Saudi-American Relations - Report Example

Saudi-American Relations: History & Future Table of Contents Introduction 1 1. A Relationship Fuelled by Oil 1 2. Balancing Israel and Saudi Arabia 2 3. The First Gulf War 3 4. 9/11 and the War on Terror 4 5. The Future of Saudi-American Relations 5 Conclusion 6 References 9 Introduction The formal relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia dates back to just a few months after the unification of the Kingdom by HRH Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al-Saud in September, 1932. In July 1933 the Kingdom granted an oil concession to the America’s Standard Oil Company, and by November of the same year the two countries had formally established diplomatic relations and made agreements concerning navigation and commercial relations. (Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, 2008) That Standard Oil was the first significant American presence in Saudi Arabia is not a coincidence; without Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth, the relationship between the US and the Kingdom might have been very different. But while oil is undeniably a key factor in starting and maintaining the good relationship between the two countries, Saudi-American ties are much deeper than that. In this report, the relationship between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America is examined, in the context of several key challenges to the relationship the two countries have faced. To conclude the analysis, ideas about how the future relationship might proceed are offered. 1. A Relationship Fuelled by Oil After World War I, the United States faced an industrial dilemma: Its own oil fields had fuelled the Allies during the war, but there were great concerns that the country, enjoying an industrial boom in the post-war years, would soon run out of oil. The provinces of the Middle East liberated from the Ottoman Empire after the war were a promising source of new oil, but were dominated by the British, who exerted great effort to keep potential competitors like the Americans – allies or not – out of their sphere of influence. (Bronson, 2006) The beginnings of Saudi-American relations were not in the Kingdom, but in the tiny neighbouring Emirate of Bahrain. With better supplies in Iraq and Iran, British oil companies were not interested in exploring the small island for oil, so Standard Oil of California (Socal) was able to purchase a concession from Bahrain. In 1932, Socal struck it rich in Bahrain, and began to wonder whether the new Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a similar sort of landscape and just 20 miles away from Bahrain, might also hold oil wealth. Socal began negotiating with King Abdulaziz for an exploration concession, and the British interests, jealously wanting to protect what they felt was “their” resource market, did as well. But the King was mistrustful of the British; the Americans, by comparison, did not seem to have the same imperial ambitions, and offered a good price for the concession, so in July 1933 he awarded the concession to Socal. (Bronson, 2006: 16-17; Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, 2008) Socal formed a new subsidiary called the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc), which would later merge Texas Oil to form the Arab American Company (Aramco). Finding oil proved challenging, and it was nearly five years before Casoc was successful; but when it was, the success was spectacular. Once oil had been discovered in 1938, King Abdulaziz, delighted with the huge royalty payments his treasury soon started earning from sales of the oil, increased the area of Casoc’s concession to nearly 450,000 square miles, more than half the territory of Saudi Arabia. (Bronson, 2006: 19) Thus a profitable and productive friendship was formed between the two countries. By 1942, the United States established an official diplomatic presence in the Kingdom, while a Royal Legation was established in Washington in 1944. (Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, 2008) The friendship, however, would be put to its first test soon after World War II, with the establishment of the Israeli state. 2. Balancing Israel and Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia and the United States each have a balancing act to maintain with respect to the presence of Israel. For the US, a large and politically-influential Jewish population means that support for Israel is obligatory, but it must balance this against its friendship with Saudi Arabia and relations with the rest of the wider Arab world. For Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the holiest places of Islam, it must be opposed to the presence of a Jewish state in the midst of the Arab, particularly one that exists at the expense of the Palestinian people; but the Kingdom must, of course, balance this against continued good relations with the US and its own desire for peace and stability in the region. (Pollack, 2002: 81) This has presented serious problems for both sides on a number of occasions, none more serious than the oil embargo following the start of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. Even though similar tensions had arisen during the Six-Day War of 1967, a large part of Saudi tolerance for American support of Israel was the American security guarantee to Saudi Arabia, and the counter to Soviet attempts to gain influence in the region, most particularly in Saudi Arabia’s traditional enemy Iraq, and in Egypt. In May 1973, however, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat expelled the Soviets, and began conciliation with Saudi King Faisal and other Arab neighbours. (Pollack, 2002: 82) Thus, the Communist threat was much diminished. Instead, internal instability began to rise, as the Saudi