Saudi Arabia under Muhammad Bin Salman's Regime is No Longer a US Ally: The Need for a New American Foreign Policy in the Gulf

MBS and Putin at G20 Summit, November 2018

Why is United States foreign policy in the Gulf no longer relevant given the region's current political climate? What has changed that requires the United States to adopt a new foreign policy approach?  How should the US confront Saudi Arabia, one of the two major powers in the Gulf? 

United States foreign policy in the Gulf region is facing a crisis.  The two culprits are Saudi Arabia and Iran. While I will write about Iran in my next post, this post focuses on the rule of Saudi Prime Minister and Crown Prince, Muhammad bin Salman (MBS).  He has turned Saudi Arabia from a ally (or perhaps a better characterization is frenemy) to a state whose policies contradict American interests and those of the Western community.

After FDR met with King Abd al-Aziz al-Sa'ud aboard the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake south of the Suez Canal in February1945, he declared that Saudi oil was critical to American national interests.  Since that meeting, the United States and the Sa'ud family have established a tacit bargain. Saudi Arabia would produce sufficient oil to meet the demands of the US and its Western allies and, through its market dominance, maintain price levels which would not constrainWestern economic growth.  In return, the US would provide for the Kingdom's defense, and Saudi royals and businessmen would benefit from investing in the US economy. What happened when Saudi King Abdul Aziz met US President Roosevelt

Moving to the present, what is often overlooked is the "soft coup" which has taken place in Saudi Arabia.  In 2015, MBS became Minister of Defense.  Gradually, he convinced his father, King Salman, to transfer the everyday running of the kingdom to him. MBS has used that power to consolidate his power by upending the structure of the traditional Saudi political elite.  

Having imprisoned a large number of Saudi princes on charges of corruption in Riyadh's Ritz-Carlton Hotel in November, 2018, he forced them to turn over large amounts of their wealth.  His subsequent behavior, such as intensifying the bombing campaign in Yemen in the war against Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, has led to widespread civilian casualties, and created what the United Nations has characterized as one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.  

As Crown Prince, and now Prime Minister, MBS has demonstrated a frequent resort to violence. MBS' treatment of the captive princes at the Ritz-Carlton, e.g., Prince Waleed ibn Talal al-Sa'ud, was brutal, e.g., severe beatings and hanging them by their wrists or upside down. 'Night of the beating': details emerge of Riyadh Ritz-Carlton purge

Saudi prince, al-Waleed ibn Talal al-Sa'ud

The October 2018 murder of Saudi national and Washington Post reporter, Jamal Khashoggi, in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, after which his body was dismembered, has been widely  condemned as a particularly shocking example of MBS' extensive human rights abuses.  Despite American intelligence agencies having determined that MBS ordered Khashoggi's assassination, the Saudi leader has yet to face any consequences for the murder. CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination

A few days day before former British prime minister Boris Johnson visited Saudi Arabia this past March, MBS ordered the execution of 81 prisoners, the largest such execution in the kingdom's history.  Three weeks before that, MBS had given an interview to foreign journalists indicating that he was in the process of reforming the Saudi criminal code, and reducing the crimes subject to capital punishment, especially for youth. Saudi Arabia: Mass Execution of 81 Men Rampant Abuses in Criminal Justice System Make Fair Trials Highly Implausible

In terms of Saudi foreign policy, MBS' most egregious behavior is his alliance with Russia in OPEC+.  His recent decision to cut Saudi oil production not only raised the price of gasoline, but undermines the ability of Democratic Party candidates to complete in the soon to held US midterm elections, among the most consequential in the country's history.  After Joe Biden's July visit to Riyadh where oil process were a central concern, MBS' decision to cut production just before the American mid-term elections is a slap in the face not just to the Biden administration but the United States as well.

MBS' decision also has had a global effect by increasing gasoline prices worldwide.  It will no doubt be part of the effort by right wing populists in the European Union to try and undermine military and humanitarian support for Ukraine given high inflation. Thus, MBS has not only helped Vladimir Putin continue his brutal, unprovoked war in Ukraine by raising oil prices, but also made it more difficult for those who support Ukraine to continue that support.U.S. Executives Are Flocking to Saudi Davos in the Desert

On. another front, MBS is developing ties with large US banks and corporations as see in the current investment conference being held in Riyadh.  As the New York Times noted, this conference defines the current transactional approach to US foreign policy which was promoted by the Trump administration.  American investors such as former Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, Trump son-in-law, Jared Kushner, JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Diamond, and countless oil executives are being recruited by MBS. Saudis Find More Sympathetic American Ears at Business Forum

MBS' end goal is to develop a powerful group of US corporate executives  - an American power elite - which he can use to lobby members of Congress and thereby make an end run around the Biden administration, and future administrations, who seek to curtail his decision-making in using oil as a political weapon. To further insure the loyalty of this power elite, MBS is rewarding them - as he already had done with Mnuchin and Kushner - with large sums of investment capital from the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, including joint partnerships in real estate and the tourist industry under development as part of the Crown Prince's Vision 2030. A Saudi official’s harrowing account of torture reveals the regime’s brutality

While there has been no shortage of Saudi lobbying during prior US administrations, MBS' gambit represents a new and much more ambitious effort to mobilize support for him personally in the US.  By developing luxurious tourist hotels and resorts designed for the ultra-rich, MBS seeks to attract a clientele which will fit his emerging foreign policy which seeks to become much less beholden to the United States and the Western countries who disapprove of his human rights abuses which they condemn.

