Biden is likely to come back the US to classical Middle East strategy, retaining relations with Saudi Arabia.

Since the late President George H.W. Bush left office in 1993, America hadn’t even had a Washington insider as president before President-elect Joe Biden was voted into the White House. Before they reached the White House, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were governors, and Barack Obama was a Senate professor with a two-year gig. President Donald Trump is a businessman without any public service experience at all.

Climbing the ranks inside Washington injects a dose of realpolitik into ambitious politicians, offering a great understanding of how our complex world actually functions. In the case of Biden, it seems likely that there will be a return to the classic US Middle East foreign policy. Wrongly, the second President Bush believed that he could transform every world government into a democracy. Obama’s speeches on foreign policy have often referred to the imaginary arc of history. Obama’s mantra was an ignorant “Don’t Do Stupid S***” when not evangelizing idealism.