Some Saudi-US History
Some Saudi-US History
Given Donald Trump’s new commitment to support military adventurism by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and more generally against Iran, it might be worth reconsidering how this alliance developed.
The beginning for Saudi Arabia was in 1744 when a wandering radical cleric, Mohammed bin Abdel-Wahhab met up with a local chieftain, Mohammed bin Saud in the village of Diriyah, whose ruins are now located in the suburbs of the current Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh. Wahhab converted Saud to his cause of spreading the strictest of the four Sunni shari’as, the Hanbali code, throughout the world, and this remains to this day the ideology of the House of Saud, the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, with this ideology widely known as Wahhabism. The territory ruled by the early Saudis expanded to cover a fair amount of the Nejd, the central portion of the Arabian peninsula, but when they threatened control of Mecca in 1818, ruled by Egyptians under the Ottomans who collected the moneys gained from pilgrims visiting there, the Egyptian leader, Muhammed Ali, invaded the Nejd and destroyed Diriyah. The Saud family moved to the next village over, Riyadh, and reconstructed their small state, which expanded again in the mid-1800s, although near the end of the century they were defeated and exiled to Kuwait by the rival Rashid family from Hail to the north of Riyadh.
In 1902 the 27 year old family leader, Abdulaziz bin al-Rahman bin Faisal al Saud, reconquered Riyadh and would eventually establish the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) through marital and martial conquests, with its modern boundaries established in 1932, and Abdulaziz (known in the West as “Ibn Saud”) bearing the title of King and Protector of the Two Holy Places (Mecca and Medina), which he had conqurered in 1924. He would have 43 sons, and today’s king, 81-year old Salman, is one of the last of them, and Abdulaziz would die in 1953. It should be noted that Saudi Arabia was independent of the Ottoman Empire, and was one of the few parts of the Muslim world that did not fall under the rule of a European power, along with Turkey, Persia/Iran, and Afghanistan.
In the early years, especially in the 1920s, he sought outside advice and support from the British, especially St-John Philby, the rival at Whitehall of T.E. Lawrence, and the first European to cross the Empty Quarter of the Arabian peninsula. Philby was especially helpful during the revolt by the combined forces of the Rashidi and the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) whom Abdulaziz managed to defeat in 1929, with the rebels pushing an ultra-fundamentalist line against Abdulaziz (an replay of this revolt occurred 50 years later in 1979, with the Ikhwan seizing control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca for a time). Philby would convert to Islam and take several wives. He was also the father of later Soviet spy, Kim Philby.
The first interest by anybody in the US came out of two agreements in 1928 and 1929, the Red Line Agreement that gave the territories of the former Ottoman Empire to a set of British and French companies, and then the As Is agreement of 1929 between Sir Henri Deterding of Royal Dutch Shell, Baron John Cadman of Anglo-Persian (now BP), and Walter Teagle of New Jersey Standard (now Exxon Mobil) at Deterding’s Achnacarry Castle in Scotland. These agreements amounted to an early effort to divide up the oil producing world in a cartel. Out of this, Jersey Standard got Saudi Arabia, although at the time oil had not been discovered there. It would be in 1938 by geologists from Jersey Standard, and agreements for production with cash payments for Abdulaziz in gold bars were made. In 1948, Abdulaziz would become the first leader of an oil-producing nation to succeed in getting a 50-50 profit sharing agreement, and as oil production surged there in the 1950s and after, the money would begin to flow into Saudi Arabia providing the basis for its modernization, even as it retained its highly traditional and strict version of Wahhabist Islam and Hanbali shari’a law code.
While Saudi Arabia initially favored Nazi Germany at the beginning of World War II, much like Iran then, it gradually shifted to the Allied side, with FDR declaring the protection of Saudi oil reserves a US national interest in 1943, and the Saudis officially declaring war on Germany in early 1945. It is widely viewed in KSA that the alliance was sealed in 1945 when FDR was returning from Yalta shortly before his death and met briefly on a boat in the Suez Canal with King Abdulaziz, producing a famous photograph of the two of them smiling and shaking hands, shortly before FDR’s death. And indeed, despite some ups and downs, the alliance has held since, with oil at its center.
