Disagreements and conflicting interests are stretching US relations with Saudi Arabia to what some are warning could be a breaking point yet, ironically, what are seemingly the most visible issues rarely register.
The US wants to steer Saudi oil production in favorable ways. Most recently, its been to help the US with lower prices and undercut the Russian economy by competing with them.
There are disagreements on Yemen, with Biden talking up extricating the US from the war. The Saudis are at least somewhat interested in getting out of the war, but US officials openly say they envision a post-war Yemen to remain heavily influenced by the Saudis. Yet when the US-Saudi split is discussed, that disagreement is hardly getting serious discussion.
The Yemen disagreement resonates with a lot of Americans, but US leadership would be more comfortable just dictating energy policy with more success. The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government is, similarly, an issue that at the time seemed important, but which US leadership is loathe to push to deeply on.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan brought up Khashoggi to the crown prince, who reacted with furious shouting. He was meant to get an oil production boost, and he didn’t get that.
Nothing in the history of Saudi relations would suggest that they couldn’t quietly get rid of a political liability with a kill team. The US seemed uncomfortable that this wasn’t maybe as quiet as it could’ve been, but objection to the summary murder of a journalist was, in the grand scheme of things, not something that threatened US-Saudi ties.
That is was brought up at all was likely the result of media colleagues of Khashoggi pushing for it to be brought up. In practice, though, making with the oil is probably all the administration really needs from the kingdom.
Guy was a US resident. The interesting thing with the “split” is now it looks like peace may occur in Yemen. Is this because US support has dried up?
Yemen has a little oil, but not enough to be of strategic value.
I think all of the OPEC and OPEC+ countries recognize that they are each vulnerable to intervention whenever they make things difficult for US oil and natural gas companies. Certainly Libya, Iraq, Iran, and Russia have discovered this the hard way. From both a national security standpoint and a profitability standpoint, it is not in the best interest of these countries to undermine Russia’s survival. My theory is that if they don’t stick together now, each of them will fall later. The fact that the US is openly hostile to Muslims and fully supportive of Israel’s thinly veiled expansionist objectives doesn’t help either.
I also think that any differences of opinion between the US and the Saudis over Yemen will go away as soon as awareness of the double standard in how the US State Department looks at the suffering of brown people as compared to the suffering of white people returns to normal.
Gee. Here I thought we were all in on battling climate change. My bad.