Reuters U.S. President Donald Trump holds a chart of military hardware sales as he welcomes Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 20, 2018.
Critics of President Trump sneer that he won’t do anything to punish Saudi Arabia for murdering a Washington Post journalist and chopping him up with a bone saw. He won’t stand up to them, they say, because he and his family make millions off the Saudis, and in TrumpWorld, that’s the only thing—the only thing—that counts. “Am I supposed to dislike them?”—he said in 2015.
Trump, who says protecting Americans is his top priority, deliberately left the Saudis off his mostly-Muslim travel ban, designed to keep, as he sees it, bad people from coming here to kill us. Never mind that 15 of the 19 hijackers who attacked New York and Washington in 2001 were Saudi citizens. And never mind that the Saudis, for years, have used their vast oil wealth to spread Wahhabism—its toxic, ultraconservative brand of Islam in schools, mosques and all the rest—which in turn has inspired Al Qaeda, ISIS and other Sunni terrorists.
But don’t think that failing to stand up to one of the world’s worst, most repressive regimes makes Trump unusual. For decades, American presidents have chosen to ignore, or at least downplay, Riyadh’s brutal behavior because of broader, strategic concerns. Saudi Arabia serves as a regional counterweight to Iran, for instance. In this respect, the Saudis and Israel—normally the strangest of bedfellows—find common ground (Saudi and Israeli diplomats consult quietly and on a regular basis about the Iranian threat). The Saudis also claim to be anti-ISIS, their quiet funding of Islamic extremism not withstanding. It’s the mother of all contradictions.
But the principal reason we have always looked the other way, of course, is oil CLX8, +0.19% . Since the end of World War II, Saudi crude has helped lubricate the economies of the United States, Japan and Western Europe. But not always. After Arab nations launched a surprise attack on Israel in 1973, we came to Israel’s aid—and the Saudis and other oil exporters immediately hammered us with a crippling oil embargo. Prices quadruped, there were nationwide shortages of gasoline, and the U.S. economy fell into a steep recession. It was so bad that the Nixon administration, at one point, considered invading Saudi Arabia to seize its oilfields. That’s how bad it was. For half a century, the royal family has had us over a (oil) barrel, and has not been afraid to let us know it.
But that was then. Now, and beyond the view of most Americans, the royal family’s power is waning. They are in trouble at home—and have growing reason to fear their own citizens. Remember the Arab Spring—the uprisings that swept across the Middle East a decade ago? Numerous governments fell. It contributed to Syria’s ongoing civil war. But Saudi Arabia emerged unscathed, because its citizens didn’t revolt. There was little reason to. The royal family has long used its petro dollars to buy them off: Free healthcare. Free schooling. No income tax. Public pensions (90% of Saudis work for the government). Subsidized water, electricity and gasoline.
Revolt? Against all those freebies?
The problem is that the money is running out. The Saudi economy shrank 0.7% last year, after rising just 1.7% the year before. If you think America’s budget deficit is a problem (3.9% of GDP last year and projected to hit 4.7% in FY 2019), consider Saudi Arabia’s 8.3%. To soak up this red ink, the royal family has cut the subsidies for water, electricity and gasoline and introduced a sales tax of 5%. Not surprisingly, this has angered many citizens, who fear the gravy train is ending.
Political oppression has always existed in Saudi Arabia, but everyone was always paid off. But now, the government is cutting back. The CIA estimates that 44% of the population is under the age of 24, and the unemployment rate for those aged 15-24 is a staggering 32.6%, according to one estimate. That’s a lot of young, disaffected, repressed people sitting around with nothing to do. In other words, conditions similar to the Arab Spring revolts of a decade ago now exist. What might happen?
I think this helps explain why Jamal Khashoggi was murdered three weeks ago. The royal family is worried about unrest. It needs to keep a lid on things. That means crushing dissent, and apparently that means chopping up a provocative journalist with a bone saw. After all, Khashoggi was a particularly harsh critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the now tarnished golden boy who dreamed of reforming the Saudi economy.
“Am I supposed to dislike them?” then-candidate Trump asked. Why shouldn’t we? Conditions have changed; we don’t need the Saudis like we used to. The fracking revolution and the boom in renewables over the past decade has brought us closer to energy independence. Plus, the largest provider of what oil we do need to import comes from our friends next door in Canada. And yet Trump bashes Canada, while praising a nation (”an incredible ally” he said Saturday) that produces terrorism and murders journalists? Perhaps the president could learn that it’s really in our best interest to do the opposite.
The past few weeks have seen calls for changes to our longtime ties to Saudi Arabia. The implications of a downgraded relationship are tricky and must be thought through. Saudi Arabia is the top buyer, by far, of American arms, for example, and defense contractors want that lucrative relationship maintained. But since the Saudis are feeling the economic pinch, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to keep their spending going much longer.
As for oil, it’s important to keep global energy markets stable and crude flowing, and with Venezuela on its knees and new sanctions about to hit Iran, the Saudis can play a key role. But if our top supplier is Canada (Mexico is another big supplier), perhaps this is more of a problem for Riyadh than for us? And if Trump is sick of the world getting a free ride at America’s expense, why isn’t say, oil-thirsty China doing more to guard the Strait of Hormuz?
For me, the bottom line is this: Fifteen of 19 hijackers on Sept 11, 2001 were Saudi citizens. The government fans the flames of Islamic extremism. Why do we call these people our friends? America sticks its nose into every other country’s business — why aren’t we getting in the royal family’s face and reminding them of these things? The fact is America doesn’t need Saudi Arabia like it used to; we now have something we have never had with them - something a guy like Donald Trump should be able to understand: leverage.
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