Given that, the nature of the relationship has changed substantially over time. One major change, signaled initiallly by that 50-50 profit sharing agreement in 1948, was an increase in Saudi control over the oil aspect of it, with OPEC founded in 1960, which would impose a quadrupling of oil prices in 1973 in the wake of the Saudi oil export embargo against the US for the US supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur war of that year. Prior to that embargo, KSA had managed to nationalize ARAMCO, the Arabian-American Oil Company, which produced the oil in Saudi Arabia, the original owners of ARAMCO being Jersey Standard, New York Standard (Mobil, now merged with Exxon), Texaco, and California Standard (now Chevron). These companies, especially Exxon Mobil, continue to have an active relationship with ARAMCO, but the Saudis have been in control of their oil and their oil industry since the beginning of the 1970s. This shifted the relationship to being one more of the US becoming the protetctor of KSA, providing it with arms as the petrodollars poured in, and this aspect of the relationship has reached a new height with this latest visit and arms deal, arranged by former Exxon Mobil CEO and now SecState, Tillerson.
It is worth noting also that for most of the postwar period probably the major irritant in the Saudi-US relationship has been Israel, which even now KSA does not recognize, and Trump’s flight from Riyadh to Tel Aviv was the first such direct flight on that route ever. Israel supporters for many years complained about “Arabists” in the US State Department who were more oriented to worrying US oil interests in the Middle East and especially in Saudi Arabia. But today there is now an alliance of convenience between KSA and Israel in their mutual dislike of Iran.
Which brings us to the current situation. I personally think that the current Saudi leadership has gone off the rails in their anti-Iran attitudes. The differences are both sectarian and ethnic, Sunni versus Shi’i Islam and Semitic Arabs versus Indo-European Iranians, with this manifesting itself in a regional power struggle. But this is a relatively recent conflict, only getting going since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, and only getting really hot with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by the US under George W. Bush. It was the Saudis who convinced Bush’s dad not to go to Baghdad to overthrow Saddam in the 1991 Gulf War, arguing that he kept a balance of power as a Sunni Arab leader against Iran. And they argued with Bush, Jr. not to go in for the same reason, although they would support the US effort modestly once it happened, even though it aggravated Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda against the Saudi monarchy for supporting the US so openly (even though the US had supported the decision by then Saudi intel chief, Turki bin Faisal, to send bin Laden to Pakistan to aid in the anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan). But the replacement of a Sunni-led regime in Iraq by a Shi’i led one supported by Iran has upset the Saudis greatly. They also do not like Iranian support of Assad in Syria, who appears to have won his war against largely Sunni rebels, many of them supported by KSA, and now the Saudis are bogged down in a war in Yemen against local Zaydi Shi’a, whom they claim (not with full credibility) are being supported by Iran. So they, and the Israelis, want the US to join them in an anti-Iran crusade.
I think we are at a dangerous moment here. The nuclear deal with Iran is the most important deal that Obama made, and even the Saudis and Israelis know it. What they do not like about it is that it meant that the economic sanctions on Iran were relaxed. But most of those sanctions were only put on to get Iran to the nuclear negotiating table. There is no way they can be reimposed without Iran returning to having a nuclear program. The most influential person in KSA now appears to be the son of King Salman, 31-year old Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister, who gets lots of good press in the US. But for all the talk of reform, he has not moved to let women drive or to desegregate workplaces by gender. He seems to be a warmongering hothead who has pushed this so far fruitless and destructive war in Yemen, which has led to incipient famine in that nation as well as its likely falling apart into pieces. He has even talked about “taking the war to Iran,” which we can only hope that he will not be tempted to do with all those fancy arms that he is buying from the US. Trump, or whoever is in charge of US foreign policy in the near term, will really have to both defend the nuclear deal with Iran and resist this warmongering push by our longtime erstwhile ally. Let us hope that this is done.
Barkley Rosser
Barkley:
Interesting analysis of the Middle East. One can only hope this administration does not entangle us in a war with Iran.
Mo bin Salman already has al Qaeda working the Baluchs in SE Iran ostensibly to make the ‘fight in Iran and not the Kingdom’. Baluchs are about 2% of Iran population, a bigger deal in Pakistan.
I see the Kingdom as the bully of the Gulf. Look at how their part in the 1950’s “civil war” in Yemen turned out: hint they are still bombing Yemen.
What if the Kingdom tries that on Iran?