people began expressing anti-American sentiment and even criticising their own leaders after the war against Israel was launched by Egypt and Syria. (Pollack, 2003: 30) The problem became serious when, after Israel had defended itself well and was on the brink of inflicting another punishing defeat on the Arab allies, the US President Richard Nixon requested emergency funds to send the Israelis badly-needed supplies and arms. King Faisal then had no choice but to yield to the sentiments of his own people and Saudi religious leaders, and joined the oil embargo against the US. (Kaiser & Ottaway, 2002) More recently, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US was strained by the Palestinian intifada that began in 2000. Both countries expressed disappointment with the other; the US felt that the Saudis should take a greater role in helping to encourage the peace process that had begun with the Oslo Accord in 1994, and the Saudis felt that the US had also neglected the Israeli-Palestinian issues, and should have done more to help quell the violence. (‘Strengthening the U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” 2002) As in 1973, the Kingdom had to contend with growing anti-American sentiment as well as genuine displeasure with how the US was handling the situation, but differences between Saudi Arabian and American views were settled diplomatically before they led to a real crisis. In a discreet exchange of letters between Crown Prince Abdullah and President George W. Bush, the Americans reiterated their commitment to a Palestinian state, and agreed to try to restrain Israel; the Prince, in turn, extracted a promise from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to resume peace negotiations with Israel. (Pollack, 2002: 87) 3. The First Gulf War On August 3, 1990 Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, posing an immediate threat to neighbouring Saudi Arabia and the world’s oil supply. Within three days, senior American officials met with King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah to arrange for the use of Saudi Arabia as a base for coalition troops, which would of course have the added benefit to Saudi Arabia of defending against any Iraqi aggression. (Pollack, 2002: 84) The agreement to allow US and allied forces onto Saudi soil was strictly informal; the Americans would remain until the Iraqi threat was eliminated or the Kingdom asked them to leave. Because the presence of foreign troops in the land of Islam’s holiest places was a delicate issue between the Saudi leadership and the religious leaders, King Fahd met with the Islamic elders to persuade them to accept the situation. After much persuasion, the most-respected elder Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Bin Baz issued a fatwa giving his blessing to the military operation, although somewhat reluctantly: “Even though the Americans are, in the conservative religious view, equivalent to nonbelievers, as they are not Muslims, they deserve support because they are here to defend Islam,” he wrote. (Kaiser & Ottaway, 2002) Not everyone agreed that the American presence ‘deserved support,’ however, and many conservative people felt that the continuing mission of the US forces – which went well beyond the point at which the Iraqis were firmly expelled from Kuwait – defiled the holy land of Islam. In November 1995 and in June 1996, terrorist bombs exploding at a Saudi National Guard training facility in Riyadh and a US Air Force housing complex in Dharhan, killing seven and 19 people, respectively. (Pollack, 2002: 85) Saudi authorities quickly apprehended and executed four men who confessed to the Riyadh attack. The men said they had been inspired by an extremist leader named Osama bin Laden, the son of a wealthy Saudi family who led a terrorist organisation known as Al Qaeda. (Kaiser & Ottaway, 2002) Bin Laden was regarded as a criminal by the Kingdom, and in fact had been stripped of his Saudi citizenship, but his connection to Saudi Arabia created a new challenge for Saudi-American relations in the tragedy that was soon to come. 4. 9/11 and the War on Terror On September 11, 2001 19 terrorists – 15 of them Saudi nationals – loyal to Osama bin Laden hijacked four jet airliners in the United States and deliberately crashed three of them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, causing great destruction and loss of life; the fourth airliner crashed in a rural area before reaching its target. The American government was cautious in its public remarks and did not lay the blame on Saudi Arabia but on the renegade bin Laden and his Al Qaeda group where it belonged. The American public, however, were not so understanding, and protested against Saudi Arabia and Muslims and Arabs in general, even to the point of unfairly persecuting Arabs and Arab-Americans in the United States. For their part, many people in Saudi Arabia were critical of America, and felt the over-reaction against the wrong people – that is, the Saudi people, and the vast numbers of innocent Muslims around the world – was unfair and insulting. (Pollack, 2003: 36-37) Perhaps the over-reaction as expressed by the American media and some of its political figures was unfair, but there were a few factors that made the Saudi-American relationship after September 11 a bit uncomfortable. Since at least 1996, the Saudi government had supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, the country where bin Laden had sought refuge after being expelled from Syria. Many ultra-conservative and radical members of the Saudi clergy preached fundamentalist and anti-Western rhetoric, and many Saudis – discreetly for the most part, but sometimes openly – supported extremist causes in different parts of the world. (Pollack, 2003: 36-37; Klare, 2009: 25) Here