The Saudi Exception

They say you can’t pick your family or your coworkers. The same goes for global relations. To quote a tweet once posted by my boss Richard Haass “You have to deal with the leaders that exist, not the ones you prefer.” 

The United States likes to think of itself as upholding values - including those of democracy, freedom, and human rights. But maintaining global partnerships often means dealing with those you may not choose to call your allies. Administrations often have to balance values with interests, which can involve troubling compromises.

Such is the case in our relationship with Saudi Arabia.

For starters, they have a lot of oil, which helps them to dominate the global market and control what we pay at the pump.  And it gets more complicated.

I’m Gabrielle Sierra and this is Why It Matters. Today, the US-Saudi relationship, what is it built on, what it looks like, and what is happening within the country that makes this partnership controversial? 

Gabrielle SIERRA: What is Saudi Arabia's role in the world of energy?

Steven COOK: I think the word that first comes to mind when someone says Saudi Arabia is oil and that's because Saudi Arabia is among, if not the most important, oil producer in the world. 

This is Steven Cook. He is a senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies here at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

COOK: It can produce a lot of oil at a relatively low cost, and it can do that relatively quickly.

SIERRA: How much of our energy supply in the US comes from Saudi oil? 

COOK: It's actually not as much as many people think. And the fact of the matter is that in terms of crude oil imports, Saudi Arabia supplies 6% of the American supply.

Wait, hold the phone, just 6 percent?

COOK: About 500,000 barrels of oil for the United States on a daily basis. This trails well behind Canada, Mexico. 

SIERRA: Oh. 

COOK: Canada's by far the biggest supplier of oil to the United States. And of course the United States is the world's leading producer of oil. The United States produces somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 and a half million barrels a day, but it also consumes 21 and a half million barrels a day. And that's why it is so important in thinking about a global oil market. What are markets made of? You know, at the very basics, your economics 101, supply and demand. And so when the market is out of balance, Saudi Arabia is often looked upon as what energy analysts and others call the swing producer, a country that can ramp up production relatively quickly at a relatively inexpensive manner to bring the oil market back into balance. So, this gives you a sense that even though Saudi Arabia is not hugely important to the domestic oil market, because it's a global market and as I said, because Saudi Arabia is kind of the low cost producer of choice and can metaphorically turn the spigot on and off, that's what makes it very, very important. 

SIERRA: Got it. Right. So it's less that we need their oil and more that they're a huge influence in the global oil market, and we depend on that. 

COOK: Right. 

Simply put, when Saudi Arabia decides to release more oil to the market, gas prices go down. And that’s good for anyone who has to fill up their car. High gas prices are a lethal political issue in the US, and for decades, they've been a strong and predictable force in approval polls. This makes Saudi Arabia an important consideration for U.S. policymakers. 

SIERRA: How did this country become the world's biggest oil powerhouse?

COOK: Well, it's easy enough to say. Look, in 1933, standard oil of California got a concession to prospect for oil in Saudi Arabia. In March, 1938, the Dammam seven, well blew and Saudi Arabia had a commercial amount of oil as a result. That's how it became. Then it was just a year afterwards that the first commercial exports of Saudi oil went on the market. The king flipped the switch, and it filled a tanker at Ras Tanura which is one of the most important oil terminals in the Persian Gulf and off it went. And since then, you know, they discovered the world's largest single oil field, or believed to be in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, the Al-Ghawar Field. That's really how it became this powerhouse. It's been important to Western economic development ever since.

But the relationship has other important features. While Saudi Arabia is providing oil, the United States is providing weapons. A lot of them. From 2015-2019, around 74% of Saudi Arabia's arms imports were from the United States. In the fall of last year, the U.S. State Department approved an arms sale to Saudi Arabia worth $650 million. And just this summer the US sold patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia in a deal valued at over $3 billion. 