WaPo had a useful clarifying article today on what Trump did in KSA. It turns out unsurprisingly that for all the trumpeting about this great new agreement made during his visit, the vast majority of it is just a repeat of previous ones made during the Obama admin. Of course this set of Arab leaders are praising Trump because he has stopped “hectoring” them about democracy and human rights and has gone along with their line that nearly all the problems in the Middle East are caused by Iran.
The only clear new additions to the agreement are the denunciations of Iran, lack of anything about democracy or human rights, and overt support for Bahrain and the Saudis war in Yemen. So the Bahrainis showed their gratitude by killing five apparently peaceful demonstraters.
The other thing that is supposedly new is that these nations are supposedly going to make it illegal for anybody to financially support any of the Sunni terror groups that have been supported in the past. Unfortunately it turns out that when one looks at the actual document there is nothing specific about this, just some very vague statement. But that is not how it has been spun by the Trump PR people.
Why don’t Raqqa and Mosul resemble Leningrad in 1942?
How can you write a “history” of KSA/USA relations and not mention that 16 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudis? Or that Iran does not finance foreign terrorism but that the Saudis are the biggest exporters of terrorism on the globe? Sloppy.
Gosh, shame on me, Karl. I also should have spent a lot of time going on about how the Saudis behead people and also chop off the hands of convicted thieves, which is arguably much worse than the beheadings, with both of these being done publicly. After all, once somebody’s head is chopped off, they are dead and that is that, whereas with these thieves, for whom they provide no physicians, they are sitting their shrieking their heads off as they spout blood all over the place.
Regarding the 15, not 16, Saudis who participated in the 9/11 attack, I note that they were all from Asir province in the southwest corner of KSA. You probably do not know this but I have been there and those people are only Saudi by nationality, but ethnically and culturally they are like the Yemenis just across the border.
As for Iran not financing terror groups abroad, they most certainly have, although nowhere nearly as much as the Saudis have. They have supported groups in Iraq who attacked Sunnis, aggravating the civil war there and leading many of these Sunnis to support the ISIS takeovers in parts of Iraq. They were also reportedly behind the bombing of a synagogue in Buenos Aires. No, sorry Karl, while not nearly as guilty on this as the Saudis, the Revolutionary Guards of Iran have most definitely funded various terrorist groups abroad. Of course they are not supported by the current reformist government that just got itself reelected.
You should make sure you are making accurate statements before you accuse others of being “sloppy,” Karl. Clean up your act.
Barkley:
Thank you for the Memorial Day morning humor. I have not seen a college room thrashing by a Prof. in a while. It was an interesting read though. I also did not know the 911 perpetrators were of Asir province population and are culturally Yemenis. Stored that one away for the future.
Question though, what would or could be done after WWI instead of the arbitrary division of the Middle East by the British and the French (with Russians on the side)? I would think this question would have been asked innumerable times and has escaped my hearing it in its asking. Would the area have been more stable? My dabbling in history prior WWI was with the Hapsburgs, Prussians, and eastern Europe.
The Iraq Shi’a problem cannot be broached unless one observes that 2/3 of the population of the kluge called Iraq (Biden called it: partition; federation has not worked) are Shi’a who were suppressed by secular Sunnis disguised as Baath.
The fact the US ran the scam called Iraqi Freedom from Doha is because the Saudis did not want anything to do with threatening Sunni domination its Shi’a population.
Implying that somehow the Sunni are victims in the kluge and so should have defected to ISIS and go along with their ISIS’ beheading Shi’a conscripts is bold!
Run, the Brits experimented with bombing villages in the kluge in the 1920’s. Victor McLaughlin starred in a film the ‘Lost Patrol’ about such heroic adventurism. Not quite as sexy as cavalryman Flynn chasing the Sunni to Balaclava!
The glamorous bombing scam worked no better then than in Vietnam, Yemen or Syria.
On facebook I saw a post fropm a recent veteran: he is happy he did not die for “Cheney’s oil raid”!
You want to do that line about “make men free” from the Battle Hymn, start with making Saudis free of the royals and Aramco money that goes to Sunni terrorists.
Run,
It is nearly impossible to answer your final question. I think any serious counterfactual would involve the Allies losing WW I so that the Ottoman Empire would survive, thus keeping those areas under Ottoman rule for some longer time. Given that it was in long term decline and had been gradually losing territories, eventually those predominantly Arab territories would have gained independence, but what form that would have taken is simply impossible to know.
