The U.S. and the Ungrateful Arab

Since 1943 I have considered the interests of my country and community to be the same as those of the United States we differ in nothing basic … after Allah we trust in America.

—HRH King Faisal ibn Saud1

The mistake of the West was to put the Sauds on the throne of Saudi Arabia and give them control of the world’s oil fortune, which they then used to propagate Wahhabi Islam. This very minor extremist cult, Wahhabism, was suddenly propagated across the Muslim world through madrassas and has created generations now who are steeped in this harsher, more paranoid, more confrontational version of Islam.

—Novelist Salman Rushdie2

We must confront this Zionist entity. All ties of all kinds must be severed with this plundering criminal entity, which is supported by America and its weapons, as well as by its own nuclear weapons, the existence of which is well known. It will bring about their own destruction.

—Former President Mohammed Morsi3

The tallest building in the world is now in Dubai, the biggest factory in the world is in China, the largest oil refinery is in India, the largest investment fund in the world is in Abu Dhabi, the largest Ferris wheel in the world is in Singapore.

—Author Fareed Zakaria

The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia is one of the most contradictory in the annals of foreign policy. The former is a secular democracy, committed to the ideals of freedom of speech, religion, and the press. The latter is a theocratic monarchy which enforces a state religion and severely limits speech and the press. The U.S. champions the equality of women and ideological pluralism, while the Saudis enforce 7th century religious restrictions upon their women and refuse to permit any ideological expression which opposes Wahhabi Islam or their ruling Royal Family. In every respect, the connection between the two countries is a theological, philosophical, moral, and political contradiction. Nevertheless, the pair enjoys a special relationship—the Saudis even have their own Office of Saudi Arabian Affairs at the U.S. Treasury, the only such office for any foreign nation in that department.4

The usual explanation for this relationship is oil for security. The United States wants a dependable supply of oil at stable prices on the world market; the Saudis want their territorial integrity protected against all threats foreign or domestic.5 In 2013, this arrangement led to the Saudis exporting $51.8 billion worth of resources (mostly hydrocarbons) to the United States while importing $18.9 billion in goods from us.6

However, the contradictions in this relationship are immediately obvious as soon as one starts paying attention. The Saudis didn’t outlaw slavery in their territory until put under pressure by President Kennedy. Even today, as this book has documented, it exploits millions of foreign laborers under a work system whose regulations often amount to de facto slavery.7 Through both official and private donations, the Saudis also export their Wahhabi brand of Islam around the world—spreading a virulent, radical, literalist understanding of Islam to countries including the United States. Tellingly, 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi nationals, as was the leader of the organization which sponsored them. Despite these connections, the United States continues to treat Saudi Arabia as a key ally in its war on terror.

This treatment is coming with an increasingly heavy cost. As was discussed previously in this book, the Saudi regime was profoundly shaken by the occupation of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979.8 It was only able to endure the humiliation of this event by conceding greater power to the ulema, the body of clerics who guide the religious policy of the country. “Over the last decade,” scholar Jennifer Delaney has observed, “the rise of Islamic extremism has tipped the balance of power away from the Royal Family towards the radical clerics.”9 A relationship that began with a desire to secure oil supplies and counterbalance Soviet influence in the Middle East has led to an absurd situation where American dollars flow almost directly into the coffers of the jihadists who most hate us.10

The relationship between America and the Saudis is a microcosm of America’s failed approach to the war on terror. Through a combination of short-sighted focus on oil and ideological commitment to anti-Communism, America enriched and emboldened intransigent literal Islamists and nearly destroyed the cause of secular democracy across the entire Middle East. Today, we must face the consequences of those policies. But so far, the American government has tried everything it can to avoid facing the reality of the forces it helped create and what must be done to defeat them.

THE COLD WAR AND THE RISE OF THE JIHADISTS

Before World War II, the United States had comparatively little diplomatic engagement with the Middle East. During the administrations of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, American engagement was significantly ramped up. Almost at once, American policy was governed by a Cold War calculus: wherever leadership was socialist or sympathetic to the Soviet Union, America opposed it; wherever leadership was staunchly anti-Communist, America provided it with financial and material support.

