Biden Administration Rips US-Saudi Alliance Apart

DISCLOSURE: Sourced from Russian government funded media

by Salman Rafi Sheikh, for New Eastern Outlook, and the Institute of Oriental Studies (1816)

[ Editor’s Note: Mr. Sheikh has a timely review of the evolving US-Saudi relationship which started well with the Trump administration but went off the rails.

Its high point was when ‘The Donald’ put his hand on the lighted globe with the King and General Sisi of Egypt, an illusion that together they could rule the planet. Trump’s big smile just screamed, “Hey, look at me…can you believe this shit, a New York mob guy like me hobnobbing with the king?”

This was followed by his doing the sword dance with the Royals, with Trump playing the dancing puppet on a string, and Ivanka and Kushner following up to negotiate what a reasonable ‘tip’ would be for the Trump family for its approving $50 billion in future Saudi weapons purchasing.

Both were conning each other. The Saudis never intended to buy $50 billion in arms, and Trump was just looking to get his palm greased, and keep the US defense community contributing to his re-election campaign.

But the Saudis could not fight their way out of a wet paper bag. The military was a ‘paycheck one’, everybody in it solely for being props in a pretend-an-army which the Yemen war proved.

Our US Special Forces explained to the Royals that their forces were not up to it, and their plan to use hapless third-world throw-away mercenaries showed what a fantasy that was. Trump thought he could use the Saudis as cannon fodder to take on Iran, wreck both, and then have the skyrocketing oil prices make him the God of the oil lobby.

When that did not work, he tacked to putting the sanction screws on Russia to get the Nordstream 2 project killed to replace the gas with more expensive US LNG, another pipe dream.

Thus the make-believe business genius turned out to be an emperor with no clothes. The cherry on the cake is his exposure for never having been a billionaire, a house of cards media scam, something he actually did have a talent for doing with the help of people behind the scenes, which VT has written about extensively here… Jim W. Dean ]

Jim's Editor’s Notes are solely crowdfunded via PayPal Jim's work includes research, field trips, Heritage TV Legacy archiving & more. Thanks for helping. Click to donate >>

First published September 16, 2021

While the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has been marked by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the end of the US’ longest-ever war is also seeing some significant changes in the US geopolitics.

Specifically, the arrival of Joe Biden in the White House has set in motion forces that could dramatically redefine the nature of US ties with one of its closest allies in the ‘war on terror’ i.e., the Saudis.

The state of US-Saudia ties today is a complete contrast to the warm reception that the Saudis extended to Donald Trump nearly five years ago. It was perhaps a Saudi way of honoring the newly elected president, reciprocating his decision to choose Saudi Arabia as the first county to visit as the US president.

That enthusiasm has already faded. Reasons for this dramatic downslide include not only the US’ changing regional priorities and withdrawal from the Middle East/West Asia, but also a growing general realization both in the US and the world that America is no longer capable of, or interested in, playing the global policeman.

A major manifestation of the changing US priorities and a shift away from the Saudis came recently when the US recently withdrew a set of advanced US missile defense systems from Prince Sultan airbase, 70 miles south-east of Riyadh.

These systems were sent and installed by the Trump administration in 2019 after Saudi Arabia was hit by missiles that flew from Yemen and targeted Saudi oil facilities. For the Saudis, the US withdrawal specifically means that Washington is backing out of its commitments with Riyadh to protect Saudi Arabia.

Pulling Patriot missiles from the kingdom is “not indicative of America’s declared intention to help Saudi Arabia defend itself against outside enemies,” said Prince Al-Faisal, Saudia’s former head of intelligence, in a recent interview with American media, adding that he hopes the US will give assurances of its commitment to deploy “whatever is needed” to help.

This withdrawal is part of a series of steps the Biden administration has taken in the past few months that indicate a White House resolve to recast its ties completely with Saudia. Apart from releasing the report that claimed Muhammad bin Salman’s direct involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, the Biden administration has also released the FBI investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

Although the report does not claim a direct involvement of Saudi regime in the attacks, it does show that the Saudis were aware of the movements of al-Qaeda and that the jihadi outfit operated inside the US with the active support of the Saudi government.

The Saudi response to the Biden administration’s steps is far from passive. In the immediate aftermath of the US decision to withdraw air defense systems from Saudia, Riyad canceled the visit of Lloyd Austin to Saudi Arabia.

Lloyd Austin, who was on a tour to Gulf to thank US allies for their support in Afghanistan, was specifically asked by the Saudis not to visit Riyadh. While there is no confirmation that the Saudi change of heart was due to the US withdrawal, it remains that Saudia’s decision to cancel Austin’s visit shows how their bilateral ties have nose-dived recently.

While some former and current Saudi officials have criticized the US decision to withdraw, the Saudis have been actively seeking to cultivate their ties with other countries as a means to diversify their ties and reduce dependence on the US.

As irony would have it, Riyadh has taken concrete steps to diversify its military ties with Russia, one of the main countries in the world to rival the US unilateralism. On August 24, Saudi Arabia and Moscow signed agreements that will give a major boost to their defense ties. By choosing to cooperate with Moscow, Riyadh managed, at least symbolically, to rebut the US.

The message, therefore, was clear: the signing of this Saudi-Russian agreement—whatever it contains—in the wake of the downfall of the US-backed Afghan government and the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan is a signal that Riyadh does not feel that it can fully rely on Washington and, so, is willing to hedge its bets by turning to Moscow.

So, while Riyad may be using its ties with Moscow to force Washington to change its behavior, it remains that the change in US position vis-à-vis Saudia is indicative of a broader shift the US is in the middle of introducing. For Washington, the locus of future rivalry is not going to be the Middle East or even Europe.

If China is the most important country that truly rivals Washington’s economic and military might, the locus of tussle is Southeast Asia/the Indo-pacific region, rather than the Middle East. Therefore, if the US is withdrawing from the Middle East, it is only responding to the changing global geopolitical realities.

For the Saudis, too, the US’ changing priorities mean that the Kingdom needs to find allies and partners willing to set their foot in the Middle East. This includes both Russia and China.

For the Saudis, however, changing the US attitude remains imperative. Many in the Kingdom feel that Riyadh is hardwired to Washington and that breaking this connection is not easy. For one thing, even if Washington is in the middle of a strategic shift to Southeast Asia, the military-industrial complex in the US sees Riyadh as too important a market to be left to the Russians and the Chinese to dominate.

For the Saudis, however, it is equally important to read the global geopolitical changes and make the necessary readjustments, even if it includes buying Russia’s S-400. The imperative for buying this system has been provided by the failure of US systems to prevent Houthi missiles from entering the Saudi airspace and causing damage.

Developing strategic ties with Moscow, therefore, has both military/security and diplomatic needs for the kingdom. Given the damage, even the US military-industrial complex will find it very hard to revert the US-Saudi ties back to the stage that characterized them during most of the period of the ‘war on terror.’

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.