The U.S. Should Ask for More From Saudi Arabia

Over the past several months, much ink has been spilled, including by the two of us, over the alluring possibility of a U.S.-brokered Saudi-Israeli normalization accord. And a great deal of it has been devoted to what the Biden administration would need to deliver to the Saudis to facilitate such a deal.

The reported Saudi demands from the United States are sizable—even historic: a defense treaty approved for ratification by the U.S. Senate with a commitment to defend the kingdom if attacked; U.S. help in constructing a civilian nuclear program with some degree of Saudi control over the fuel cycle, enabling the country to enrich fissile material potentially to weapons grade; and access to more U.S. weapons systems.

What is less clear—and less often discussed—is what the Biden administration should or will ask of Riyadh. Yet it’s not only a fair but also an imperative question to ask, especially for the U.S. Congress, whose assent to any concessions will be required. The primary U.S. quid pro quo appears to be Saudi Arabia’s agreement to normalize relations with Israel. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has repeatedly described such an agreement as “transformative.” And it may well be, for Israel and Saudi Arabia. But it’s hardly commensurate—in strategic terms—with what the United States is being asked to pay.

And it’s being asked to pay a high price indeed.

The Biden administration seems to be considering something similar to the treaty the United States signed with Japan in 1960, in which the United States is obliged, in the event of an armed attack on Japan, to “act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes.” Clearly some sort of military action is what the signatories had in mind, but there’s still considerable flexibility for the United States in precisely how it might choose to respond. This is true as well of NATO’s Article V.

Nevertheless, it would still be a solemn commitment, approved by Congress and entered into domestic U.S. law. And once it entered into force, one can imagine how hard it might be to exploit any wiggle room. That’s one of the reasons Congress stopped approving for ratification treaties committing the United States to military action long ago.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, such a commitment would be even more fraught. Saudi Arabia is a repressive authoritarian state that maintains extremely close relations with U.S. adversaries Russia and China. The United States has no similar security commitment to any other country in the region—not even Israel, its closest ally. And the security environment in Saudi Arabia’s neighborhood is complicated by the country’s many vulnerabilities. The major threat to Riyadh isn’t a conventional ground invasion from a hostile neighbor but more likely internal sabotage or cruise missile and drone strikes from Iran or any number of pro-Iranian militias. Would the United States be obligated to attack Iran or Yemen directly in response to every airstrike against Saudi Arabia?

Read More

Is Saudi-Israeli Normalization Worth It?

It would be a dramatic accomplishment, but not nearly as transformational as many may think.

Analysis

|

Aaron David Miller, Steven Simon

A Saudi-Israeli Peace Deal Isn’t Worth It

Why the United States will regret putting effort into its latest Middle East policy.

Argument

|

Stephen M. Walt

Peace With Israel Means War With Iran

There’s a dangerous flip side to Saudi Arabia’s potential new diplomatic deal.

Argument

|

Bilal Y. Saab, Nickoo Azimpoor

It’s also worth noting that such a mutual defense commitment would be a radical departure for Saudi Arabia, which has resisted for decades any formal defense ties with the United States. Unlike its Gulf neighbors, Saudi Arabia has never entered a defense cooperation agreement with the United States, nor has it agreed to become a non-NATO ally, with military and economic privileges but no security commitment. It has also resisted permanent basing of U.S. forces in the kingdom. That Riyadh is now ready to undertake a formal security commitment with Washington strongly suggests its own conviction that it cannot or doesn’t want to defend itself.

For a U.S. administration that has sought to reprioritize its commitments in the region as Europe and the Indo-Pacific become bigger priorities, this should constitute a blinking yellow light warning caution ahead.

Fulfilling Saudi Arabia’s nuclear demands would also be something the United States has rarely done and would represent a historic departure from long-standing U.S. nonproliferation policy. Unlike the United Arab Emirates, which signed an agreement precluding the possibility of using U.S.-exported nuclear technology to master the fuel cycle, stockpile fissile material, and enrich it to weapons grade, Saudi Arabia appears to want some degree of control over the fuel cycle.

Given Iran’s status as a nuclear weapons threshold state and the Saudi crown prince’s public assertions that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia needs them as well, the Saudi ask is a galactic one and, in our view, should not be granted under any circumstances. Be that as it may, any concession to Saudi Arabia along these lines would be a dramatic development.

As important as normalized relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia might be, it comes nowhere close to the level of a quid pro quo of equal import. Nor would an agreement by Riyadh to align its oil pricing with Washington’s be feasible. As to Saudi Arabia’s horrid record on human rights, it would be nice to see this turned around, but that is clearly not a priority for this administration. One only has to look at the administration’s public silence on reports of Saudis massacring hundreds of migrants at the Yemeni border to see that.

The Biden administration does seem to be pursuing some concessions from Riyadh on China. The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. officials are “seeking assurances from Saudi Arabia that it will distance itself—economically and militarily—from China,” potentially including assurances that Riyadh won’t allow China to build military bases in the country, limitations on Saudi use of Huawei technology, and a pledge to use U.S. dollars and not Chinese currency to price oil sales.

But these modest concessions are not nearly enough to justify the bounty that Washington would be granting Riyadh. Indeed, in our view, only one strategic quid is well matched to the U.S. quo: a binding commitment by Saudi Arabia to cut off the flow of oil to China in a contingency preceding or during armed conflict between the United States and China.

U.S. military planners need to gauge whether a potential conflict with China would be a long slog or relatively short. A binding Saudi promise that Beijing would be cut off from Saudi oil would help limit this consequential uncertainty.

But would Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman agree and honor his treaty obligations? There’s no determinative answer to this question. And there are reasons for skepticism. The crown prince is pursuing a 360-degree foreign policy that tethers Riyadh to no single power but rather to close relations as warranted with the United States, Russia, and China, among others. Add Mohammed bin Salman’s concern about U.S. retrenchment in the region, his dislike of U.S. President Joe Biden, the fact that he will likely rule Saudi Arabia for half a century—perhaps encountering seven or eight U.S. presidents—and one might be forgiven for thinking that he would see his interests best served by a multipower alignment rather than a permanent move into the U.S. camp.

What’s more, Saudi interests in China are immense, and, in a sense, the kingdom’s future depends on robust Chinese demand for oil. It also depends on close cooperation with Russia in the OPEC+ framework—which is why we disregard Saudi production concessions to the United States as a plausible Saudi quid pro quo.

All of this means that even the one concession from Riyadh that could reasonably justify Washington giving up so much in return would be shaky at best. We worry about an administration on the cusp of making major concessions to Saudi Arabia without asking for enough in return. This is a core issue that Congress must take up with the White House as it prepares to debate what the United States should pay for Israeli-Saudi normalization and what the Saudis should be expected to give in return. The stakes are enormous. And that debate needs to be serious and begin now.