The Saudi-U.S. alliance must end
Saudi Arabia is reportedly using Trump's apathy to commit murder. It must pay.
There is no better demonstration of the moral and political rot at the heart of the American government than its increasingly poisonous alliance with Saudi Arabia. The latest atrocity is the disappearance and alleged murder of Washington Post columnist (and United States resident) Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Turkish authorities have reportedly identified 15 elite Saudis who went into the consulate, and U.S. intelligence reportedly intercepted Saudi communications plotting to assassinate Khashoggi. After over a week, he has not left the consulate, and the Saudis have not produced him. In short, there is every indication that the Saudi government murdered him, chopped his body into pieces, and smuggled them out in blacked-out vans. Indeed, the attempt at a cover-up has been so lackluster that it almost seems like boasting.
This alliance must be destroyed. Saudi Arabia is no friend of democracy, liberty, or even common decency.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Let's just review some history. Back in the early 20th century, as European empires crumbled, the basic structure of the Saudi kingdom was established as a bargain between the House of Saud and local hardline clerics. The Saudi kings got political power, while the clerics were allowed great religious authority.
Even at the time, it was an almost cartoonishly outdated system: a tyrannical absolutist monarchy akin to the Papal States of centuries past. But gigantic oil strikes — the largest and most easily accessed in the world — allowed the Saudi government to basically purchase the quiescence of the citizenry and the goodwill of Western power. Oil kept the system tottering along — and the clerics exporting their violent, extremist version of Islam around the globe.
As a result, most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, a fact which sat somewhat uneasily with the Bush administration, who wanted to rely on Saudi support for their plan to remake half the Middle East into right-wing utopias at the point of a bayonet. But the abysmal failure of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the increasing irrelevance of Saudi oil as American and Canadian production ramped up after about 2009 — and the increasing harm fossil fuel energy in general does to the United States — did not dent the Saudi-U.S. alliance in the slightest.
The new Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman came to power in 2017, casting himself as a liberal reformer by stomping on the clerics, holding a few concerts, and doing a big lobbying blitz throughout the United States (including large bribes in the forms of staying at Trump-owned hotels).
Since then, it has become starkly obvious that bin Salman was just setting himself up as a ruthless absolute dictator. His domestic opponents have been reportedly kidnapped, extorted, and even tortured. A Twitter account closely associated with the government baldly threatened Toronto with a 9/11-style attack, after the Canadian government criticized the Saudis for arresting a women's rights reformer with Canadian family. (Later, the Saudis lamely claimed it was all an honest mistake). Even more jarring, it later turned out Saudis have have been arming, paying, and recruiting al Qaeda as part of bin Salman's quasi-genocidal war in Yemen. The Trump administration is aware of it and doing nothing.
And now the Saudis have reportedly straight-up butchered a high-profile U.S. resident and journalist, because he mildly criticized the brutal regime. Once again, Trump has barely mentioned the story at all. He has defended Vladimir Putin's murder of journalists; he clearly is going to make a few concerned noises at most and move on.
As Bernie Sanders noted in a recent speech, it seems pretty clear that the Saudis feel empowered by Trump. Due to his knee-jerk support for and ideological affinity with a violent authoritarian, they are sheltering under American power to commit one atrocity after the next — even against journalists employed by U.S. publications and our largest trading partner. This has nothing to do with American "interests" writ large, no matter how you care to define them — on the contrary, the kingdom is objectively harmful to them. It's nothing but corruption and right-wing political ideology.
And so should any sort of pro-democracy coalition ascend to power in the United States, it should very obviously ditch the alliance with Saudi Arabia immediately. That kind of despicable, murderous authoritarianism has no place in the community of nations.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
-
'Voters know Biden and Trump all too well'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Is the Gaza war tearing U.S. campuses apart?
Today's Big Question Protests at Columbia University, other institutions, pit free speech against student safety
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
DOJ settles with Nassar victims for $138M
Speed Read The settlement includes 139 sexual abuse victims of the former USA Gymnastics doctor
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Myanmar: the Spring Revolution and the downfall of the generals
Talking Point An armed protest movement has swept across the country since the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown in 2021
By The Week Staff Published
-
Israel hits Iran with retaliatory airstrike
Speed Read The attack comes after Iran's drone and missile barrage last weekend
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Is there a peaceful way forward for Israel and Iran?
Today's Big Question Tehran has initially sought to downplay the latest Israeli missile strike on its territory
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Sudan on brink of collapse after a year of war
Speed Read 18 million people face famine as the country continues its bloody downward spiral
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How powerful is Iran?
Today's big question Islamic republic is facing domestic dissent and 'economic peril' but has a vast military, dangerous allies and a nuclear threat
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
US, Israel brace for Iran retaliatory strikes
Speed Read An Iranian attack on Israel is believed to be imminent
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How green onions could swing South Korea's election
The Explainer Country's president has fallen foul of the oldest trick in the campaign book, not knowing the price of groceries
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Ukraine's battle to save Kharkiv from Putin's drones
The Explainer Country's second-largest city has been under almost daily attacks since February amid claims Russia wants to make it uninhabitable
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published