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- Saudi-style conclusion: The United States wanted to reduce the military contingent in the kingdom
Saudi-style conclusion: The United States wanted to reduce the military contingent in the kingdom
The sudden cooling of relations between the United States and its close ally Saudi Arabia may lead Washington to reduce its military contingent in the kingdom after the end of the Iranian campaign. The American media are vying to write about the rift between the White House and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The conflict flared up in May, when US President Donald Trump solemnly announced the Freedom Project, which demanded the deployment of additional American troops to Saudi bases. The Kingdom unexpectedly opposed it: Riyadh was seriously afraid that the facilities would immediately become targets for Iranian missiles, and denied Washington access. The Americans have not forgotten such a demarche. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
A rift in the relationship
"Now the United States is considering the possibility of reducing its [military] presence in Saudi Arabia (almost 2.7 thousand people. — Ed.) and the concentration of their forces in countries that provided great support during the war, including Israel and Jordan," The Wall Street Journal reported, citing American officials familiar with the situation.
The United States increased its military presence at the Prince Sultan base in Saudi Arabia to deter Iran during Donald Trump's first term as president. However, during the second cadence of the American leader, the situation changed.
According to the publication, Washington is currently considering reducing its contingent amid disagreements with the Middle Eastern kingdom over the Iranian conflict. We are talking about dissatisfaction with the actions of Riyadh during Operation Epic Fury, which the United States launched against Tehran in February this year.
The Kingdom and other Gulf states have advocated a diplomatic solution to the conflict, warning that an attempt to overthrow the authorities in Iran could affect the oil market, the U.S. economy, and the stability of the region. Riyadh insisted on lifting the blockade of Iranian ports and returning Washington to the negotiating table. In addition, Saudi Arabia complained about its regional neighbor, the UAE, which secretly attacked Iran in the early days of the war. The kingdom's authorities asked to put pressure on their colleagues from the UAE to join the diplomatic efforts.
This approach disappointed the American authorities. Another escalation between Washington and Riyadh occurred due to the American operation Project Freedom to withdraw ships from the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, which was closed by Iran at the beginning of the conflict.
In May, the American leader promised to safely navigate oil tankers and commercial vessels out of restricted waterways. Trump's Middle Eastern allies, as the article says, were surprised by such a move.
Fearing to incur attacks from Iran, Riyadh blocked the access of the US military to its bases and the airspace necessary for the mission. In response, the United States threatened to delay the supply of interceptor systems that Saudi Arabia uses to protect itself from Iranian missiles and drones, as well as not to include the kingdom in the list of priority recipients of American weapons.
Riyadh was forced to lift restrictions on the use of its bases and airspace. But Washington did not resume Operation Project Freedom. Instead, the US military secretly coordinated the withdrawal of merchant ships from the region at night with their transponders turned off.
Against this background, diplomatic demonstrations of discontent began on both sides. At the end of March, speaking at the Future Investment Initiative forum in Miami, Trump called the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia his friend, a wonderful man and a warrior, stressing that the kingdom "can be very proud" of his leader. But then he suddenly added, "He thought it was going to be another loser American president... he didn't think he was going to kiss my ass. But now he has to be nice to me."
The Crown Prince himself, not wanting to meet with Trump, refused to fly to the G7 summit in France as an invited guest, citing a busy schedule. The Americans have significantly reduced their contacts.
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a Middle East tour, during which he visited the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain, but did not go to Saudi Arabia. According to the newspaper, in Riyadh it was perceived as an unfriendly gesture. At the same time, the Trump administration said that relations between Washington and Riyadh remain strong, stressing that the Secretary of State held productive talks in Bahrain with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. However, few people were convinced.
An agreement lasting 80 years
For eight decades, relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia have remained one of the most controversial and at the same time stable in the Middle East. In the absence of common values, the parties invariably found a common interest — it almost always had a monetary and military-strategic dimension.
The foundation of the partnership was laid in 1945 by President Franklin Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz bin Saud. Their meeting aboard the American cruiser Quincy in the Suez Canal went down in history as the deal that defined the contours of the post-war world: Washington guarantees the security of the Saudi monarchy, and in return, Riyadh ensures uninterrupted oil supplies. The verbal agreement, reached in just a few hours, has gone through dozens of administrations.
The economic basis finally took shape in the 1970s. After the 1973 oil embargo, when the Saudis clearly demonstrated their leverage over the global economy, the parties set up an unprecedented scheme: Riyadh pegged oil sales to the dollar, and placed the proceeds in U.S. Treasury bonds. This is how the petrodollar recycling mechanism emerged, which for decades provided the dollar with the status of the world reserve currency. Saudi Arabia, in turn, has become the largest buyer of American weapons: from 1950 to 2023, the volume of military contracts, according to the Pentagon, exceeded $ 140 billion.