What policies can the United States and the West adopt to counter MBS' support of the rogue Putin regime and his openings to China which is currently the main purchaser of Saudi oil exports?  One of the key cards in the West's hands is arms supplies. Many human rights activists have been calling for years for reducing, if not ending, arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

The options available to Saudi Arabia for replacing American with other imported arms are limited.  The Ukraine war has demonstrated the poor quality of Russian arms.  China, on the other hand, may be interested in providing the kingdom with arms.  However, the US supplies not only arms, but significant intelligence assistance to Saudi Arabia.  Loss of arms transfers and intelligence sharing would harm Saudi Arabia more than the United States.

What is the possibility of a possible shift of Saudi Arabia to dependence on China, militarily and economically?  First, the image of China as a growing super power has been seriously eroded by a number of crises and challenges, including the Covid pandemic, the aging of the Chinese population, the reduced interest of Western forms in investing in China, the environmental threats China faces and, most of all, the negative impact of  President Xi Jinping's authoritarian rule.  

All these developments, compared to the strong US dollar, and superiority in technological innovation, would make Saudi and Gulf Arab elites think twice about shifting the Gulf region's dependence from the West to Xi's China.  Xi's confirmation for an unprecedented third term as the Chinese Communist Party's Secretary General led to a sharp decline in the Hong Kong stock exchange. Breakingviews: Xi Jinping’s third term gets markets thumbs-down

Increasingly, Chinese private enterprise has been severely restricted because Xi views powerful private entrepreneurs as a threat to his rule.  That those entrepreneurs who have acquired great wealth over the past decade, and have no recourse to legal protections of their property rights, will also make Saudi and Gulf Arabs think twice about military dependence on China.  Because the Saudi and Arab Gulf model has favored private capital, and will need to continue to assure Western corporations that their investments are secure, developing closer military ties with China would undermine trust in the Saudi and Arab Gulf business climate.

China's close relations with Iran should also raise red flags in the kingdom and among the other Arab Gulf states.  China purchases significant amounts of oil from Iran, thereby allowing the Tehran regime to mitigate the international sanctions which it currently faces. If a crisis arises, would China favor Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states or would it favor Iran? Such ambiguity is another factor undermining a move to replace Western arms with those from China. The 25-year Iran-China agreement, endangering 2,500 years of heritage

Cultural factors also impact a possible shift to dependence on China for arms.  Few Saudis and Gulf Arabs speak Chinese.  There is strong preference among political and economic elites for Western culture which is evident in the types of tourist attractions MBS is developing to lure more Western, not Chinese,  businessmen and potential investors to the kingdom.  As MBS seeks to use his huge sovereign wealth fund to bribe Western investors and celebrities (think also of his LIV golf initiative which competes with the PGA), his efforts to create a powerful lobbying force in the US run counter to developing closer military ties with China. 

What should the Biden administration respond to MBS' decision-making and behavior to date?  How should it confront his working against US national interests, especially supporting Putin's brutal war in Ukraine which threatens world peace and global food supplies, and his ongoing flagrant human rights abuses?

First, the United States should cut off arms transfers to the MBS regime.  Second, it should encourage its European Union and NATO partners to do the same.  Third, it should withdraw the small contingent of US troops in Saudi Arabia.  Fourth, it should seriously downgrade intelligence sharing and technical support for weapons already sold to the MBS regime.  

Fifth, the US State Department should be much more public in its criticisms of the inequities of the Saudi legal system and the persecution of its Shi'a citizens, Saudi activists and Saudi women's rights supporters.  A good place to begin would be to condemn the lashings and excessive prison sentences meted out for those posting critical comments of MBS' regime on social media outlets or blogs. Saudi Arabia sentences US citizen to 16 years over tweets critical of regime

Sixth, the Biden administration should conduct an active behind-the scenes campaign to dissuade US corporations which are considering investing in Saudi Arabia from doing so. The implicit question of such an intervention should be the following: Would your corporation's shareholder agree with investing its funds in a country run by a repressive dictator who kills and executes its citizens at will and supports Putin's unprovoked and destabilizing war in Ukraine? Saudi Arabia: 10-year travel ban for freed blogger Raif Badawi

Finally, the Biden administration should terminate official cultural exchanges with MBS' regime.  Instead, it should offer grants to legitimate Saudi human rights and women's rights organizations, whether they operate inside or outside the kingdom.

Of course, the best way to curtail MBS's authoritarian ambitions and repressive actions is to speed up the transition from fossil fuels to wind and solar energy, and hydrogen to replace natural gas (as Germany has begun to do).  The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act should be used to put thousands of new EVs on the road and dramatically increase EV charging capacity.  Even though difficult, the US should try and improve its refinery capacity so as to reduce its dependence on imported oil. Perhaps a cooperative venture with Canada might overcome some of the current hurdles in refining gasoline in the United States. The Real Reason Gas Is So Expensive? The US Needs More Refineries

The bottom line is that MBS will be ruling Saudi Arabia for the foreseeable future. It is not in the United States' interest to continue to rely on a brash, narcissistic and unpredictable dictator. The sooner the Biden administration charts a new foreign policy towards the MBS regime, the sooner it can extract itself from the road to failed expectations and outcomes.