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Page added on January 7, 2016
US struggles to explain allegiance to Saudi Arabia
WASHINGTON: The Obama administration on Monday confronted the fundamental contradiction in its increasingly tense relationship with Saudi Arabia. It could not bring itself, at least in public, to condemn the execution of a dissident cleric who challenged the royal family, for fear of undermining the fragile Saudi leadership that it desperately needs in fighting the Islamic State and ending the conflict in Syria.
The United States has usually looked the other way or issued carefully calibrated warnings in human rights reports as the Saudi royal family cracked down on dissent and free speech and allowed its elite to fund Islamic extremists. In return, Saudi Arabia became America’s most dependable filling station, a regular supplier of intelligence, and a valuable counterweight to Iran.
For years it was oil that provided the glue for a relationship between two nations that share few common values.
Today, with US oil production surging and the Saudi leadership fractured, the mutual dependency that goes back to the early 1930s, with the first US investment in the kingdom’s oil fields, no longer binds the nations as it once did.
But the political upheaval in the Middle East, and the US perception that the Saudis are critical to stability in the region, continues to hold together an increasingly fractious marriage. So when Saudi Arabia executed 47 people, including Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, the dissident cleric, on Saturday, beheading many of them in a style that most Americans associate with the Islamic State rather than a close US partner, the administration’s efforts to explain the relationship became more strained than ever.
In fact, the executions were the culmination of a series of events in the past few years that have led to clashes between the two nations.
“We haven’t been on the same page with the Saudis for a long time,” said Martin S Indyk, the executive vice president of the Brookings Institution and a former top aide to secretary of state John Kerry. “And it starts with Mubarak.”
In 2011, Saudi leaders berated President Barack Obama and his aides for failing to support President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt during the Arab Spring, fearing Obama might do the same thing if the uprisings spread to the kingdom.
The nuclear deal with Iran only fueled the Saudi sense that the United States was rethinking the fundamental relationship — and Saudi officials, on visits to Washington, openly questioned whether they could rely on their US ally. It was King Abdullah who was quoted in a 2008 State Department cable, released two years later by WikiLeaks, exhorting the United States to “cut off the head of the snake” — Iran — by launching military strikes. He died before last summer’s deal, but Saudi leaders, who still see Iran’s hand behind every destabilizing act in the Middle East, argued that the administration was naive to think that Iran would abide by any negotiated accord.
So ever since that accord was reached in July, the Obama administration has been offering reassurance. Obama invited the Saudis to join a meeting at Camp David to reassure Arab allies that the United States was not abandoning them — and would sell them larger weapons packages than ever before. But the administration has also been sharply critical of the Saudi intervention in Yemen, seeing it as huge distraction from the bigger battle against the Islamic State.
To hear the Americans tell it, the new Saudi leadership
struggling for influence under King Salman is headstrong, “more interested in action than deliberation,” in Indyk’s words.
When Kerry warned the Saudis against executing al-Nimr, a Saudi-born Shiite cleric who directly challenged the royal family, he was ignored. “This is a concern that we raised with the Saudis in advance,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, acknowledged on Monday. He said the execution has “precipitated the kinds of consequences that we were concerned about.”
But that was about as strongly as the administration was willing to criticize the Saudis. Pressed to condemn al-Nimr’s execution, officials urged calm on all sides. The State Department spokesman, John Kirby, urged the entire region to move on to the business of confronting the Islamic State and dealing with the Syria crisis.
“If you are asking whether we are trying to become a mediator in all this, the answer is no,” Kirby told reporters. “Real, long-term solutions aren’t going to be mandated by Washington, D.C.”
Privately, several US officials expressed anger at the Saudis for picking this moment to conduct the executions.
They noted that Obama and Kerry have been in regular contact with members of the Saudi leadership. Obama called to urge the Saudis to join the Syrian peace process talks — across the table from the Iranians. Kerry traveled to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and later asked the Saudis to organize the Syrian rebels into a single group to negotiate a cease-fire with President Bashar Assad.
But the Saudis were reluctant partners, telling their Western counterparts that they would go along, but predicting that Kerry’s effort would collapse because Iran would never agree to any process that led to Assad’s removal. Meanwhile, the Saudis’ early participation in airstrikes against the Islamic State petered out as they moved military assets to their campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Others who deal with the Saudis say there is a degree of stress on the leadership in Riyadh they have rarely seen before.
“The kingdom faces a potentially perfect storm of low oil income, open-ended war in Yemen, terrorist threats from multiple directions and an intensifying regional rivalry with its nemesis, Iran,” Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA officer with long experience in the region, wrote on Monday.
