Did it really take a further review? After all, Joe Biden’s fist-bump greeting to the man he swore to treat as a “pariah” while campaigning for the presidency didn’t produce any concessions that the Saudis didn’t already want to give. Mohammed bin Salman himself had encouraged the Israeli-Sunni normalization process started by Donald Trump and Jared Kushner, called the “Abraham Accords,” long before Biden used the Saudis as a whipping post in his 2020 campaign.

This week, however, the Saudi and OPEC+ decision to yank back on production when Biden clearly wanted his fist-bump buddy to increase it paints the meeting in an entirely new light. In fact, as the Washington Post concedes, it now looks like a deliberate humiliation, and even the White House agrees:

Saudi Arabia’s decision to join its partners in announcing a cut to oil production on Wednesday is setting off fresh recriminations over President Biden’s trip to the kingdom this summer, which officials hoped would improve the Saudi relationship across a range of issues, including the global supply of oil.

Some officials in the Biden administration bristled in the aftermath of the cut declared by the OPEC Plus cartel, viewing it as a direct affront to the president that threatens to hurt Democrats’ standing in the 2022 midterm elections because it will drive gas prices up.

Well … what did “some officials in the Biden administration” expect to happen?Especially with the energy policies Biden chose to pursue? Biden’s presidential campaign rhetoric, which extended for a short time into his presidency, deliberately calculated and delivered an insult to bin Salman and his ruling clique over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. There seems little question that MBS and his clique deserved a dressing-down over that murder — and if the Saudis had no strategic value to the US, it wouldn’t have mattered at all.

However, Biden went out of his way to make the Saudis a strategic consideration. In the first place, Biden quietly decided to keep pursuing the Abraham Accords after discovering the benefits of that process to the US, which somehow escaped the attention of this supposed foreign-policy wizard during the campaign. That forced Biden to work with MBS after repeatedly and consistently declaring he would ostracize the Saudis as “pariahs.”

But even more, Biden’s decision to disincentivize American oil and natural gas production left the US dependent on OPEC+ for all of the strategic considerations in the oil markets. Biden could have stuck with Trump’s policies here too, incentivizing exploration and extraction, but instead chose to impose heavy regulatory burdens on both and to cut way back on lease sales. That left the US oil industry without any strategic flexibility in times of crisis, and left Biden at the mercy of the Saudis that he spent many months insulting and insisting that he could successfully marginalize.

Well, the Saudis just got the last word in on that fight. To put it in the president’s own words, they just “f****d with a Biden,” because Biden was incompetent enough to leave them the opening to f*** with him.

Now, however, the White House and its apologists are suddenly sore over the Saudis playing hardball right back at Biden. But they’re also angry over Biden’s decision to go to Saudi Arabia in the first place, and want some accountability for the entirely predictable humiliation that has followed:

“They’re spitting in the face of Joe Biden,” said Dean Baker, a White House ally and an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank. “Whoever thought this trip was a good idea has some explaining to do.”

Even before Biden flew to the Middle East in July and fist-bumped Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, White House aides knew the trip would bring criticism. Biden had declared that human rights would be at the “center” of his foreign policy, and he said he would make the oil-rich monarchy a “pariah.” But the president also remained keenly aware of the burden soaring gas prices were having on middle-class Americans.

Biden’s top aides on Middle East and energy, Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, pushed for the trip as a means to strengthen the relationship and improve Washington’s ability to project influence in the Middle East at a time when oil-rich states were exploring ties with Moscow and Beijing, according to U.S. officials and congressional aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. policy.

It’s not just the Washington Post in the mainstream media that recognizes this humiliation, either. The Associated Press noted it last night as well, and reported on demands from Biden’s allies in Congress making empty demands for retribution:

Biden’s awkward encounter with Mohammed bin Salman in July was a humbling attempt to mend relations with the world’s most influential oil power at a time when the US. was seeking its help in opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting surge in oil prices.

That fist bump three months ago was followed by a face slap this week from Prince Mohammed: a big oil production cut by OPEC producers and Russia that threatens to sustain oil-producer Russia in its war in Ukraine, drive inflation higher, and push gas prices back toward voter-angering levels just before U.S. midterms, undercutting the election prospects of Biden and Democrats. …

A number of Democrats in Congress called on the U.S. Thursday to respond by pulling back on its decades-old provision of arms and U.S. military protection for Saudi Arabia, charging that Prince Mohammed had stopped upholding Saudi Arabia’s side of a more than 70-year strategic partnership. The relationship is based on the U.S. providing the kingdom with protection against its outside enemies, and on Saudi Arabia providing global markets with enough oil to keep them stable.

Calling the oil production cuts “a hostile act,” New Jersey Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski led two other lawmakers in introducing legislation that would pull U.S. troops and Patriot missile batteries out of the kingdom.

“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, adding, “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action.”

The best description of these demands is doubling down on stupid. Joe Biden played an idiotic game of hardball with the Saudis, and lost the first round spectacularly. Do Democrats really want to lose another round, especially when Biden’s made sure our leverage in this game is somewhere close to zip?

As for Schumer’s response, he’s right in one aspect. This situation likely will be “long remembered by Americans,” but less for the Saudi response than for Biden’s idiocy in putting us in this position in the first place. We have plenty of proven oil reserves that could marginalize OPEC+ and leave us in better control of strategic energy markets. We could have started optimizing our ability to flex that power as late as February, when Putin invaded Ukraine, and we might have started to see those results already. Instead, Biden sold out our strategic advantage to progressives and the climate-change hysterics while alienating a sometimes-troublesome ally that could have at least allowed us to influence competitors to make up for that loss.

This should be a wake-up call to Democrats about Biden’s sheer incompetence. Let’s hope it’s at least a wake-up call for voters.