By John C Wohlstetter
This is an edited transcript of the author’s October 4, 2023 interview with journalist-author Maria Maaloof. In light of the Hamas October 7 invasion—a war of extermination waged against Israel—updates have been added.)
The relationship between the U.S and Saudi Arabia is a delicate one. We must take a historical perspective. The real power behind the Saudi throne, Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), was being very diplomatic in his recent interview with Fox Anchor Brett Baier. Especially as in the very first month of the administration, Jen Psaki, Biden’s first press secretary, called the Abraham Accords D.O.A.—dead on arrival. Fortunately, that did not prove to be the case. It was, however, an ill-omen that Psaki was not immediately fired.
Enough people in Congress pushed back, recognizing that the Accords were the first ever warm treaties between Arab and Jew in the 14 centuries since Islam made its entry on the world stage. The Accords are truly revolutionary. If MBS brings Saudi into the Accords, it would immediately pull in several key Arab states in the region, and thus fundamentally transform the region. (Had that transpired, the October 7 War might never have been launched, as a major purpose was to derail Saudi entrance into the Abraham Accords.)
But the Biden administration has two goals that take priority over the Accords. One, they want a new nuclear deal at any cost with Iran, and will make more concessions beyond those made by president Obama in the 2015 nuclear deal, which gave Iran a path to a a nuclear weapon within the decade. The Obama and Biden administrations are willing to accept an Iranian nuclear weapon because they believe that Iran can be deterred; Israel does not wish to wager its national existence on the proposition that Iran can be so deterred. As MBS told Bret Baier, while the Saudis would prefer not to go nuclear, they would do so if Iran became a member of the Nuclear Club.
The other priority Team Biden has is statehood for the Palestinians, despite their having done nothing to deserve this. They continue to kill Americans; they continue to express hatred of Israel. They will never accept the Jews. But the U.S. keeps trying to press Israel to make concessions; they are pushing much harder than the Saudis. (On the first day of the war Hamas launched against Israel, some 1,400 Jews—nearly all unarmed civilians were slaughtered—with the invaders filming the killings and numerous associated atrocities committed during the attack. That day saw more Jews murdered on any single day since the the Nazi Holocaust ended with Germany’s surrender on May 7, 1945.)
The Saudis are sick and tired of the Palestinians, as are most of the Arab countries. All they ever do is ask for things and they do nothing in return. Yet Biden resumed payments to the Palestine Authority (PA) that had been suspended by president Trump; the monies, like all payments from Western countries, will support terrorism, minus the part that will be deposited in the ruling class’s foreign bank accounts. The U.S. is trying to push Israel to make real concessions. I don’t think the Israelis will fold. (After the atrocities of October 7, the idea of concessions to the Palestinians is dead, even if Team Biden does not know this. Any Israeli government that attempted to make concessions would instantly collapse.)
The big obstacle right now is the Saudis can’t push the U.S. too hard. So they’ll let the Israelis figure this out. It’s Team Biden’s extreme obtuseness and perversity that is the biggest obstacle to a Saudi joining the Accords. (The Saudis have since pulled back, sitting on the fence, waiting to see who in the Israeli-Hamas War—which may expand to include the PA and Hezbollah in the north—emerges as, per Osama bin Laden, “the strong horse.”)
Another difficulty, facing both the Saudis and Israel, is that entering a close military relationship with the United States is like the old cliche about making love to an 800-pound gorilla: it is done on the gorilla’s terms. And, even the Gulf states have to be careful. Because if Washington gets into any formal alliance relationships, it will want to be the senior partner. And that means that at times, they may pressure our newly-minted regional allies to pursue policies Washington prefers, but that are inimical to local security interests.
The Saudis are facing an administration that was fundamentally at odds from the start, calling the Saudis a pariah nation. And then months later President Biden visits with a tin cup and asks MBS if his country would increase oil production after Biden had shut down natural gas pipelines on his first day in office. So MBS made a partial pivot to China. But the Saudis don’t want to get too deeply in with the Chinese; they can observe that the Chinese, like the Russians, are risky partners. China is pushing its Belt and Road Initiative including a railway from India through Europe, that will pass through the Middle East. It’s a huge project. We were not quick enough to forestall this
because we were too busy being purists about renewable energy replacing fossil fuels. Had Trump been reelected, he would have had a good chance to partner with the Saudis and thus pre-empt China’s railway proposal.
This administration passively reacts to events. When the administration creates a power vacuum by diminishing our military and economic power, bad actors step in. As to the military, our biggest problem is that during the Obama and Biden years, much of the defense industrial base significantly atrophied. And when Biden started sending military aid to Ukraine, he should have started ramping up the defense industrial base. It is much less robust than it used to be. In all military areas, we are in very bad shape.
And thus our ability to project power simultaneously in various theaters of the world is seriously in doubt. When Iranian ships came close to American ships, and disregarded warnings to retreat, they should have been sunk. Every major nation on the planet sees this.
So what will the terms of the U.S-Saudi relationship be? I think a formal defense pact probably isn’t good for either country. But the Saudis want more of a commitment, and worry that the administration will set tough conditions. (All these questions now await the October 7 War’s ultimate outcome.)
And that’s even larger question in the case of Israel. What’s going to trigger U.S intervention it if there are simultaneous terror attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Eilat, Ashdod and Haifa? Is that enough to bring the United States in? And then if Israel wants to go into the West Bank, operating jointly with U.S. troops, who’s going to command? If at some point they have U.S. assets, the U.S. likely will want to command, and they don’t know the local terrain nearly as well as do the Israelis. Israel is right to be wary of a mutual defense pact.
(Since October 7, the U.S. has provided some military assistance, dispatched two carrier groups to the Mediterranean and a third to the Persian Gulf. Our sole military action to date has been airstrikes in response to Iranian attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq, taking out military targets with no enemy casualties, despite Iranian attacks inflicting some two dozen U.S. casualties.)
John Wohlstetter is author of Sleepwalking With the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, 2d. ed. 2014) He is a Senior Fellow at both the Seattle- based Discovery Institute and the Washington, D.C.-based Gold Institute for International Strategy.