The military dimension of the alliance was not limited to trade. In 1990, after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia allowed the deployment of an impressive American group in the kingdom, a decision that caused a deep domestic political crisis and became one of the catalysts for the emergence of Al-Qaeda (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation). Nine of the 19 terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, turned out to be Saudi citizens, which provoked the most serious cooling in the history of bilateral relations. However, even then there was no break: everyone limited themselves to the expulsion of a number of Saudi diplomats, and military and energy cooperation continued.
Under the administration of US President Barack Obama (2009-2017), a new rift has emerged. The 2015 nuclear deal with Iran was perceived in Riyadh as a strategic betrayal - the monarchy considered Shiite Tehran an existential threat for decades, and Washington actually legitimized the Iranian nuclear program. When Donald Trump came to the White House, he turned the situation 180 degrees: for his first foreign visit, he chose Saudi Arabia, signed arms contracts worth $ 110 billion and withdrew from the nuclear deal. The "deal of the Century" on the Palestinian settlement, proposed by Trump's son-in—law Jared Kushner, was also coordinated with Riyadh - and in fact involved large-scale Saudi investments in exchange for normalization of relations with Israel.
Joe Biden, on the other hand, began his presidency with a promise to make Saudi Arabia a "rogue state" - the reason was the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, for which the CIA personally blamed Mohammed bin Salman. However, the energy crisis of 2022 forced the administration to adjust its rhetoric: Biden visited Jeddah (a city in the western part of Saudi Arabia).
Today, the alliance is undergoing a major transformation. The kingdom is diversifying ties: in March 2023, with the mediation of China, it restored diplomatic relations with Iran, joined the BRICS, and is now negotiating payments in yuan for oil. Washington, for its part, is increasing its own production of hydrocarbons and is looking less and less at Saudi interests. Now, for the first time, the deal concluded on the deck of the Quincy almost 80 years ago is truly cracking.
Not a reduction, but a redistribution
Danila Krylov, a researcher at the Department of the Middle and Post-Soviet East of the INION RAS, Candidate of Political Sciences, believes that the publication in The Wall Street Journal "is more like another round of information propaganda or hype."
— The topic of the American-Iranian confrontation is already boring, the Israeli case is also not very interesting, we need something new. We do not have any official statements from either Riyadh or the Pentagon. And in general, what is the reduction of the military contingent, why it should somehow play a negative role in the current geopolitical realities, is also completely unclear," he explains in an interview with Izvestia.
The Americans' reduction of their military contingent, with the exception of the situation in Afghanistan in August 2021, de facto means a redistribution of resources, the expert adds. When the Americans announced their withdrawal from Syria, they actually intensified in Iraq.
"Moreover, given the development of technology and the fact that the war is moving more into the space of unmanned aerial vehicles of both strike and anti—aircraft types, the question arises about the need for a large ground military contingent in a particular country," says the political scientist.
The Saudis, according to the expert, are guided by a rather rational logic: why should they participate in something that, in general, most likely will not last long, as it turned out. Firstly, this will create unnecessary tension with Iran, and secondly, it will have no effect.
— I would not say that this is some kind of serious discord, that Riyadh is in danger of something. I think he's asking Washington questions about the joint air defense, missile defense, and drone defense systems, and the Americans need to find an answer. The Eastern European factor of NATO, Ukraine, and the G7 is added to this. The Americans have to play here and there, and neither here nor there can they win the conflicts in order to stay on the horse and then reap the benefits of the world they will create," the analyst explains.
Independent monarchies of the Middle East
Orientalist Kirill Semenov, on the contrary, believes that the publication of The Wall Street Journal "reveals a deep systemic crisis in US-Saudi relations." In his opinion, the unprecedented precedent when Riyadh actually sabotaged a major Pentagon military operation proved once again that the era of unconditional submission of the Saudi monarchy to Washington has passed.
"The material demonstrates how the pragmatic interests of the Saudi regime's survival outweighed its obligations to its ally, exposing the illusory nature of American control over the region. The public rhetoric of Donald Trump, who boasted that Mohammed bin Salman is "fighting with us," has completely diverged from reality, where the Saudi prince is playing his own game, prioritizing national security rather than the geopolitical ambitions of the United States," the expert expressed confidence in his Telegram channel.
He noted that the most alarming signal for Washington is a fundamental shift in Saudi Arabia's security architecture.
"Riyadh no longer considers itself a hostage of the American military umbrella. Last year, the kingdom signed a mutual defense pact with Pakistan, creating an alternative center of power. Recent consultations between Saudi and Chinese diplomats in Beijing on the safety of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz directly indicate that the Saudis have also enlisted the support of China. This frees Riyadh's hands and allows it to dictate terms to Washington," the political scientist added.
The expert believes that Saudi Arabia has transformed from an executor of the American will into an independent entity, ready to block Washington's military initiatives if they threaten the kingdom's balance.
"In a multipolar world, this makes one—sided US military adventures in the Persian Gulf almost impossible without the direct consent of local monarchies," the analyst concluded.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
