US Government Support for the Saudis seemingly Unlimited
Saudi Arabia can do no wrong in the eyes of the American government no matter what Americans themselves actually think.
Foreign relations with America is often a countries most important political decision. No matter where a country is located and no matter how strong a country is it’s relationship with America typically determines it’s success or stagnation. Under Chavez Venezuela openly defied America and suffered greatly leaving only a dry husk of a country for Maduro to watch implode. Mexico on the other hand over the same time period has worked with America on many issues and greatly expanded their industrial base and average citizens income. Two countries, both choosing different relationships with America, both having very different results. However one country has had an even larger effect from becoming America’s friend. That country is Saudi Arabia…a country that can seemingly do no wrong that American politicians can not easily forgive.
The US partnership with Saudi Arabia was born out of pure need from both sides. World War II was fought over control of oil reserves and the industrial power it brought. Germany failed to reach it’s oil grab in the Caucasus and was ground up into dust by a country, Russia, that had the industrial strength to produce the equipment and use that Oil. Japan launched it’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor exactly because the US denied Japan Oil with trade embargoes for several years, limiting it’s military operations and future potential significantly. At the end of World War II the US was looking to lock up critical supplies of Oil due to these strategic concerns. Enter Saudi Arabia who was just starting to discover that it happened to be sitting on the largest Oil reserves in the known world. The Saudi’s wanted security and there is no better country on the planet to provide security than America. It was a marriage made in heaven so to speak.
As the years have gone by since WWII this marriage has survived the test of time. The US almost lost it’s Saudi bride in the 50’s as Egypt replaced US forces protecting the Kingdom however the Suez conflict quickly returned this wayward bride to it’s US husband. Another brief fling with Egypt in the early 60’s ended in ‘62 as Egypt and Saudi Arabia differed on Yemani policy and the US military had to defend the Kingdom from it’s two time lover Egypt. After this the marriage has remained rock solid to this very day. It’s usually a beautiful thing to watch two people or countries remain so deeply committed to each other for so many years. However in this case the beauty has been replaced with ugliness on a scale this world has rarely witnessed. The US’s Saudi bride turned out to be extremely culturally different.
Saudi Arabia has been a very lucky country in a region of mostly suffering and a world not that much better off. Imagine having all the money you ever wanted! Literally printing money as you drilled small holes in the ground and liquid gold flowed out. What would you do? Tell me in the comments…it should be entertaining! Well the sad truth is that political regimes will do anything they want…including killing to keep that liquid money flowing. Spiritually Saudi Arabia has poured untold Billions of dollars into promoting it’s Wahhabi form of Islam all around the world. This form of Islam is so absolutely traditional it literally refers to a book from the 7th century to decide all modern issues. If you can imagine a 1,400 year old book being quoted and used as a guide in your courtroom case today determining if you deserve to live or die then you have a great imagination and a grasp of what this form of Islam truly is. Of course all that Oil money has bought one of the most modern militaries not only in the Middle East but on planet Earth as well. The best way to defend someone turns out to be sell them the best weapons money can buy and teach them how to use them. American business acumen meets American political needs in a win win win for the Saudis, America and defense corporations. Not a bad thing if those weapons are only to defend yourself with. Sadly that hasn’t been the case.
The Saudi proxy war in Yemen against Iran has gone on since 2015 and killed well over 100,000 people and now puts millions of lives at peril of mass starvation. The US has been supporting Saudi Arabia 100% and in fact actively taking part in the war as well with special operations forces and drone strikes against ‘militants’. At stake is the de facto military leadership of the Middle East, a prize both the US and Saudi’s will do anything to maintain. However the sheer length of this war is now causing serious collateral damage as infrastructure is so badly destroyed inside Yemen that mass starvation may be unavoidable. The ugly truth of this war has been kept away from most Americans and to be honest the rest of the world doesn’t seem all that interested either so far. However this war is just an appetizer for the most serious complication developing in the Saudi - US relationship. Iran’s drive to build nuclear weapons is so far along now that experts have admitted their program can not be stopped. The previous nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 world powers was an effort to stop Iran from getting across the goal line of nuclear bomb development. The Trump administration walked out on that deal as it isn’t seen as being strong enough to actually stop Iran. Probably true in fact as nothing will be capable of stopping Iran in developing nukes given it’s very advanced state of technological development. If the experts are correct then the Saudi’s are in a very bad situation. Their long time hated religious rival will have nukes, if not tomorrow then soon enough. “Without a doubt, if Iran ever developed a nuclear bomb, we would follow suit as soon as possible,” Crown Prince Mohammed told CBS in an interview. Said with the clarity only a King that never needs to win votes can manage.
So what’s a few more nuclear armed countries in this world you say? North Korea already has them and Israel as well which is right in the thick of this Middle East war soup. Well Saudi Arabia has a particularly brutal history as to basic human rights. The Human Rights Watch 2020 report listed Saudi Arabia’s ‘progress’ in 2019 and it wasn’t forward by any stretch of even a King’s imagination. They tricked a Saudi citizen journalist living in Turkey into a Saudi embassy, killed him and cut him up into little pieces. We can thank the efficiency of Turkish secret services for details too terrible to discuss here and thank the internet where they splashed all these gruesome details to inflict maximum political damage to their Saudi rivals. Peaceful protestors inside Saudi Arabia get treated little better. In 2019 peaceful protestors were charged with crimes that carry the death penalty and if you think that would never happen think again. Also in 2019 Saudi Arabia publicly executed 37 peaceful protestors, 14 that had participated in the pre-dominantly Shia protests in 2011 and 2012. One was even under the age of 18, a clear violation of International Law. Nothing new for Saudi Arabia that had conducted a previous mass execution in 2016 of 48 people. I could keep going but you get the point I hope. They sure do like to put on huge executions those Saudi’s! Pinning a headless body to a pole afterwards just in case you were late for the show was likely voted the best Medieval message of 2019.
