ending up on opposite sides of regional conflicts.
As CNBC noted, Saudi Arabia actually cut diplomatic ties with Iran in 2016, after Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
It’s all a righteous mess — and now China gets to take some modicum of credit for helping clean it up.
“For China, this is a huge win,” Anna Jacobs, senior Gulf analyst at the International Crisis Group, told CNBC.
And look, if this were any other country, perhaps you give them a proverbial pat on the back and move on with your life.
But this is China and it’s President Xi. There’s no altruism here.
Rest assured, you can bet your bottom dollar that if China and President Xi are helping broker some calm in the Middle East, it’s going to be of some personal, tangible benefit (like power and control) for the communist nation.
That should terrify every American, perhaps even more so than this current, bumbling presidential administration.