I would note that in the case of Iraq, whose boundaries were drawn by Gertrude Bell and Lawrence of Arabia for Winston Churchill without all that much logic, according to the Sykes-Picot Agreementn the northern part including Mosul and most of Iraqi Kurdistan was supposed to be under French rule and hence eventually to be part of Syria. But there was already oil production there and the Brits had the troops on the ground, so the IPC would get to produce there according to the later Red Line Agreement.
It should also be kept in mind that Saudi Arabia itself never fell under Ottoman rule and was independent throughout, also not being under either French or British rule. So your question is really about Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and arguably Jordan as well as Israel and Palestine.
ilsm,
It is certainly true that the Saddam regime constituted a minority Sunni domination over a majority Shia population, just as the other Baath regime in the region is a minority dominating a majority, namely the Alawi Assad family and friends dominating a majority Sunni population. In both cases colonial rulers favored minority groups in the military who would be more loyal to them, with this more relevant in Syria than Iraq, where local rule by the Sunnis reflected a carryover from the Ottoman predecessor and was consistent with the Sunni Hashemites being put in charge initially with King Faisal I, part of the booby prize given to them by the British for losing the Hejaz to Abdulaziz of Riyadh, with Jordan the other part of that booby prize.
Regarding the matter of “Cheney’s oil raid,” the pathetic irony of that is that in the end it was a big flop. US oil companies have not gotten into Iraq worth a bean. The only US energy company that made a lot of money out of the Iraq war was Cheney’s own, Halliburton, but it was for supplying all sorts of stuff to the US military, not because it got in on all sorts of oil deals afterwards in Iraq. Of course even more ridiculous has been the occasional squawk from Trump about how we ought to go in again and just “take their oil.” Uh huh.
Barkley:
I travel a lot even in my late sixties with my job. I often times read on airplanes and in hotel rooms in Asia, guide me to a book like you did with the Alchemists. I have read through the review copy of Crankshaw a couple of times now. All of those little countries reappeared again. The fall of Constantinople and the Fall of the Eastern Holy Roman Empire was interesting and set the stage for many events in the future. Must be a book to read other than LT Lawrence about the Middle East? What would progressives have thought about culture and the boundaries drawn indiscriminately. I understand your comments on KSA.
Barkley Rosser,
Strategically, Iran in terms of: geography, human resources, allies, etc holds many “cards”, the expensive stuff the GCC royals buy is purely defensive and not reliable at that. Iran is buying in to the One Band One Road investments while the GCC buys patriots missiles hoping Ted Postol with data is wrong.
Hope is not strategy!.
Off the top of my head over the years since oil was found in the kingdom the corporate ancestors of Chevron, Exxon, Mobil etc were involved individually or on occasion one or more together. At one point I worked in energy provisioning and have much resentment for the militarization of US support for aramco and the royals.
In my military experience I endured the “country briefs” and malarkey about the first Gulf war being “just” when in hind sight it was all about Saddam taking land from [neutral zone] desert sheiks.
Morally, Iran is far superior to the royals of the GCC. As is Putin compared to US presidents since GHW Bush.
Run,
A not bad book that is revealing about the formation of Iraq is the bio of Gertrude Bell by Georgina Howell, Queen of the Desert, although you might not like it as she has often been labeled “the female Lawrence of Arabia.” But it makes a good read. She certainly had a fascinating life and played a very crucial role in the formation of modern Iraq.
Not all that up to date, but Albert Hourani’s A history of the Arab People is pretty good. Ira Lapidus’s History of Islamic Societies is pretty reasonable, although also not super up to date. Also not up to date but good is Robert Lacey’s The Kingdom,which is about Saudi Arabia.
ilsm,
Too few people know what Juan Cole regularly points out, that the last time Iran invaded a neighbor was in the 1820s.
I am not a fan of V.V. Putin at all, but those who talk about their relationship with Syria need to keep in mind that the naval base they have at Tartus in Syria they have had since quite far back in the Soviet period, since 1971, and they have no intention of giving it up. Any proposal that might threaten that will not be supported remotely by Putin.
Barkley:
Thank you. I am used to reading old books.