What happened in Iran illustrates some of the dangers of this policy. President Truman backed the Shah there as a way to counter Soviet influence. When the Iranians elected the popular socialist leader Mohammed Mossadegh Prime Minister, the Eisenhower administration saw that as a potential threat. The CIA aided the coup which deposed Mossadegh by force—an act which has soured the Iranian people on American influence ever since. The Shah used the event to garner more power for himself, which further turned his people against him, eventually paving the way for the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Saudi Arabia illustrates another pitfall of America’s anti-Communist foreign policy. The Saudis joined the anti-communist bloc during the Cold War because Communism’s atheist and political orientation put it at odds with their core Islamic values. When Gamal Abdel Nasser rose to power in Egypt, America saw his pan-Arab socialism as a threat. But while Nasser was a socialist with Soviet sympathies, he was also a proponent of secularism who opposed the theocratic monarchies of the Gulf. The Saudis saw him and his political philosophy as a threat for religious reasons.11

America backed the theocratic monarchies against the secular democracies of the Arab world. Even though Saudi King Faisal used the spread of Wahhabi Islam as a counter to Nasser’s pan-Arab socialism, the Americans paid it no heed. So long as the Saudis were opposing Communism, whatever religious beliefs they wanted to promote were just fine.12 For decades, petrodollars from America were turned to the promotion of literal Islam and opposition against secularism. After Nasser’s pan-Arabism met military defeat at the hands of Israel in 1967 and 1973, it eventually gave way to nascent jihadist thought. The countries which had been modernizing and secularizing in the 1950s and 1960s went backward socially.

With Afghanistan, as this book has already shown, the jihadists received the training, funding, and supplies to wage war against a powerful nation state. American and Saudi funding poured in for Islamic radicals from across the region. Again, America thought nothing of it. So long as the mujahideen were opposing Communism, their beliefs were immaterial. Saudi Wahhabism and radical Pakistani madrassas helped develop an army of jihadists to fight the Soviets. Once the Soviets withdrew, the radicals were still there, the weaponry was still there, and the money was still there. Global terrorism as we now know it had a large base of operations.

THE UNGRATEFUL ARAB

Among Arabs it is popular to complain that the United States always supports Israel at their expense. Such complaints reveal surprising ignorance of the enormous amount of financial and military support America has long provided the Arab nations.

Between Israel’s creation in 1948 and 2012, America provided a grand total of $115 billion ($233.7 billion when adjusted for inflation) in financial and military aid.13 U.S. exports to Israel have been relatively modest over the years, reaching $13.7 billion in 2013, with imports of $22.8 billion.14 After Israel’s conflicts with the Arab states in 1967 and 1973, America provided aid which allowed the Israelis to maintain the balance of power with their hostile neighbors. In short, the one thing America has not done is permit the Arab nations to destroy Israel.

The trade between America and Arab nations dwarfs the arrangements with Israel. In any given year, Saudi Arabia alone trades more with the United States. Take 2013 for example, when imports from Saudi Arabia were worth $51.8 billion (versus $22.8 from Israel).15 Nor is the trade situation likely to change in the foreseeable future, as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations are collectively sitting on another $65 trillion worth of oil and gas wealth, according to one estimate.16

America has also provided the Arabs with more than their share of military aid. Since the Camp David Accords were signed, Egypt has been a top three recipient of U.S. military funding, to the tune of about $1.3 billion annually.17 Saudi Arabia is actually the “largest U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customer, with active and open cases valued at approximately $97 billion.”18 The United States is currently helping the Saudis with multi-billion dollar infrastructure and border security enhancements. Since the invasion of Iraq, that nation has also been a top recipient of military funding from America. In 2013, the U.S. government allocated $1.7 billion in military aid for Iraq. In all, the volume of all American arms exports to Israel is just 21% of the total U.S. arms exports to the Middle East since 1950.19 Arab countries who have made war against Israel received far more military aid from America than Israel itself has received (albeit in the cast of Egypt it received this aid essentially for making peace with Israel). The claim that America supports Israel but not the Arabs simply does not hold up to scrutiny.

