The United States’s relationships with Middle Eastern states have been built on economic interests. The CIA assassinated the democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran and replaced him with the US-friendly, export-friendly\u00a0Shah. We spent 1990 through 1991 fighting off Saddam Hussein to defend our oil interests in Kuwait (though ostensibly for preserving Kuwait’s national sovereignty). It can also be argued that the US deposed Saddam Hussein in 2003 for our interest in Iraqi oil, leaving a power vacuum that has culminated in the rise of terrorist groups such as ISIS.<\/p>\n
The strongest of our relationships besides the State of Israel (which is another manner altogether) is our alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. From their capital city, Riyadh, the Saudis\u00a0export the largest amount of petroleum and have the largest portion of the world’s proven oil reserves with 18 percent[1]. We buy their oil and they buy our arms. This relationship has gotten along well for over a quarter-century. However, it’s recently grown strained, particularly with the election of Donald Trump, who has made his disdain for the Saudis no surprise. Upon viewing the context of our relationship with Saudi Arabia, I can’t help but agree with him.<\/p>\n
The United States’ chief supplier of oil today is not Saudi Arabia. It’s not even any of the Gulf States. It’s not even the entire eastern hemisphere. It’s itself. Nearly 40 percent of US oil comes from the US[2]. Only 12 percent of all oil the US imports comes from the Persian Gulf[2]. We receive nearly as much oil from Mexico (7.5 percent) as we do from Saudi Arabia (8.1 percent)[2]. Why spend trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on the Persian Gulf if we get less oil from it than Latin America? There seems little reason on oil alone why we remain involved in Middle Eastern affairs. However, we must not forget the other part of our relationship with Saudi Arabia- armaments.<\/p>\n
US News reported in August of last year that: “Saudi Arabia recently has been a massive buyer of U.S. arms. In 2010, it received approval to buy up to $60 billion in fighter planes and military helicopters and late last year received rapid-fire permission\u00a0to buy hundreds of air-defense missiles for $5.4 billion in September, four military ships for $11.25 billion in October and 22,000 smart and general purpose bombs for $1.29 billion in November.”[3] Our deals with the Saudi military have been a boon to the defense industry. The Obama administration only stopped one Saudi arms deal- one for $1.15 billion in December of last year, over concern against whom the arms were being used.<\/p>\n
The Saudis have made no secret of their war in Yemen. They lead a coalition of states backed with US arms against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. However, the Saudis have been known to bomb villages and markets and innocent civilians and families in their US-made planes with their US-trained pilots and using their US-made bombs[4]. US industry has made a fortune in the bloodshed pouring out of Yemen, but is it ethical to continue our arms deals?<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia is the home of Wahhabism, a radical sect of Sunni Islam from which both ISIS and Al Qaeda have created their cruel interpretations of the Muslim faith. The Kingdom does nothing to stop Wahhabism; in fact, the royal family themselves practice it. It is an extremely conservative sect, which places far more restrictions on women than other, more secular blends of the faith. It isn’t easy to forget that 16 of the 19 hijackers in the 9\/11 attacks were Saudi Arabian nationals, or that Osama Bin Laden was heir to the Bin Laden family fortune, a family that had made billions in the construction business in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis support Sunni militias in the Syrian Civil War, ostensibly against ISIS but more so against their Shia counterparts and the Assad regime.<\/p>\n
The Kingdom is notoriously authoritarian, not to mention its inherent lack of democracy. According to Amnesty International, 153 executions were carried out in Saudi Arabia in 2016 alone[5], mostly by public beheading. While the majority were on murder and drug possession charges, 47 people were put to death for ‘terrorism’, including a prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr[5]. Women cannot vote in Saudi Arabia, and they only recently received the right to drive cars. They must cover themselves extensively, in line with the kingdom’s conservative legal codes.<\/p>\n
In light of these many problems that strain our relationship with Saudi Arabia, we must ask ourselves- is it really worth it? Is it worth it to support an undemocratic regime in its authoritarian undertakings at home and its destabilizing actions abroad? Is it worth it to support a state whose only benefit to us is to our defense industry? Is it worth it to the support a state which some argue had involvement in the most heinous terrorist attacks of all history, the 9\/11 attacks? The answer is clear to me.<\/p>\n
[1]: http:\/\/www.opec.org\/opec_web\/en\/about_us\/169.htm<\/a><\/p>\n [2]:\u00a0http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2012\/04\/11\/150444802\/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised<\/a><\/p>\n [3]:\u00a0http:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/articles\/2016-08-12\/lawmakers-worry-who-saudi-arabia-would-kill-with-115b-us-arms-deal<\/a><\/p>\n [4]:\u00a0http:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2016\/03\/25\/civilian-casualties-war-crimes-saudi-arabia-yemen-war\/<\/a><\/p>\n [5]: http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-4079774\/Saudi-Arabia-executed-150-prisoners-2016-breaking-kingdom-s-strict-Islamic-laws.html<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The United States’s relationships with Middle Eastern states have been built on economic interests. The CIA assassinated the democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran and replaced him with the US-friendly, export-friendly\u00a0Shah. We spent 1990 through 1991 fighting off Saddam Hussein to defend our oil interests in Kuwait (though ostensibly for preserving Kuwait’s national sovereignty). It can also be argued that the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,42,35,20,10,40,44,6,4,27],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis","tag-43","tag-gulf-war","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-isis","tag-oil","tag-persian-gulf","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-syria","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}