![]() We passed the largest support package in Israel with the help of Congress - over $4 billion - in American history. Our partnership with Israel is strong across the board. Our diplomacy with Saudi Arabia is now delivering results, including a truce in Yemen, a more integrated GCC, progress on energy security, and security cooperation against threats from Iran. We issued new sanctions, including on the Rapid Intervention Force that was implicated in that murder. We released the intelligence community report on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. In Saudi Arabia, we’ve reversed the blank-check policy that we inherited from the previous administration, while continuing to work with Saudi Arabia on critical priorities for the American people. And under President Biden’s leadership, we helped end a war in Gaza, which easily could have lasted months, in just 11 days. support for a two-state solution, which had come into question over the previous four years. Working with Congress, we’ve restored approximately $500 million in support for Palestinians. ![]() We’ve reestablished diplomatic ties with the Palestinians that had basically severed under our predecessor. And the frequency of Iranian-sponsored attacks against our forces in Iraq and Syria has dropped dramatically. We’ve reunited our partners to ensure that it’s Iran, not the United States, that is isolated until it returns to the nuclear deal. combat mission and transition our military presence in Iraq to focus on training Iraqis. In Iraq, we kept up pressure on ISIS, significantly degrading their capabilities, including by taking out its emir, allowing us to end the U.S. We now have had more than three months of a ceasefire in Yemen - the longest peace in seven years. We inherited a war in Yemen that was causing widespread death and suffering. President Biden’s fundamental objectives when it comes to the Middle East are straightforward: a region with more stability and fewer wars that could draw the United States in, a region that is less hospitable to terrorism that threatens Americans, a region that is helping address global energy security at a moment when Russia’s war against Ukraine is roiling global energy markets, a region where no foreign power can dominate or gain strategic advantage over the United States, a region that is making progress towards greater human rights and greater human dignity.Īnd despite ongoing challenges, the Middle East President Biden will be visiting is more stable than the one we inherited 18 months ago. And if we can act now to create a more peaceful and stable region, it will pay dividends for the American national interests and for the American people for years to come. The Middle East is deeply interwoven with the rest of the world. It is precisely because the world is becoming more geopolitically competitive, especially in the Indo-Pacific and Europe, that we need to remain intensively engaged in the Middle East. It is his first trip to the Middle East as President. This trip comes after a series of engagements with Indo-Pacific leaders in May, with Latin American leaders at the Summit of the Americas in early June, and with European leaders at the G7 and NATO Summits in late June. And also, it will reinforce that our role is different today than it was 20 years ago on the eve of the war in Iraq. ![]() This trip will reinforce a vital American role in a strategically consequential region. Tomorrow, President Biden will depart on a trip to Israel, the West Bank, and Saudi Arabia, where he will attend a major Middle Eastern summit. But I appreciate you bearing with me as I try to lay out some of the elements of the President’s thinking as we head into this very important trip. I’m going to lay out a little bit of the context for this trip, make a couple of comments on tomorrow’s bilateral meeting with President López Obrador of Mexico, and then I’ll be happy to take your questions. And also, he’ll take some questions afterwards. Jake is here to preview the President’s upcoming trip to the Middle East, where he will build on a new and more promising chapter of America’s engagement in the region.Īnd I’m going to let Jake take it away. Today we have Jake Sullivan, the President’s National Security Advisor. ![]()
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