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Middle East Review of International Affairs
Saudi Arabia and the United States, 1931-2002
by Josh Pollack
*
Abstract
The U.S.-Saudi relationship is one of America's most important, enduring, and complex bilateral connections in the Middle East. It has been tested by many issues, including oil policies, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and confrontation with Iraq. Especially after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America, in which many of those involved were Saudi dissidents, both sides have critiqued and reevaluated that link. This article provides a history of the U.S.-Saudi relationship and discusses its nature, problems, and limits.
The enduring contradictions of the Saudi-American relationship have lately inspired comparisons to a marriage of convenience. Its close economic and security links have often been strained by immense political, cultural, and psychological distances. The breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in September 2000 brought on a difficult time in the relationship, reminiscent of the period leading up to the oil embargo of 1973-1974; moreover, unlike previous crises in U.S.-Saudi relations, its effects are not mitigated by the commonality of purpose experienced during the Cold War, especially during the 1970s and 1980s.
The devastation of September 11, 2001 accordingly dealt a sledgehammer blow to an already unsteady structure. In America, the shock provoked a complicated and angry reassessment, in some ways reminiscent of the reordering of U.S.-Chinese ties after the bloodshed of June 4, 1989 in Tiananmen Square. The Saudis, thrust onto the defensive and frustrated with American policies and undertakings regarding Israel, Afghanistan, and Iraq, have engaged in some reassessment of their own.
The current situation both echoes and diverges from past episodes in the relationship. Both sides continue to navigate the relationship through the narrow channels of a few individuals experienced at maneuvering between their starkly unalike systems and cultures. Notable in this respect on the Saudi side is Prince Bandar bin Sultan, confidant to the ailing King Fahd and ambassador to the United States since 1983. The dean of the foreign diplomatic corps in Washington, Bandar has served as the virtual personification of the relationship for two decades. On the American side, former President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who developed Saudi ties during the Persian Gulf War, have been instrumental in bringing President George W. Bush together with Crown Prince Abdullah, who currently manages the kingdom's affairs in Fahd- stead. At the same time, public sentiment in both countries, fueled by cable television and the Internet, has played an unusually large role in the crisis. Both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia responded with elaborate campaigns to improve their national images.
Today's problems are further complicated by a substantial U.S. Air Force and British Royal Air Force presence on Saudi soil that extends back over a decade to the Persian Gulf War. In the absence of any formal understandings on the status of forces, allied raids against Iraqi air defense sites have become entangled in Saudi domestic sensitivities, with problematic results for the war in Afghanistan, as well as any future war against Iraq. Sustaining the relationship through these difficulties are the same underlying factors that have always sustained it: the Western world's need for uninterrupted access to energy supplies, and the Saudi kingdom's need for defense against predatory neighbors.
Full PDF Document, 26 pages, 157kbs
Endnotes
Note *: Josh Pollack is a Washington, DC-based defense consultant. All views herein are the author's own, and should not be attributed to others. His recent work includes "Afghanistan's Missing Peace," published in January 2002 in Current Defense Analyses. Back