COOK: It's big business. People think in terms of, you know, Saudi Arabia and oil, but also think in terms of Saudi Arabia and Americans weapons manufacturers, that employ lots of people in the Fort Worth area or in South Carolina, in other places where, California, where they manufacture particularly you know, airframes, the F16, the F15, precision guided munitions, The Saudis are big purchasers of those things. 

But there are further significant aspects to US-Saudi ties. Saudi Arabia, historically, has also acted as an important geopolitical ally. 

Madawi AL-RASHEED: It's extremely important to emphasize that the relationship started in 1945, but it evolved over the last 70, 80 years and few other issues became important. 

This is Madawi Al-Rasheed. She's a visiting professor at the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. 

AL-RASHEED: So for example, in the 1980s, Saudi Arabia became extremely important for the US, especially after the Iranian revolution in 1979. So the US was searching for another country in the region in order to build its military capabilities as a counter country to Iran, especially after Iran adopted very hostile rhetoric against the US. And therefore, Saudi Arabia became drawn further into the American regional hegemony, military bases, armament, et cetera.

And it goes beyond this as well. Experts say that it's also been in the U.S’s interests to improve the Saudi relationship with staunch US ally, Israel. 

COOK: The Israeli Saudi relationship is an important reason, this is something that the United States has been driving for many, many years. It's actually not a function of any US effort. Or maybe it's a function effect of what the US is doing, but that Israel and Saudi Arabia share a concern over the exercise of Iranian power around the region. It's not just Iran's nuclear activities. It's its proxies around the region, and the fact that it funds Hezbollah, Houthis in Yemen, has supported, Bashar Al Assad in Syria lends its support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as hamas. And so like in the the way in which Iran has in part driven relations between Israel and the UAE and Israel and Bahrain, it is also playing a role in the far less open, but nevertheless, clearly there relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Now, also part of this is the fact that the Israeli government nor the Saudi government agree with the American approach to Iran. But nevertheless, the fact that the Saudis and Israelis seem to have these under the table relations, the US wants to encourage them, because expanding what's called the circle of peace is very, very important. I think people believe that that would be easier with good us Saudi relations, than the Saudis and Americans at odds with each other. 

So there are multiple reasons that each country needs each other. And that motivates us both to maintain this partnership. 

COOK: Traditionally, it’s been, we have provided security. It's not written down anywhere, but we have ensured the sea lanes and provide security to the oil fields of the Gulf, and the Saudis have worked to maintain a stable oil market. So, do we have leverage? Do they have leverage? Are we more important to them? Are they more important to us?

SIERRA: Right? I was going to say, who has the upper hand here?

COOK: There's this codependency here.

SIERRA: Mm-hmm.

This unwritten contract between the two countries is mutually beneficial. The US offers a security umbrella of sorts and secure transport, and Saudi Arabia in return, maintains stability in oil markets. It is a relationship based on two different needs that must be met. That's sort of a simple set up. 

But the problems come when you examine the relationship with a wider lens and look at some of the other actions Saudi Arabia has taken over the years, and is still taking. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtkWmkTVLB8

CGTN: The latest statement regarding what happened to Jamal Khashoggi came from Istanbul’s chief of prosecutor’s office, according to this statement as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate on October 2nd, was choked to death and his body was dismembered and disposed of…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtWA0rtaCFI

CBC News: Today yet another airstrike killing civilians was blamed on the Saudi led coalition fighting Houthi rebels backed by Iran.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGymnno4dI0

NBC News: So what we’re seeing in Saudi Arabia at the moment is a brutal crackdown on anyone who dares to criticize the government… 
 

Saudi Arabia has done a lot of things that violate international norms that the US and other nations have signed on to uphold: criminalization of dissent, execution for nonviolent offenses, restrictions on free expression, and airstrikes in Yemen that have led to civilian casualties. It’s no surprise then, that over the years, critics of American foreign policy have often cited the Saudi relationship as problematic and even a prime example of American hypocrisy.

SIERRA: So in recent years, what have been the major points of disagreement or conflict between the US and Saudi Arabia?