This is what Saudi leadership does to it’s own citizens, mostly Shia the minority Muslim group in Saudi Arabia! Give them nukes and just watch what they do to mostly Shia or other non-Muslims in other countries around the world!
Now don’t think I’m bashing on Saudi Arabia. I am all for different countries and cultures running their societies how they feel is best to them. Saudi women were allowed to get their own passport in 2019 without a male signature. They could also finally register births and deaths with a male signature. Women were even allowed to legally ‘work’ without a male signature allowing it! Women can even drive cars now. However the ‘guardianship’ type of society in Saudi Arabia is still very strong where men can claim ‘disobedience’ and a woman will be forcibly returned to his home or put in prison. Saudi women still need a male guardian to approve much they do in life. I am the last person to try and force my biased cultural upbringing on another person’s biased cultural upbringing. I don’t want my highly sexualized advertising culture destroying my own child’s development let alone forcing that culture on other countries. The Saudi’s may be erroring on the right side of caution when it comes to NOT using sex to sell anything and everything in their society. Personally I feel Saudi women get a very unfair set of rules to live their lives compared to Saudi men but I know my cultural underpinnings drive that feeling. However basic human rights really need to be established norms around the world. Slavery is banned worldwide and for good reason. How close to being a ‘slave’ is a Saudi woman in 2020? It’s a good question for those more knowledgeable than I. That’s why I look to organizations like Human Rights Watch for guidance.
So how does the US government find so much in common with Saudi Arabia when culturally they are pretty much at opposite ends? Ultra liberalism and Ultra Conservatism? The marriage use to be based on control of Oil sales but now the US produces all the Oil it needs and only imports Oil to create better refining mixes for easier production. Does the US plan to restrict Oil sales to a global rival in the future? Likely not possible as Russian Oil production could surely supply any US rival facing an old fashioned embargo. In a global conflict scenario does the US need the extra Saudi Oil production to maintain military supremacy. Quite possibly. However the current day to day value of the Saudi’s to America is most likely as an Arab tool in the Middle East quagmire. The US works hand in fist with Israel throughout the Middle East but they often need that Arab voice to help get Middle East solutions to align with US interests. The US certainly has many other somewhat friendly countries in the region but the Saudi’s wield a very big stick in that neighborhood. And they aren’t afraid to use it as Yemen and Iran are finding out right now. The only real counter balance to Iranian power in the Middle East is Israel and Saudi Arabia.
However Americans feel quite differently than their government about Saudi Arabia. In the yearly 2020 Gallup Poll 34% had a favorable view while 65% had an unfavorable view of the Saudis. Those numbers have been pretty consistently bad since 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis despite failed media efforts to blame Afghanistan and then Iraq. Apparently the constant news of very different cultural ways of managing their society is turning most Americans off. As lawsuits against the kingdom slowly crawl through American law courts for the damage done on 9/11 there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight to the low American citizen opinions on the richest Kingdom in the world. Modern American social justice culture will eventually turn against Saudi Arabia in a huge clash of culture. However that will almost certainly have little effect on US government policy, something so fully and completely divorced from public opinion even before Vietnam when a generation that fought their own government to start listening to it’s own voters…lost. Yes the real war then was not between the US and Vietnam, it was between the US government and US voters. The government eventually lost that battle but has won the war. US citizens are not guiding their governments international policies. Politicians long ago mastered the messaging required to bring public opinion along enough to conduct almost any foreign policy they want.
So the future will likely be much more of the same as Biden transitions into the most powerful chair in the world. The US government will use Saudi Arabia to keep an Arab lid on the hatred the Middle East has towards the USA. Unlimited Israel support from the US will constantly stir and build up that hatred even more. Americans will continue to not like Saudis and never understand why the Middle East generally hates them. The big question is will Biden allow the Saudis a nuclear weapon program. Well that may already have been decided by Trump as in 2019 he authorized 6 US companies to transfer US nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in business deals. Those approved technology transfers have remained secret to this day, however one company, IP3, is very open about the US losing nuclear facility construction deals to China and Russia and trying to reverse that trend. The problem is IP3’s plans include an extreme amount of building and construction security, something much more necessary when building military nuclear facilities. The bad news is if Biden doesn’t sell or continue to sell the Saudi’s nuclear technology then someone else will because they have the money and have the need. North Korea? Pakistan yet again? India? Some country will take the money. In 2017 China started working with Saudi Arabia to find internal deposits of Uranium Ore. In 2019 the Guardian reported on confidential documents confirming Saudi Arabia has enough Uranium deposits to produce nuclear fuel…thus not needing any raw ore supplier. They have already announced a plan to build not 1 but 16 nuclear plants! You see when you have almost endless amounts of money flowing out of the ground you don’t make plans like your average country desperate for a bit of nuclear waste to convert into bombs. In 2019 their first ‘experimental’ 30 kilowatt research reactor was nearing completion. Argentina built this ‘experiment’ who’s main purpose will be to train up the army of technicians the country will need moving forward into their nuclear age.
Some stories simply don’t have a happy ending and I apologize for the length and ending of this story. Citizens of the world understand the complex relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia. They also have complex relationships and feelings towards this fascinating and culturally different country. However the nuclear weapons issue really does have consequences for everyone in the world. It might be a good idea for the US to sit down with all it’s long time NATO allies at a minimum if not with the dysfunctional UN and quietly discuss nuclear weapons proliferation. It seems that the US is ‘going it alone’ when the disastrous results may include mass destruction of our only planet. There needs to be more minds working on the possible solutions in this most dangerous situations.
Thanks for reading and have a great day! Remember caring is sharing!
Jim