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Opinion
Javier Blas

Ukraine Crisis Creates a Winner in Saudi Arabia

Biden’s promise to turn the kingdom into a pariah state has crumbled as the price of crude surges toward $100 a barrel.

All the world’s a geopolitical stage: Russia's Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Nov. 30, 2018, at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires

All the world’s a geopolitical stage: Russia's Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Nov. 30, 2018, at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires

Photographer: JUAN MABROMATA/AFP
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One should never let a crisis go to waste — and Saudi Arabia isn’t. The kingdom is using the Ukraine-Russia tension to re-establish itself not only in energy markets but global politics. 

The Saudi royal family has weathered four difficult years. The assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in October 2018 badly tarnished the kingdom. The war in Yemen, where Riyadh is fighting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, has dragged on, damaging its reputation as a regional hegemon. In 2020, oil prices plunged during the Covid pandemic, crushing the Saudi economy. Then Joe Biden arrived at the White House in early 2021 with a promise, made during the presidential election campaign, to turn the kingdom into a “pariah.”