AL-RASHEED: In the US, there is a current that questions the integrity of this relationship between a country that claims to lead the democratic world and a dictatorship like Saudi Arabia. Well, obviously, those people who know about foreign relations, the US has maintained very close contact with nasty dictators in South America, in Latin America, in the Middle East. 

As Madawi points out, our relationship with Saudi Arabia is not unique. We often have relationships with countries and rulers that are counter to our values in order to meet another need. Critics have also questioned our relationship with China for human rights violations and Pakistan because of their shifting loyalties. 

AL-RASHEED: And there is this current that doesn't accept the fact that so-called democracy like the US could have this intimate relationship based on interests purely. And this current got very stronger after 9/11. Let's not forget that 15 of the hijackers who hit the Twin Towers in New York were Saudi. And therefore, many people in the US questioned this relationship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUR9YN4LxtY

CBS News: Newly declassified documents show links between the 9/11 hijackers and Saudi nationals with connections to the Saudi government.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUR9YN4LxtY

CBS News: It was not possible for 19 men to kill nearly 3,000 Americans that day without a support network and a support structure that helped them move seamlessly around the United States for a nearly two year period. 

AL-RASHEED: Saudi Arabia was also the homeland of a very radical Wahhabi Islamic tradition that inspired global jihad. And therefore, people in the US always had question mark about how close the US could get to Saudi Arabia without jeopardizing its own national interests.

COOK: What you're getting at is this question that has bedeviled American policy makers for a very, very long time, which is the United States is supposed to stand for something in the world, that American values are important to Americans in the conduct of our politics at home, but also abroad. We don't always live up to those ideals and values, but we like to think that we strive towards them. In the Middle East, we have never really done that because our friends in the region don't share our values and our ideals. Yet, they are the people who sit a top lots and lots of oil, which is important to the functioning of the American economy and in fact the global economy. And so we've been willing, and of course it makes people uncomfortable, but we've been willing to shunt aside those questions of human rights and decency and tolerance because the Saudis are this, among oil producers, the most important, arguably.

Okay, guess it’s time to take a deeper dive into the inner workings of the country and what life is like. Just what sort of partner are we partnering with? 

SIERRA: So let's look inside Saudi Arabia. So can you tell me some basics? Who is the current leader? 

COOK: The current leader is King Salman, who is one of the remaining sons of the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz. He became the king and now he's the guy. But he's quite old. So the crown prince, his son Mohammed bin Salman, is the guy who's been kind of running day to day operations for Saudi Arabia. It's almost as if King Salman is the chairman and Mohammad bin Salman the crown prince is the president and CEO of the company. MBS was tapped to be basically the King's wing man, right hand man, and ultimately his successor.

AL-RASHEED: I think it's that intimate relationship between father and son, and he appointed him to so many positions. So he is a Minister of Defense. He's a crown prince. He's the head of the investment fund. He basically controls Saudi Arabia today. It's a one-man show and it's Mohammed bin Salman's show.

And Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, has made sure to secure his place as the head of the country. In 2017, a group of wealthy Saudis, royals and senior government officials were detained by the Crown Prince in a hotel in an effort to consolidate his power, an unprecedented move. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4kvg48igwU

Al Jazeera: Media reports suggest at least 20 princes, officials, and army officers have been arrested in the kingdom’s latest purge; the royals have been accused of plotting to overthrow the crowned prince.

But not all of MBS’s actions have been this forceful. He has opened the country to more cultural activities. He's lessened the restrictive power of religious leaders. Women have been granted the ability to drive. MBS has also launched Vision 2030, an ambitious plan intended to reduce the country’s dependence on oil and encourage massive private sector investments, and focus on recreation and tourism. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5L297mtAFQ

ABC News: Historic change in Saudi Arabia, women getting behind the wheel, driving on the open road. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GgaJWcbww

Engadget: In January of 2021, Saudi Arabia announced plans for its own futuristic city called, The Line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZAR6004xk4&t=19s

CNBC: All the players in the LIV golf invitational set to make huge money. The tournament has already lured some of golf’s biggest stars, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Sergio García. 

