After nearly two years in the White House, Biden’s leadership has come full circle on Saudi Arabia. In February 2021, weeks after President Joe Biden took office, U. S. officials outlined plans to “recalibrate” U. S. -Saudi relations. Twenty months after those comments, and three months after Biden himself to the kingdom, the White House reiterated the need for change.
The OPEC alliance’s resolution to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day has put Saudi Arabia back in the spotlight. Vladimir Putin’s war chest. ” As the president has said, we are reevaluating our appointments with Saudi Arabia in light of those actions,” White House national security spokesman John Kirthrough said Oct. 13.
The only one is why the United States took so long to get started.
Ever since President Franklin Roosevelt met Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the founder of the fashionable kingdom, on an American cruise ship in 1945, U. S. -Saudi relations have been based on mythical foundations. Throughout those 8 decades of relations, it has been assumed that Washington and Riyadh are not only partners but allies in a region, the Middle East, that produces more than 30% of the world’s oil. The so-called oil-for-security agreement, in which the U. S. Surely a reliable source of oil in the global market is perceived as the basis of bilateral relations.
The reality, however, is not so clear. U. S. -Saudi relations have never been as strong or permanent as their supporters claim. The term “covenant,” so often used to describe the relationship, is wrong at best and misleading at worst. While it is true that Washington and Riyadh would prefer to have strong and friendly relations, the ties between them are steeped in transactionalism and, in many cases, the Saudis are more than willing to undermine the spirit of this transactionalism when it suits them.
OPEC’s oil cut only strengthens the case. Unsurprisingly, the news was greeted in Washington as a planned slap in the face of an ungrateful Saudi royal family.
However, Saudi Arabia’s use of its influence in energy markets is not a new phenomenon. It’s a bit confusing why U. S. officials and lawmakers were so surprised. In 1973, Saudi Arabia, acting in coordination with other OPEC manufacturers, imposed an embargo on exports to the United States in retaliation for Washington’s military for Israel. This embargo increased the value of fuel, created a source of shortages in the United States, and forced American motorists to wait hours at the fuel pump to fill their cars (assuming there was fuel to pump). In 1986, the kingdom increased oil production from 2. 4 million barrels a day to five million, causing prices to fall to make production expensive (and therefore less profitable) for non-OPEC countries. The Saudis pursued a similar strategy in 2014, when instead of restricting production to be consistent with values, they opted to maintain solid production levels to keep U. S. shale producers from staying strong. U. S. out of the market.
To summarize: the kingdom’s oil policy is primarily based on Saudi interests, not on what a specific American president might ask for at any given time.
Oil, of course, is only one facet of the bilateral relationship. Security is another. But the positions of the United States and Saudi Arabia on foreign and defense policy issues are not similar, let alone identical. Under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia has become a much more assertive and competitive state in the Middle East, policies that cause heartburn in Washington.
The Saudi air crusade opposing the Houthis in Yemen was presented to the US. The U. S. government was not much debate or input, forcing Obama’s management to make a quick decision on whether the U. S. would be able to do so. The U. S. would make the effort (despite reservations, Washington agreed to help, linking it to a war that proved disastrous for Yemen). MBS was a central proponent of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s embargo on neighboring Qatar, whose sole effect was to bring Doha closer to Iran. Riyadh’s relations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, despite U. S. objectionsThe U. S. military strongman who subjected Ukraine to the worst bloodshed in Europe since World War II is also not lost on U. S. officials. U. S.
When the U. S. If the U. S. and Saudi Arabia agree on a policy, they disagree on how best to proceed. Both countries would prefer to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but the Saudis have never supported U. S. international nuclear relations. In theory, Washington and Riyadh need to mitigate the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, but the U. S. needs to mitigate the humanitarian disaster in Yemen. UU. se is trying to convince the Saudis that fuel and oil can bring to the energy-hungry country. Meanwhile, Saudi leaders continue to believe that the U. S. is not yet in the U. S. UU. no is keeping an eye on their security concerns, even though Washington has sold more than $150 billion worth of military gadgets to the kingdom since 2009.
If there’s one silver lining to last week’s OPEC oil slump, it’s that U. S. policymakers will begin to see relations with Saudi Arabia as they are. your own country. Neither does the United States.
Daniel R. DePetris is a member of Defense Priorities and a news columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek.
The perspectives expressed in this article are those of the author.
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