The Saudi concern that the Obama administration is about to embrace Iran is almost certainly overblown. Since the nuclear agreement, the Iranians have tested ballistic missiles twice, and the administration — after some delays — appears to be readying sanctions in return. And last week, Iranian naval ships fired rockets within 1,500 yards of a US carrier group. The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ruled out cooperation with the United States — although the Iranians have shown up at the Syria talks.
On occasion, US officials muse about whether the United States and Iran might, one day, constitute more natural allies than the United States and Saudi Arabia. But that seems far off.
“It’s not as if you have an Iranian alternative,” a senior Gulf Arab official said recently. “And if you have no alternative, your best choice is to stop complaining about the Saudis.”
28 Comments on "US struggles to explain allegiance to Saudi Arabia"
paulo1 on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 3:31 pm
Lets see, they also supported Pinochet and helped overthrow Allende. Add to that The Shah, Marcos, Noriega, and a few other despots….nothing new here….move along.
dissident on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 4:42 pm
American leader loons kiss nutbar headchopper a** but try to start WWIII with Russia. American leader loons need to be confined to an institution for the criminally insane.
Pennsyguy on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 5:08 pm
Paulo and dissident: you said it all!
BC on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 5:42 pm
paulo1, right, and don’t forget Wall St., The City, and the Harriman and Bush’s support of Thyssen, Krupp, Bormann, IG Farben, and Herr Hitler in the 1930s to oppose the Stalinist Soviet menace.
BC on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 5:55 pm
Also, not to forget that economics is politics. War is politics with other means. War is the business of empire, and war is good business for imperialists.
Therefore, economics is politics is the intellectual rationalization for the use of large-scale state violence to expand empire for resource expropriation, exploitation of cheap labor, co-optation of foreign elites, and genocide and ecocide in the process.
It’s what alpha human apes do at increasing scale when supplied with sufficient net energy per capita.
The solution to most problems experienced by human apes is the “final solution”: far fewer of us on a finite, spherical planet.
Most would respond to such a position with, “Well, why not just kill yourself?” But few of them recognize that the rentier Power Elite implicitly assume that killing one another is what the vast majority of us WILL DO en masse given sufficient time and hardship in deep overshoot conditions.
So, the more salient question might be, “Why do we mass-rabble of human apes allow the rentier Power Elite top 0.001% to succeed in encouraging us to kill one another when we could be killing the Power Elite instead?” 😀
makati1 on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 6:11 pm
Good question BC. Maybe the mass-rabble are too attached to the government teat … or … they are too invested in BAU to rock the boat? Then again, it may just be a case of “Let someone else do it”.
What does it say about your country when your presidential choice is between two psychopathic war mongers and no one seems to care? It shouts out “THIRD WORLD” or worse.
Ah yes, genes still rule our ape brains to the extent that they sometimes overrule our so called ‘common sense’. That is why I have no hope for humanity lasting past 2100. Only once have the apes had nukes in wartime and they used them in an unnecessary way just to say “We have a bigger club. Fear us!”.
Gotta stock more San Mig and bretzels. It is going to be a long year. Buckle up!
makati1 on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 6:18 pm
BTW: Does anyone else see the close correlation between Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s and the current situation of the Fascist States of America? Also, the economies of both are similar in too many ways. Only, this time, it will be the Muslims in America, not the Jews shuffled into ‘concentration camps’.
Will it be Fuhrer ‘The Don’ or Fuhrer ‘Billary’? Glad I don’t have to vote.
Those who forget (or never learned) history are doomed to repeat it.
Davy on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 6:21 pm
Not to crash the party completely but only throw some sobering cold water on the excited natives, You can kill anyone you want and it is going to make little difference. This cake is baked. If it gives people satisfaction to kill and torture those that kill and torture that is fine but that is a different equation.
There is no solution that will not involve many people’s lives being disenfranchised and destroyed. So killing the Scoundrels will satisfy some of the discontent until these folks have been butchered. Then the party will turn on itself in an orgy of recrimination and exploitation of the remaining manna of the status quo.
Doom is an equal opportunity killer. If the lynch mob wants this over sooner than later then disruptive action sooner than later will ensure their deaths sooner. Mutiny is wonderful until the fog clears.
It comes down to a value statement of who, what, and where takes priority. Nature has a well known process employed in hypothermia and that is power consolidation. In human’s case this will be the survival of the fittest with little recognition of who is deserving. Let me clarify luck as part of that survival process. Luck could give a rat’s ass on class. This will not be our daddy’s revolution. This will be like our best fictional novels renditions.