was an instance of the Saudi leadership managing political realities. Support for the Taliban had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden, but rather because the Taliban presented the prospect of some sort of stability in Afghanistan, and were favoured by many Saudi religious leaders – religious leaders the House of Saud needed to help maintain political stability in the Kingdom. (Pollack, 2002, 2003) Thus the Saudis have been cautious in participating in America’s “War on Terror,” balancing doing what is right to prevent terrorism – especially because it also threatens the peace and stability of Saudi Arabia – without appearing to bend to the will of the United States. For example, very quickly after September 11 Saudi Arabia cut off all support for the Taliban, but prevented the US from using Saudi territory to launch attacks on Afghanistan. (Pollack, 2003: 37) 5. The Future of Saudi-American Relations With the death of Osama bin Laden and the deaths or capture of many of his important lieutenants, the “War on Terror” seems to be less of a critical issue now than it has been over the past several years. In the past year, the strength of the Saudi-American relationship has been challenged by new circumstances, specifically the widespread unrest throughout the Middle East and the overthrow of long-ruling governments in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. (Blanchard, 2011) Yet the nature of the interaction between the governments of HRH King Abdullah and President Barack Obama seems, in the view of some observers, to have taken a more consultative and cooperative turn than it perhaps had during the term of former President Bush. (Dergham, 2010) It is good that it is so, because the turmoil of the “Arab Spring” puts the Saudi and American leadership on two different sides of the issue. The Saudis are seen as part of the traditional, stable, and authoritarian leadership in the Middle East; the Kingdom was closely allied to Egypt’s President Mubarak, permitted deposed Tunisian President Ben Ali to seek refuge in Saudi Arabia, and have supported the government of neighbouring Bahrain in quelling unrest there. (Blanchard, 2011) The US, by contrast, is very supportive of greater democracy, the rights of people to protest and assemble, and greater freedom of the press, and has sometimes been critical of a slow pace of reforms in the Kingdom – something which annoys Saudi Arabia, seeing it as meddling in internal matters. (Dergham, 2010) Nevertheless, the economic and political ties between the two nations remain strong. The earnest wish for cooperation obviously helps maintain the good relationship, but in more practical terms, American and Saudi agreement on the potential threat of Iran, and American support – even over the objections of Israel – for King Abdullah’s concepts for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours give the two countries much common ground. As other parts of the Middle East experience turmoil and change, the strength and stability of Saudi Arabia will likely continue to be the anchor for American interests and policy in the region, leading to a continuation of the close ties for the foreseeable future. Conclusion This paper has reviewed the history of the relationship between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America in the context of key factors – the economic relationship made necessary and possible by Saudi Arabia’s vast oil wealth, the troubling circumstances concerning Israel, US military action against Iraq which continued into the battle against extremist terrorism, and the present circumstances of change and instability throughout the Middle East. The economic relationship fuelled by oil does indeed make the friendship between the two nations possible; it is hard to imagine what else a traditional Islamic monarchy and a multicultural, Judeo-Christian democracy might find in common, without such a valuable commodity. Yet the relationship has gone beyond simply being about oil; it is just as hard to imagine that either nation would abandon their friendship, and their common goals for regional peace and stability, if all the oil were to suddenly disappear. It is perhaps fortunate for the rest of the world that these two very different and very influential nations have been good friends for so long, and seem inclined to continue to be so into the future. References Blanchard, C.M. (2011) “Saudi Arabia: Background and U.S. Relations”. Congressional Research Service Report RL33533, 10 March 2011. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. Bronson, R. (2006) Thicker than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia. New York: Oxford University Press. Dergham, R. (2010) “A Qualitative Shift in Saudi-American Relations”. Dar Al Hayat, 02 July 2010. Available from: http://www.daralhayat.com/portalarticlendah/158923. Kaiser, R.G., and Ottaway, D. (2002) “Oil for Security Fueled Close Ties But Major Differences Led to Tensions”. The Washington Post, 11 February 2002, p. A01. Klare, M.T. (2009) “Tithing at the Crude Altar”. The National Interest, 102: 20-29. Pollack, J. (2002) “Saudi Arabia and the United States, 1931-2002”. Middle East Review of International Affairs, 6(3): 77-102. Pollack, J. (2003) “Anti-Americanism in Contemporary Saudi Arabia”. Middle East Review of International Affairs, 7(4): 30-43. Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. (2008) “Chronology of Saudi-U.S. Relations”. Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington. Available from: http://www.saudiembassy.net/files/PDF/Reports/Saudi-US-chronology-08.pdf. “Strengthening the U.S.-Saudi Relationship”. (2002) Council on Foreign Relations, May 2002. Available from: http://www.cfr.org/saudi-arabia/strengthening-us-saudi-relationship-cfr-paper/p8667. Read More