U.S.-Saudi Relations: Vice President Cheney's Visit
By
Geoffrey Kemp
From the February 24, 2002, edition of Al-Ittihad
In mid-March 2002, U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney will visit Britain, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and Israel. His mission will be to outline U.S. policy on the war against terrorism and to discuss and explain the Bush administration’s thinking about the next phase of the campaign. Possible military operations to change the regime in Iraq will be high on the agenda. The countries he is visiting are considered the most important in event of a military campaign. Already there are allusions to a similar trip Cheney made to the Gulf in August 1990 when, as Secretary of Defense, his job was to persuade the Saudi leadership that the U.S. was prepared to deploy a major military force to the region to expel Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait.
How Saudi Arabia responds to the Cheney visit will have important consequences for every country in the region and for the future nature and direction of U.S.-Middle East policy. It is no secret that the Saudi leaders would dearly like to see the demise of Saddam Hussein but they worry about "the day after" and whether chaos rather than calm will follow a U.S. military operation. How U.S. strategic plans address these questions will be key to the success or failure of the visit.
U.S.-Saudi relations have gone through their most tumultuous period in modern history. Many of the perpetrators of September 11 were Saudi citizens, albeit living in exile. The Saudi Arabian government had provided economic and diplomatic support to the Taliban. Indirectly, Saudi benefactors had funded Al Qaeda operations. For these reasons Americans have been asking why the U.S. has to support an autocratic monarchy that turned a blind eye to terrorism outside its borders and has a very poor record on human rights, especially towards women.
Mutual frustrations between Washington and Riyadh were in place long before the September 11th terrorist attack. But that event has brought simmering quarrels to the surface. Aside from human rights, the U.S. has been angered by Saudi reluctance to cooperate fully with U.S. officials on a number of unresolved terrorist cases involving Saudi citizens including the 1996 attack on the U.S. Air Force facility at Al Khobar towers which killed 19 Americans. Saudi complaints about the U.S. have been most vocal concerning the Bush administration’s seeming reluctance to adopt a more even handed and assertive policy towards the Israeli Palestinian conflict. This matter had become a matter of extreme concern to Crown Prince Abdullah. In August 2001, according to responsible sources, Abdullah instructed Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar Bin Sultan to present the U.S. government with a virtual ultimatum concerning U.S. indifference to the suffering of the Palestinians, essentially saying that unless the U.S. changed its public posture, relations between the two countries would be gravely damaged. This crisis was quickly diffused by a responsive letter from Bush to the Crown Prince. Then came September 11th.
Despite their many differences the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have no choice but to continue to work together. Saudi Arabia’s surplus oil capacity plays a critical role in stabilizing world oil prices, a condition that serves both U.S. and Saudi interests. Only American military power can defend Saudi Arabia in event of serious military threats from Iran or Iraq. Presently this defense requires a land based presence in the Kingdom yet this presence itself is a source of anguish to many Saudi citizens. Thus one of the reasons for prompt action to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein is that it would remove the need to maintain a long term American military presence on the land mass of Arabia. Yet, in the short run, to change the Baghdad regime the U.S. will have to increase its military presence on the Arabian peninsula. Whether or not this will include an increased presence in Saudi Arabia and the continued use of Saudi air bases for operations against Iraq will be a critical test for the relationship. If Britain, Turkey and Kuwait agree to support a U.S. operation, and if the U.S. plans for both the war, and its aftermath, are credible, Saudi Arabia may agree to actively participate, but the odds are presently not good.
Geoffrey Kemp is Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center. He writes a regular column for Al-Ittihad.