SIERRA: Is MBS popular in Saudi Arabia? How much can we know about what, let's say, regular Saudi citizens feel about him?

AL-RASHEED: Well, in a dictatorship, you can't really do opinion calls. And therefore, it's very difficult to assess the popularity of Mohammed bin Salman. However, superficial observation would  tell us that, oh, when there is a concert or a pop-star visiting Saudi Arabia, Saudi youth flood to the streets. They chant, they dance and they are actually enjoying the opening of Saudi Arabia under Mohammed bin Salman.

COOK: He's been rather shrewd when it comes to his domestic politics. And his, you know, kind of top down authoritarian reforms have proven to be quite popular and in many ways, revolutionary. Look, the sweet spot for him are Saudis who are aged 18 to 50, that's the vast majority of Saudis. So the very fact that young Saudis can go to concerts, and raves, and the movies, and young Saudi men and women who are not married can sit at a restaurant together, and flirt, and do all things that they were never able to do publicly before, has created what seems to be a reservoir of support for MBS. At the same time, he's built a kind of national security state that... Saudi Arabia is obviously never democracy, obviously the royal family has established a means of political control, but there's been a real increase in the surveillance of Saudi's society since MBS emerged. 

SIERRA: It feels very much like, "I'm giving you those things, no one else is giving you those things." Like I know with the women driving, it's like, "I did this," and that's the news we hear. But we don't hear the other side where activists were getting arrested, people who pushed for this.

COOK: That's right. And so, reform can't come from below, it has to come from MBS. And anybody who then takes his reforms, his moves and then wants to run with it, push it further, are in very serious jeopardy. 

Many women activists in particular have faced this jeopardy first hand, especially those who advocate against male guardianship - it's a system that remains in place in Saudi, and gives male family members legal control over a female family member’s life. 

To hear one of these stories we reached out to Lina Alhathloul. She is the head of monitoring and communications at ALQST, a grassroots Saudi NGO. She told us about her sister, Loujain.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ2Rv1x8T0s

CBS Evening News: …Loujain Alhathoul dared to take the wheel in Saudi Arabia when it was banned by the conservative Islamic kingdom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2E7ENXhu0k

Al Jazeera: After 73 days in jail, she’d become the face of a movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfVQ_nvrxUU&t=11s

DW News: She campaigned for the right of women to drive. 

Lina ALHATHOUL: My sister Loujain is Saudi human rights activist, more focused on women's rights. She first started when she was in Canada, approximately in 2013. And once she finished her studies, she went to Saudi Arabia. And the first day she landed, she actually drove from the airport to our house, with my father filming her, saying that with his name, that this is his daughter, that he's proud of her. And it went viral. And, you know, this is how the campaign for the women to drive really began. And she was leading it.

Over the years Loujain continued to speak out for women’s rights and against male guardianship. And even though some of these rights like women driving, did come to fruition, at times she faced harsh punishment for it - she was once blindfolded and briefly detained, and she served time in prison. But Loujain continued her advocacy work, even though she knew the threats to her safety were growing. 

ALHATHOUL: They broke into our house in 2018, they took Loujain. They didn't tell my parents where they were taking her. My sister disappeared for almost a month. The official media was saying that she's a traitor, that she betrayed the nation and that she should be condemned to the maximum, which is in Saudi, death penalty. And of course we were terrified. We had no idea what was going on, I mean it was unprecedented this defamation campaign. My parents were allowed to see her three or four months later. And it's always very difficult for me to speak about this part. So they saw a very weakened, fragile Loujain. She looked terrified. And she refused to say anything at that time. And then came the murder of Khashoggi and reports of torture in unofficial detention facilities came out, before Loujain talked even. So when my parents saw her the next time, they asked her about the torture. And that's when Loujain told them that the months that she was held in these unofficial detention facilities, it was basically torture facilities. And that she was electrocuted, water boarded, flogged, beat, and sexually harassed. And she had the courage to say that one of the men, she recognized one of the men who was Saud al-Qahtani, and who was MBS's right hand man. And so after that, the trial began and the charges explicitly mentioned her activism. And, you know, if MBS sees you as a threat, he will imprison you and charge you with anything. So my sister, after that, she was sentenced to five years in prison with a three year probation, so she went out earlier. And she has a five year travel ban. So I don't know how we can still believe empowerment of women. You cannot impose change on women. You cannot silence them and tell them not to ask for their rights and just impose anything you want and say, this is what empowerment looks like. The process of women empowerment has to include women. Otherwise, it's not empowerment, it's another kind of repression.