An honest assessment would find that America and Europe have made the Arabs exceedingly wealthy. Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is widely considered to be the richest city in the world (though “a million foreign workers don’t share in the wealth,” of course).20 Abu Dhabi is a typical case of Arabs benefiting from the west: 60 years ago it was a tribal village full of hut-dwellers. In 1958, British explorers discovered enormous oil reserves under the ground. When the British left the region in 1971, the benefits of the resources they found fell to the tribesmen.21

As a whole, the GCC stands ready to reap a windfall in the coming years from the money it earns from “infidel” nations:

By 2020 the GCC population is forecast to reach 53.3 million, a 30% increase over the level in 2000. Over the same period, the region’s real GDP is expected to grow by 56%. Nominal GDP, which was US$341.6 billio in 2000, is forecast to soar over US$1 trillion in 2010 and US$2 trillion in 2020.22

This enormous increase in manpower and financial power comes almost entirely at the expense of Western (but also Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Indian) consumers. Ironically, the majority of the GDP productivity in Arab countries comes from infidels—non-Arab foreign workers whose labor is exploited by Arab masters who prefer to manage rather than get their hands dirty themselves.

In one estimate, the entire Persian Gulf is “on the receiving end of a historical transfer of wealth from oil consumers.”23 In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, uncertainty in the markets proved to be a windfall for the Gulf, in which national economies doubled between 2002 and 2006. Not only that, the transfer of wealth is not coming back to benefit America or Europe as in previous oil booms—this time, “Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are investing much more of that windfall at home.”24 That means over one trillion in American and European dollars are now hard at work in the Persian Gulf raising playpens for wealthy Arabs to enjoy themselves. Meanwhile, American cities like Detroit slide from industrial powerhouse to ignominious bankruptcy.

What has America received for such enormous amounts of money? Saudi Arabia in particular “has a rather incriminating and duplicitous history of harboring Islamic extremists of the al-Qaeda, jihadist type.”25 The release of the WikiLeaks cables revealed that the U.S. State Department essentially regards Saudi Arabia as a “cash machine” for Islamic terrorists.26 They are a leading source of funds for many Islamic militant groups, including the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Pakistani-directed Lashkar-e-Taiba. Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates are also known sources of significant terrorist funding. Yet despite its alleged alliance with the United States, the Saudi government has done little to reduce the flow of money. The State Department identifies the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca as a particularly fertile source of militant terrorist funding: militants disguised as pilgrims solicit funds and launder money via front groups posing as charities.27

Worse still, it is entirely possible that the Saudi government had some direct role in the 9/11 attacks. Former Senators Bob Graham and Bob Kerrey have said in sworn affidavits that the Saudi government may have played a part in the atrocity. There certainly seem to be under-explored ties between the hijackers and several key Saudi officials and government representatives who made contact with them while they were preparing for their attacks. These include a Saudi consular official who is believed to have “arranged for an advance team to meet” two of the hijackers when they arrived in Los Angeles in 2000, and then-ambassador Prince Bandar who sent $130,000 to a suspected Saudi agent (who eventually funneled some of the cash to the hijackers).28 And as this book has already shown, the Saudi government funds Wahhabi mosques all around the world—the very places at which many terrorists are radicalized by their particular brand of literal Islam.

For over 75 years, America and the West have supported Arab nations with trillions of dollars in trade and aid. The Arabs have been made rich on the basis of oil and gas resources which were primarily discovered and paid for by Western nations. How has this support been repaid? Terror attacks, more than ten trillion dollars in losses in the United States alone, over ten thousand dead, and more than a hundred thousand injured. The absurd contradiction of the U.S.-Saudi special relationship has been far more to the benefit of the Saudis than it has been to the benefit of the United States. America is now deeply in debt, exporting jobs, with crumbling infrastructure and failing cities. America’s “friendship” with Saudi Arabia and the other oil producing Arab states is going to end up destroying Western civilization.