Joe Biden’s Middle East policy looks a lot like his predecessor’s

wants you to know his trip is not about oil. You may think otherwise. He once vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” and has refused to talk to Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince. Now he is rushing off to the kingdom, the world’s second-biggest oil producer, at a time of sky-high oil prices, and will meet the prince after all. But his administration insists that oil is not the focus of his flying visit. “It has to do with much larger issues,” Mr Biden said on June 12th.Such protestations may be a tacit admission that the trip, planned for next month, is unlikely to do much to reduce the oil price. Such realism has been in short supply since Mr Biden took office. He at first promised a different Middle East policy from his predecessor’s. He would restore the nuclear deal with Iran, signed in 2015 but abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018. He would shun the Saudis. And he would put human rights at the centre of America’s foreign policy.