Image / Deia

By Guillermo Alvarado

U.S. President Joseph Biden has returned home after a tour of the Middle East, where he tried to rebuild his country's hegemonic role in that region, which he evidently considers as a fundamental part of his backyard.

It was a tour aimed at consolidating Israel's management as Washington's gendarme, strategic partner or close friend, if the latter concept has any meaning for the White House, something that history allows us to doubt in view of the string of betrayals perpetrated everywhere.

Despite the political crisis he found in Tel Aviv, with a provisional government and much uncertainty as to the outcome of the next legislative elections, Biden gave an endorsement to Israeli ambitions.

It is no coincidence that a few hours later, the Zionist air force bombed the Gaza Strip, where almost two million Palestinians live, blockaded by air, sea and land, a situation about which the US president said nothing.

The trip continued through the West Bank and Saudi Arabia, and included meetings with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, plus Egypt and Iraq. Riyadh was an uncomfortable but indispensable stepping stone for Biden. Let us remember that during his electoral campaign he promised to treat that country as "a pariah" among the nations as a whole.

Circumstances, however, have changed a lot this year and the United States urgently needs the governments of that area to increase oil production and join the sanctions against Russia, complex objectives that will not be achieved by a proconsul visit alone.

In fact, the words of the Saudi prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to the head of the White House were relatively harsh. He reminded him that he cannot impose his "values" on other countries of the world, as well as the gross errors committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, peoples torn apart by war.

In one of his speeches, Biden assured that "We will not walk away or leave a vacuum for China, Russia or Iran to fill. We will seek to consolidate this moment with active and principled American leadership."

His total ignorance that the Middle East is inhabited by sovereign peoples, who for better or worse are capable of making their own decisions, and where there is no vacuum to be filled, is obvious.

In reality, the trip was a symptom of Biden's anguish due to the approaching energy crisis, which he himself provoked with his absurd measures against Russia, but also due to the proximity of the mid-term elections in his country, where his destiny as a ruler is at stake.