Feeding appetite for oil, bankrolling terrorism to drive security state, US-Saudi Arabia conjoined at the heart

We won’t trouble Saudi’s tyrants with calls to reform while we crave their oil
by George Monbiot – The Guardian – 14 March, 2011

Unrest will be seen as destabilising for western governments too until our dependency on Riyadh’s tap is curbed

Did you hear it? The clamour from western governments for democracy in Saudi Arabia? The howls of outrage from the White House and No 10 about the shootings on Thursday, the suppression of protests on Friday, the arrival of Saudi troops in Bahrain on Monday? No? Nor did I.

Did we miss it, or do they believe that change is less necessary in Saudi Arabia than it is in Libya? If so, on what grounds? The democracy index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit places Libya 158th out of 167, and Saudi Arabia 160th. At least in Libya, for all the cruelties of that regime, women are not officially treated as lepers were in medieval Europe.

Last week, while explaining why protests in the kingdom is unnecessary, the foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, charmingly promised to “cut off the fingers of those who try to interfere in our internal matters”. In other parts of the world this threat would have been figurative; he probably meant it. If mass protests have not yet materialised in Saudi Arabia, it’s because the monarchy maintains a regime of terror, enforced with the help of torture, mutilation and execution.

Yet our leaders are even more at ease among the Saudi autocracy than they were in the court of Colonel Gaddafi. The number of export licences granted by the UK government for arms sales to the kingdom has risen roughly fourfold since 2003. The last government was so determined to preserve its special relationship with the Saudi despots that it derailed British justice by forcing the Serious Fraud Office to drop its inquiry into corruption in the al-Yamamah deals.

Why? Future weapons sales doubtless play a role. But there’s an even stronger imperative. A few days ago the French bank Société Générale warned that unrest in Saudi Arabia could push the oil price to $200 a barrel.

Abdullah’s kingdom is the world’s last “swing producer”: the only nation capable of raising crude oil production if it falls elsewhere, or if demand outstrips supply. As a result, political disruption there is as threatening to the stability of western governments as it is to the Saudi regime. Probably more so, as our leaders wouldn’t get away with gunning us down in the street.

Few governments of nominal democracies are likely to survive the economic dislocation that a sustained price of $200 would deliver: like Brian Cowen, they would be out on their butts quicker than you could cycle past a petrol station. You’re as likely to hear David Cameron call for the overthrow of the House of Saud as you are to hear King Abdullah call for the overthrow of the House of Lords. …more