Apneaman on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 7:00 pm
Fuck your 1%er value statement Davy. I was thinking about your comment the other day about the only reason folks have food on the table is because of the superiority of the eliete (your family included I assume). I was thinking how true that might turn out to be when the 1%ers are in the lower class stew pot after the revolt. Can you imagine Rex Tillerson’s head on a platter with an apple in his mouth? I know I would not want to be some rich whitey stranded on a Caribbean island when the law and order breaks down. No no no. Peoples have long cultural memories. The muslims are still pissed at the west for the crusades and the Mongols for their medieval invasions too. Same everywhere – hate never dies. I’m confident that all those black and brown island people the world over have never forgotten who is responsible for the rape theft and murder of their ancestors and their land and who have been stepping on their necks for the last 500 years. Cultural memories only go away when the last member dies – same for the wish for a chance at revenge. Same for the poor and oppressed. Can’t be reasoned with and especially not coming from one of the most guilty.
Davy on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 7:06 pm
Ape Turd, you will have to try harder than that lame comment to get a rise out of me. I always know I win with you when I get “my side bias” reactions out of you.
Davy on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 7:08 pm
Folks, I will alert you to a standard extremist tactic of rephrasing your comment to suit their argument. This is effective with those who were not there. Embellishment is a great spice to add to a stew of distortions.
Davy on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 7:12 pm
Folks don’t take too much comfort in an extremists concern for you. They will stab you in the back when the time comes. That is just their nature.
Apneaman on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 8:25 pm
It’s your kind – not side. The money turns you into sub human monkeys. Power addicts. There is never enough. Davy why are you “telling on me”? Don’t you think the other kids can read and figure things out for themselves? Pariona will do that to a person….I mean sub human person.
Apneaman on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 8:37 pm
How Wealth Reduces Compassion
As riches grow, empathy for others seems to decline
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/
Rich less empathetic than poor, study says
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/rich-less-empathetic-than-poor-study-says.html
Brain scans show rich people display less empathy
http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2015/01/06/brain-scans-show-rich-people-display-less-empathy/
I wonder if it causes one or more genetic mutations in the brain that they pass on to the little sub human baby monkeys when they breed.
paulo1 on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 9:04 pm
Mak,
I agree with regard to Hitlerism. Trump scares the hell out of me. He seems to have the ability to whip the ignorant into a frenzy. Banning and/or registering Muslims is defintely a “yellow star” moment. Hillary is simply corrupt to the core. However, what scares me is I think both Bill and Hillary think they are ‘good’.
So many good people out there…so few decent candidates. I think anyone who is still uncorrupted, with the ability to lead the country, gave up long ago. Sometimes, you just get out of the way.
makati1 on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 9:07 pm
This is interesting… and another example of the tight rope the Us walks…
http://journal-neo.org/2016/01/07/washington-quietly-lifts-sanctions-on-russian-rockets/
“Washington, who leveled widespread sanctions against Russia in an increasingly tenuous bid to isolate and undermine the stability of Moscow, has found itself humiliated and backtracking as it lifts bans on Russia’s RD-180 rocket engines.
And even as Washington does so, the US media finds itself still painting Russia as a villain even as the US finds itself forced to buy rockets from a nation it claims invaded Crimea, is fostering a “hybrid war” in eastern Ukraine, and is bombing US-backed “rebels” in Syria. It is worth mentioning that Russia’s RD-180 rocket engines, possessing unparalleled performance US firms have yet to match, will be used to launch payloads into Earth orbit for the US Department of Defense.”
LMAO
SugarSeam on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 9:15 pm
we all realize there’s a House bill underway to declassify the Senate report that implicates Saudi funding of 9/11, yes?
GregT on Thu, 7th Jan 2016 9:29 pm
Not sure if we all know that Sugar, but some of us are aware. I’d hazard a guess that more non-Americans know, than Americans. Info such as that would kind of put a damper on the never ending “War on Terror”.
theedrich on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 12:37 am
Davy pointed out, “In humans’ case this will be the survival of the fittest with little recognition of who is deserving.”
True, Davy. The chickens are coming home to roost. The propaganda about “American values” or some other bowel movement will matter little when the normal state of history (i.e., poverty and desperation) returns. It is only then that true mettle will re-emerge, and the bleating sheep (whether in the First or Third World) will be shoved aside. The only true “value” is the one given by evolution: survival. Mother Nature is unpersuaded by neurotic preaching about “refugees” who intend to leech off of a society and rape its women, in spite of the fact that powerful genosuicidists seek to hide that intent from view.