Lina has not seen her family since this incident, and they are all on an unofficial travel ban. And she and her sister is not alone in her experience. Recently, a woman named Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to up to 34 years in prison based on posts she shared on Twitter.

SIERRA: What's the cost of our close dependent relationship with Saudi Arabia, and I mean cost in the widest sense.

COOK: There's certainly a moral cost. I think that's the biggest cost is that anytime an American president would talk about human rights and values and tolerance, especially when it came to the Middle East, Saudi Arabia was the exception. There's always been this Saudi exception and that's because of its role in the global oil markets. What we've seen with president Biden, who has sought to inject American values into his foreign policy, is that he has had to renege because of his parochial political concerns with his poll numbers, which are affected by high gas prices, as well as the fact that there are kind of geo strategic concerns in the Middle East. It's uncomfortable and it actually causes some outrage among people in the Middle East who want to live in more open and democratic societies because it's entirely obvious that despite whatever public pronouncements an American president might make about our values is our conduct in that part of the world contradicts those values and ideals.

Essentially, these are the conditions we accept when we accept a relationship with Saudi Arabia. But does it have to be this way? 

SIERRA: Do you think there could have been a preferable Saudi Arabia under another potential ruler?

AL-RASHEED: In my view, Saudi Arabia will be a better country if there is serious political reform, and Saudi Arabia moves into a kind of institutional state and a constitutional state. It's very difficult to see that a change of prince will actually make a big difference. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with no representation, no participation, no elected parliament, no elected government. And in my view, there is no super prince who could actually change the situation. 

SIERRA: I was going to say, I mean, do you think it's possible for Saudi to transition to a constitutional state in our lifetimes? Is there support for that in the country?

AL-RASHEED: Well, that depends on several factors. First of all, you need a society that is actually fed up with the lack of rule of law, the long prison sentences, the lack of freedom of speech. So if there is no bottom-up pressure on the monarchy, I don't see any change. The other thing is we need a kind of different ruler, a different monarch who would be able to listen. But I don't see Mohammed bin Salman as listening to anything. And third, we need an international community ready to support the drive to democracy in Saudi Arabia. This, I don't see happening in the US again, or the Western allies of Saudi Arabia. I don't see that they are pushing for any kind of democratic steps, regardless of how small they are. I think simply they prefer to deal with this close circle of princes. But I think there is a lesson to be learned. A close Saudi Arabia and undemocratic Saudi Arabia is very dangerous, not only to Saudis, but also to the international community. Let's not forget that an absolute monarchy under its nose, a Jihadi trend flourished, and then it became global and the damage was actually all over the world. So a democratic Saudi Arabia would be beneficial for not only Saudis, but also the international community. 

This is where the big question comes - does Saudi Arabia matter so much to the United States that we're willing to continue the partnership? 

SIERRA: Is this as good as it gets? Because a lot of people feel like this is a very toxic relationship.

