In a coming call with King Salman, the president plans to warn him that the United States will soon make public intelligence about the Saudi crown prince’s role in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
As a candidate, President Biden left no doubt what he thought about how the United States should deal with Saudi Arabia. His plan, he said, was to make the Saudis “pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are.” Mr. Biden was equally blunt about the Saudi royal family. There is “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” he said. Now, as president, Mr. Biden must deal with that government, whether it has redeeming value or not. And he must navigate a series of campaign promises to cut off arms shipments and make public the American intelligence conclusions about the role of Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and the de facto leader of the country, in the killing of the dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi. That process appears likely to begin this week when Mr. Biden plans to hold his first conversation with the ailing King Salman. And while the call will be full of diplomatic pleasantries, officials say, the real purpose is to warn him that the intelligence report is going to be declassified and published. The White House would say little about the carefully sequenced set of events, other than that no conversation between the two men had yet been scheduled — though clearly one was in the works. “The president’s intention, as is the intention of this government, is to recalibrate our engagement with Saudi Arabia,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday. While the Trump administration dealt at length with the crown prince — who was frequently in contact with Jared Kushner, former President Donald J.