The Sand N-words of Araby have long been used to wagging the U.S. dog around the Persian Gulf. They cannot grasp that depletion of the Ghawar is at long last slowly reducing their stranglehold, no matter how much cash they surreptitiously slip to Hillary and the Demonics. Nor do they understand the fact that the entire American economy has become increasingly riddled with charades — with China, our largest benefactor, even now suffering multiple shocks to its own financial system.
The sneaky sheiks do know, however, that our oligarchs are psychopathically unable to see that Mohammedanism is not a religion but an entire ideology of tyrannical control (“Islam” means “Submission”) which demands subjugation under the label of religion. Separation of church and state exists only in Whitey’s propagandized mind, not in the real world. But that delusion allows Angela Merkel and the countless American “refugee” organizations this side of the Atlantic to be manipulated for the benefit of the rich Musselmen by undermining the White race as a race.
Nevertheless, as you mentioned above, in the end it will be survival of the fittest. Which means that, at some point or other, the will to survive may resurface even in the soul of the decadent White man.
You can of course dismiss the fecal ravings of the Man-ape, who has long since joined those calling for White extinction.
Davy on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 5:23 am
Thee, I am not a racist or into class warfare. My definition of survival is systematic without reference to color, creed, or class. It refers to a combination of hard and soft characteristics that would give a local resilience to a shock and some sustainability for the after effects.
JuanP on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 7:26 am
Iran bans all Saudi imports, https://www.rt.com/business/328213-iran-saudi-imports-ban/
bug on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 7:27 am
Paulo, you said “so many good people out there….”. May be true, but who would want the job? Only sociopaths, or physco paths or is narrsisist or power hungry would want the position, therefore that is what we get.
Any good person would be labeled badly by press , peers and public and would not get the chance. In red/blue america, one guys good man is the other fellows demon, dictator, or idiot. When the heads of govt are worthless, that means the body and tail are similarly worthless, John Adams.
Anonymous on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 7:06 pm
Someone needs to tell the india times that the the US does not need the ‘sauds’ to fight something called ‘ISIS’, but to keep ‘ISIS’ in business as a viable proxy army. And I have to wonder where the writer got the idea the US is interested in ending the fighting in Syria. Ok, thats not entirely fair, the US is interested in ending the fighting-but only terms it dictates. Otherwise..umm no.
That’s a large difference from the supposedly noble and humanitarianish movies the writer tries to impart on the american empire. Bad start to a bad article. The US neither wants peace, or to defeat ‘ISIS’.
But India has no shortage of US boot lickers in its media and business class either. With 1.5 billion of them and counting, they are not that hard to find….
makati1 on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 7:08 pm
THE USD is why the Us has supported the KSA all of these years. The promise to only sell oil ONLY for USDs and to force the other OPEC countries to do the same, is the reason. It gave the US an unfair advantage and allowed it to accumulate so much power and control over the rest of the world. If the KSA starts selling oil for Yuan, or Euros, the game is over. The USS Dollar would sink like the Titanic and the US would be an overnight 3rd world country.
But with Russia, Iran and China leading the way, it could happen any time. Are you prepared?
Apneaman on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 7:39 pm
theedouche, I’m not calling for it, because it’s already a done deal. The entire race of naked terrified apes is done. It can’t be undone. You just a scared and pissed because you have not gotten the life you thought they promised you back when you were a little douche with your hand on your heart pledging your allegiance to the symbol. Betrayed and disappointed – someone must be blamed. Typical. If every non white person was deported tomorrow your life would not improve one bit. Likely get worse in fact as there would be less sheep to milk. You might even get conscripted into the new field workers army as a matter of
corporatenational security.Apneaman on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 7:46 pm
Anonymous, I see the Bundytards taking a page out of the state dept playbook. Going somewhere they do not live to start a mini colour revolution. All about the freedom eh?
theedrich on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 2:17 am
Yup, Davy, I know that you are terrified of being called “racist.” More terrified than of death itself, just like most others in today’s America. After all, “racists” are people who want their own people to survive. Which is a no-no for Whites. Just ask one of the many genosuicidists around here.
Davy on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 6:30 am
Thee, look, I am not going to go into the good or bad of racism or class warfare. I just have a mental comfort level problem with racism. It does not fit my mentality. You are free to broadcast your message. It is what it is because humans are racist and not only against ourselves but nature. We don’t respect our fellow man or our fellow creatures. We are a nasty animal in that respect. I am making my point I am not a part of your racist message when you reference me. I find your comments interesting because they are highly intellectual. In my opinion if you rose above negativity in regards to racism, class warfare, and creed issues you could be so much more.