COOK: It's a difficult and fraught relationship. It has grown more difficult in recent years because of changes in the United States, changes in Saudi Arabia and changes in the global political order. Does the United States want to remain as invested in the Middle East? If that's the case, then if you look around the region, Saudi Arabia is very important to the region and to the global economy, and that requires the United States come to some sort of accommodation with it. Can we step back from the region yet still get the things that we want including the free flow of energy resources? Can we pivot to Asia? These are all questions that I think we are working out here in the United States. Some people suggest that maybe the United States can step back from the region that these actors can actually be more responsible. As far as internally, you know, I mean, MBS is toxic. MBS, his human rights record is not good. How do you weigh that against large numbers of Saudis, particularly young Saudis, that sweet spot of 18 to 50 year olds who seem to be very supportive of the reforms, the reforms not liberalization that he has undertaken from the top down? How do you weigh that and say, "This is the best Saudi Arabia we're going to have, or this is the worst"? In conversation with policy makers here in Washington, if you strip away a lot of this stuff, what Mohammed bin Salman has done is he has, kind of, defanged the religious police. He has spoken out against extremism. He has allowed women to drive, a Washington holy of holy and he's interested in normalizing relations with Israel. Those are all things that the United States has really wanted from Saudi Arabia for a long time, but it also comes with this kind of toxic leader who is seeking to establish and consolidate his rule in using very, very nasty methods. 

So what can we do?

COOK: There are three options for the relationship. The first is to allow the two countries to essentially go their own way and not resolve underlying problems. The second is a realist rapprochement, where we recognize the problems but the countries are too important to each other that we agreed to move forward despite the underlying tension in the relationship. And the third is a strategic compact, where US and Saudi officials try to deal with all of the underlying tensions, tensions between the two governments and forge a way forward for the future. Those are three ways. Admittedly, the last one is a tall order. And because it does require both governments to do things that they haven't necessarily, at least up until this point, haven't been one wanting to do. And so there's a sense that perhaps the best we're going to do is that realistic rapprochement, which which leads to this kind of very interesting question, you know, where can you draw the line? If you look at that history of the US Saudi relationship, we've never been willing to draw the line and they've never been willing to draw the line. I mean, there were there were crises. But when it's come to, you know, Saudi human rights violations, or its dalliance, Russia, currently, the United States government has preferred to seek ways either to ignore those issues, or to work with with the Saudis so that we never really actually have to draw a line.

AL-RASHEED: I do not want the US to boycott Saudi Arabia, and I don't want the US to sanction Saudi Arabia. I want the US to make its help to Saudi Arabia conditional on Saudi Arabia abiding by international law, by international norms, and make the US support conditional on Saudi Arabia behaving as a respectable member of the international community rather than a pariah that could dare to send a death squad to kill journalists abroad or spy on young Saudis in the US. And therefore, US help should actually be linked to certain political reform in Saudi Arabia, not simply allowing women to drive. And then if there is a constituency in the US that is concerned about this kind of dubious relationship, they should ask for more openness when we are talking here about arms deals, when we are talking about intelligence sharing and all those kind of things that make the relationship transparent. Obviously on the Saudi side, it's very difficult to make it transparent because there are no accountable institutions in Saudi Arabia. As I said, it's a one man show. But in the US, we can push and Americans should push for a more transparent relationship with Saudi Arabia simply because the US has the institutions and the accountability. And we don't want any secret relationships between the two countries because only under the secrecy that Mohammed bin Salman gets away with murder.

SIERRA: What would be necessary to become independent of Saudi Arabia?

COOK: If ever we could pursue a rational energy policy where we focused on alternative energy and fuel efficiency, we would perhaps not be independent, but not be so vulnerable and complicit with the Saudis and others, but we haven't been willing to do it. It's just easier rather than, you know, kind of pounding away at energy efficiency and fighting with the automobile companies and fighting with your political opponents about it, or alternative energy in which there is, you know, tremendous culture war issues around that issue. It's just easier to go to the Saudis and say, Hey, you guys, can you pump some more oil here and help us out?

COOK: It may make you feel uncomfortable, but … yeah.

SIERRA: Right.

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Why It Matters is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The show is produced by Asher Ross and me Gabrielle Sierra. Our sound designer is Markus Zakaria. Our intern this semester is Mormei Zanke. 

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For Why It Matters, this is Gabrielle Sierra signing off. See you around!