State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel (Cue 22.44 for that particular comment)
Consternation could be one of the reactions from New Delhi to a comment by State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel citing the reinstatement of Prime Minister Narendra's Modi's US visa in 2014 as part of an answer at his presser about the controversial granting of sovereign immunity to Saudi "crown prince" and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
That Patel's comment came in the context of the now controversial granting of sovereign immunity to MBS being consistent with the US policy of affording such immunity to heads of state who might be in some serious legal jeopardy on account of their transgressions in their respective countries could be diplomatically fraught. The immunity extended to MBS in a case against him in a federal court here in America relates to the grotesque murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in which the Saudi prime minister has been implicated.
Before I dwell a bit on the MBS immunity, let me say a couple of things about the potentially troublesome juxtaposition that Patel offered with similar immunity extended to Modi and others. In his reply to a series of persistent questions about the MBS immunity, Patel said that it was not the first time that the US had done so. "It is a longstanding and consistent line of effort. It has been applied to a number of heads of state previously, some examples, President (Jean-Bertrand) Aristide in Haiti in 1993, President (Robert) Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 2001, Prime Minister Modi in India in 2014 and President (Joseph) Kabila in the DRC (the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 2018. This is a consistent practice we have afforded to heads of state," Patel said.
There is nothing objectionable about Patel's comments on the sheer facts of what he is saying. These are just bare facts and as a spokesperson it is his duty to offer them unvarnished. However, international diplomacy, especially between Modi's India and President Joe Biden's America, is often fraught. It is from that standpoint that the seeming bracketing of Modi with MBS and other strongmen could be problematic for its optics. Of course, no government, either here in America or that in India, should feel the need to finesse facts no matter how unedifying they may be.
India's External Affairs Ministry may not necessarily respond to this merely because the assertion came in the context of MBS but Modi's detractors, and it is a rapidly growing constituency, could cite this as yet another blot on him.
By itself sovereign immunity should be noncontroversial because countries offer it as part of the international law. In the specific context of MBS though, the immunity is rife with the prospects of being seen as the Biden administration going soft on the prime minister in a calibrated fashion at a time when the US-Saudi relations are perhaps at their most tense. A particular sticking point has been the Saudi decision to slash oil production in an apparent alliance with Russia at a time gas prices are running so high in America. There were suggestion of the Saudis under MBS humiliating Washington by gouging oil prices.
With this as the backdrop the grant of sovereign immunity to MBS looks at the very least curious notwithstanding the longstanding practice as cited by Patel. Of course, Patel was at pains to repeatedly insist that, "This Suggestion of Immunity does not reflect an assessment on the merits of the case. It speaks to nothing on broader policy or the state of relations. This was purely a legal determination."
He kept saying again and again at the presser yesterday that the MBS immunity was no reflection on the legal merits of the Khashoggi murder case and accusations. In a statement on Twitter Fred Ryan, the Washington Post's publisher and CEO, said yesterday that President Biden is "granting a license to kill to one of the world's most egregious human-rights abusers who is responsible for the cold-blooded murder of Jamal Khashoggi."
Despite the fact that immunity is a longstanding practice, affording it to MBS has opened the door for other prospective violators of human rights who might become heads of state.
On a flippant note, I found it amusing that Patel cast a fellow Gujarati, namely Prime Minister Modi in a less than flattering light without at all intending to.