Biden must change how the US deals with Saudi Arabia

• President Joe Biden’s recalibration of relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia is no longer necessary.
• Inflating the relationship would not be wise, but the US should stop treating Saudi Arabia as if it were still the 20th century, writes Daniel DePetris, rival of the defense priorities.
• Visit the Insider Business Department for more stories.

The US relationship with Saudi Arabia is in a turbulent state.

Persistent drone and missile attacks by the Houthis, including a strike on March 7 at a major Saudi oil export facility at Ras Tanura, led to Washington’s “steadfast“commitment to the defense.

At the same time, the American intelligence community stresses that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has ordered the assassination of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi as urgently a recalibration of US-Saudi relations is real.

The Biden government has made an effort to bridge the gap between liability for the murder of a journalist and a permanent U.S. resident and the need to maintain a constructive relationship with the kingdom. In general, this is the right approach. Just as contemptible as bin Salman’s behavior was since he rose from the obscure prince to the daily ruler, the US would inflate the whole relationship, not be wise.

However, this does not mean that the relationship does not need serious work. The US too often based its alliance with Saudi Arabia as if the world was still in the 20th century.

President Joe Biden must restore the conditions at the institutional level, and get away from an oil-for-security paradigm that is no longer as sustainable today as it was 30, 20 or even ten years ago. Imposing a travel ban on troubled Saudis, imposing financial sanctions on certain Saudi entities and repelling Prince Mohammed van Biden are gestures on the surface. What Washington needs is a real reform.

Etienne Oliveau / Pool photo via AP

Washington and Riyadh established their strategic relationship at the end of World War II, when US President Franklin Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud struck a deal that would be popularly known as oil. -for-safety-scheme.

In exchange for the Saudis opening their taps and supplying a reliable supply of oil to the market, the US would provide the Kingdom with the defense articles and military training to protect itself from external threats. The concept was a pragmatic and largely effective one for both countries, both of which were wary of the Soviet Union and concerned about what Soviet expansionism in the Middle East would mean for the world’s most valuable source of energy.

For US officials at the time, it was simply common sense to have one of the largest oil producers in the world in the Washington corner.

Times have changed, however. The Soviet Union, the American adversary for more than 45 years, has been in the history books for almost three decades. While fossil fuels remain vital to the world economy, the tremendous progress with green energy gives the world, including the United States, the opportunity to diversify its energy resources and thus reduce its dependence on crude oil.

As a result, Riyadh lost its influence on geopolitics. In 1991, the US imported 1.8 million barrels of Saudi oil a day. According to data from the Energy Information Agency, the figure has dropped to 530,000 barrels per day – the lowest since 1985.

Of course, just because the US imports less Saudi oil does not mean that the kingdom’s oil reserves are not important. But what it does mean is that the old oil-for-security model that has dominated bilateral relations for so long is less relevant in 2021 than during the Cold War.

At the time, a competitive superpower determining oil prices in the Persian Gulf was at least an acceptable scenario for U.S. policymakers and defense planners. No one can take the same argument seriously today – Iran and Russia are far too weak militarily and economically to achieve hegemonic status, and China does not seem particularly interested in securing itself in the Middle East.

REUTERS / Fahad Shadeed

The Biden administration’s recalibration of US-Saudi Arabia relations has long since ceased.

The president’s decision last month to end offensive US military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen was a major step in the right direction, removing Washington from Riyadh’s reckless air campaign and King Salman and his favorite son ‘ sent a message that the US has won ‘t is automatically on the lookout for the kingdom – especially if the kingdom’s own actions are a big part of the problem.

But a recalibration will stop if Biden’s government thinks it is only necessary to reprimand Crown Prince Mohammed and put the troubled heir in his place. And it will not succeed at all if Washington neglects three critical points: 1) Saudi Arabia is not a formal ally of the US treaty, 2) US and Saudi interests are more likely to differ than to merge , and 3) what is good for the kingdom in the Middle East necessarily correlates with what is good for the USA.

Biden has a golden opportunity to rewrite the old 75-year-old contract between the United States and Saudi Arabia, one in which the US approaches the kingdom like any authoritarian state with a terrible human rights record: skeptical and armed, but ready to go to do when the US national security interests demand it.

Daniel R. DePetris is a Fellow at Defense Priorities and a Foreign Affairs columnist for Newsweek.