We treat our friends as enemies and our enemies as friends
Saudi Arabia’s murder and dismemberment of the US-based, journalistic critic of the Saudi regime, Jamal Khashoggi, was, if such a thing is possible, beyond immoral. It was grotesque. It was a violation of another nation’s sovereignty. It was an act of contempt for free speech. Perhaps worst of all, it was business-as-usual for the Saudi regime. Need we remind anyone that the majority of 9/11 terrorists were Saudi nationals?
America’s visceral recoil over the murder of Khashoggi puts us up against a most unpleasant but unavoidable diplomatic reality: Saudi Arabia is not an exception in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are of a piece; their political mores are ugly. Except this: Saudi Arabia is, or at least used to be, a staunch American ally, while Iran has been, and continues to be, a staunch American enemy.
Distasteful though it surely is, the US must cultivate its allies for the good of American security and peace in the Middle East.
The alternatives are unpalatable: permanently punish Saudi Arabia, and thereby push it into the Russia-China orbit — blatantly dangerous, given the brutal, indeed grotesque, Russian invasion of Ukraine — or work with Saudi Arabia. There is really no choice. The US, however, is sending every opposite signal to Saudi Arabia in a host of policies. They reflect moral recoil over the Khashoggi murder rather than sober reflection. Among them:
Item: Saudi Arabia fights the Iran-backed terrorists in Yemen, who wage war on Saudi Arabia. What does the US do? The State Dept. removes these terrorists, the Houthis, from its list of terrorist organizations. Message to Saudi Arabia: Iran means more to America than Saudi Arabia.
In its war against the Houthis, Saudi Arabia created what was the one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises prior to Ukraine. We must nonetheless ask: what is worse? A stable Saudi Arabia, interested in being in the good graces of the West, or a nuclear-armed Iran, dead set on destroying the West? There really is no choice, unpalatable though it is.
Item: Saudi Arabia, to fight the Houthi terrorists, received US arms, but, according to the Wall Street Journal, the current administration froze the sale of precision-guided missiles to Saudi Arabia, whereupon more Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia succeeded; whereupon, the US removed anti-missile systems from Saudi Arabia. Message to Saudi Arabia: Iran means more to America than Saudi Arabia.
Item: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince asks the US to recognize him as the country’s head of state so he can be immune from prosecution for the murder of Khashoggi. The US refuses. Message to Saudi Arabia: Castro of Cuba, Chavez of Venezuela, Kim Jong-un of North Korea, Carrie Lam of Hong Kong, Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran — all brutal people and sworn enemies of the US who act exactly as the Crown Prince — suffer no personal consequence from America. Message: Iran (and others) mean more to America than Saudi Arabia.
Item: Biden said that rising gas prices are the fault of low oil output by Saudi Arabia. Message to Saudi Arabia: It means more to Biden to demean Saudi oil policy than to risk his domestic standing by acknowledging that his own anti-drill policies are, in whole or in part, responsible for rising American gas prices. (Variation: Biden now blames Putin.)
As a consequence of these policies, the man who, upon entering office, claimed more foreign policy experience than any previous American president taking office, has been:
• snubbed by the Saudi Crown Prince, who refused to take his phone call;
• turned down cold when he asked the Crown Prince to pump more oil in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine;
• witness to his Secretary of Defense’s planned visit to Saudi Arabia last fall called off by the Saudis;
• witness to his Secretary of State’s planned visit to Saudi Arabia last month called off by the Saudis;
• witness to a dinner for US officials at the Saudi embassy in Washington cancelled by the Saudi Prince Khalid, the Crown Prince’s younger brother, since he would not get the time he requested with the US Secretary of State.
American-Saudi relations are near or at a 77-year low, with many more downs than ups. One of the rare ups was the US decision last November to sell the Saudis air-to-air missiles. But the overall diplomatic picture remains very bleak. Bottom line: When the Biden administration asked Saudi Arabia to stand with the West against Russia, Saudi Arabia did just the opposite, sustaining its oil supplies to Russia. No sanctions on Russia by Saudi Arabia.
At the inception of the Abraham Accords near the close of the last administration, there were hopeful signs that Saudi Arabia would be the next, and by far the most significant, Arab country to establish diplomatic ties with Israel. The US has now squandered that opportunity, at least if it is to come via American intervention and mediation.
Of more direct interest to the US, this basic lesson is overlooked: In a Middle East already filled with enemies of the US — Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Lebanon, for example — the wise course is to solidify American relationships with the Middle Eastern countries that have been American allies. This is most congenial in the case of Israel, a democracy. This is most uncongenial in the case of Saudi Arabia, a dictatorship. But we can only deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.
The US, by moving against Saudi Arabia, is making the world a more dangerous place — this, at a time of great danger anyway, in Ukraine and Europe. To preserve the peace in the Middle East, the US needs to treat its friends as friends and its enemies as enemies.
Copyright © 2022 by the Intermountain Jewish News
