The Inevitability of the US-Saudi Rift

The Inevitability of the US-Saudi Rift
By Wayne Madsen – Strategic Culture Foundation

TEHRAN (FNA)- A number of seasoned observers of Middle Eastern affairs agree that US-Saudi relations are at their lowest ebb since US President Franklin D. Roosevelt established America’s “special relationship” with the Saudi monarchy on February 14, 1945, just a few months before FDR’s death.

Subsequent to the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt met Saudi King Ibn Saud on board the USS Quincy on Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal in Egypt. Roosevelt and Saud inked the “Quincy Agreement”, by which the United States would provide Saudi Arabia with military equipment and training in return for the US establishing a military base at Dhahran in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia guaranteeing the United States a steady flow of Saudi oil. Except for the Arab oil embargo instituted against the West in the 1970s, the Quincy Agreement has survived six Saudi kings.

However, the Quincy Agreement is in trouble. There are a number of reasons why US-Saudi relations have fractured. They include:

• The decision by the Barack Obama administration to cancel a US military strike against Syria in return for a US-Russian concordat to oversee the removal from Syria and ultimate destruction of chemical weapons.

• The Obama administration’s decision to engage Iran through direct diplomatic negotiations.

• Increasing evidence by US intelligence of Saudi links to Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-linked terrorists operating around the world.

• Reduced US dependency on Saudi oil as a result of increased US carbon fuel output from the fracking of shale reserves in the United States.

• The closeness of the head of the Ri’asat Al-Istikhbarat Al-‘Ama, the Saudi General Intelligence Agency, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, to the Bush family and other leading Republicans, including former Vice President Dick Cheney.

• Saudi concern that the US has turned its “Arab Spring” resources against Saudi Arabia in a low-level manner through the “Car Key Revolution”, a widespread protest by Saudi women who broke Saudi law by driving cars.

After the US supported the Arab Spring “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia that toppled longtime Tunisian strongman President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali – who received refuge in Saudi Arabia — and the “Lotus Revolution” that ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power, Riyadh grew increasingly concerned that the mass demonstrations against unpopular regimes would spread to “the Kingdom”. In fact, Saudi forces quickly suppressed a few demonstrations in Saudi Arabia and sent in military forces to ruthlessly put down a pro-democracy uprising in neighboring Bahrain. The Saudis were never comfortable with the accession to power in Egyptian elections of the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly the presidency of Mohamed Morsi. The Saudis, therefore, instructed the pro-Saudi Nour Party in Egypt to support the military coup that toppled Morsi and replaced him with General Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi.

Although Sisi has Nasserite sympathies, the Saudis view him much more favorably than they do the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi’s establishing of closer relations with Iran was viewed as a threat to the Saudi regime and a breakdown of the established balance of power in the region. Obama’s decision to curtail the supply of military weaponry to Egypt following the ouster of Morsi further inflamed relations between Riyadh and Washington. To make up for the cut-off in US assistance to Cairo, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates pledged $12 billion in aid to Cairo in July of this year. The Saudis also joined Israel in voicing opposition to the cut off of American military assistance to Cairo, evidence of the growing relationship between Saudi Arabia and the nation that Saudi King Faisal once referred to as the “Zionist regime” as he presented beautifully-bound copies of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” to visiting dignitaries. …more