The Vast Power of the Saudi Lobby
GIVEN MY DISSIDENT politics, I should be up in arms about the Israel lobby. Not only have I supported the civil rights of the Palestinians over the years, but two of my principal intellectual mentors were George W. Ball and Edward Said, both severe critics of Israel and its extra-special relationship with the United States.
Nowadays I ought to be even bolder in my critique, since the silent agreement suppressing candid discussions about Israeli-U.S. relations has recently been shaken by some decidedly mainstream figures. These critics of Israel and its American agents include John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, of the University of Chicago, and Harvard’s Kennedy School, respectively; Tony Judt, a historian at New York University; and former President Jimmy Carter.
Somehow, though, I can’t shake the idea that the Israel lobby, no matter how powerful, isn’t all it is cracked up to be, particularly where it concerns the Bush administrations past and present. Indeed, when I think of pernicious foreign lobbies with disproportionate sway over American politics, I can’t see past Saudi Arabia and its royal house, led by King Abdullah.
The long and corrupt history of American-Saudi relations centers around the kingdom’s vast reserves of easily extractable oil, of course. Ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt met aboard ship in 1945 with King Ibn Saud, the special relationship with the desert kingdom has only grown stronger. The House of Saud is usually happy to sell us oil at a consistent and reasonable price — and then increase production if unseemly market forces drive the world price of a barrel too high for U.S. consumers.
In exchange we arm the Saudis to the teeth and turn a blind eye to their medieval approach to crime and punishment.
Even during the Saudi-led oil embargo of 1973-74, an exceedingly hostile action against the United States supposedly justified by Washington’s support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, the Nixon administration treaded very softly. Despite the illegality of the embargo — it arguably violated international law as well as a bilateral commercial agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia — the White House and the State Department could hardly have been more diplomatic toward their Bedouin friends.
As the historian J.B. Kelly recounts, the U.S. ambassador to Riyahd, James Akins, did his best to placate King Faisal by urging the Saudi’s American-owned oil concessionaire ARAMCO to, in Aken’s words, “hammer home” to the White House that the embargo wouldn’t be lifted unless “the political struggle [between Israel and the Arabs] is settled in [a] manner satisfactory to [the] Arabs.”
In all, as Kelly wrote, “a most peculiar recourse for an ambassador to employ to influence the policy of his own government.”
But this was a blip on the screen of harmonious petrol politics. After Iran’s Islamic revolution overthrew the trusted shah, in 1979, the thoroughly anti-democratic Saudi oligarchy appeared an island of stability and thus of greater strategic value to Washington. Indeed, in a head-to-head match-up with the Israel lobby in 1981 over the proposed American sale of AWACS planes to the Saudis, the Saudi lobby won a close vote in the Senate. Leading the Arab charge on Capitol Hill was the debonair Prince Bandar, who demonstrated that charm mixed with a lot of money could beat the Israelis, even during the pro-Israel administration of Ronald Reagan.
Bandar was quickly promoted to Saudi ambassador to Washington, where, in 1990, he was assigned the task by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney of, in effect, doling out press passes to the U.S. media before the Gulf War — this in spite of the fact that tens of thousands of U.S. troops were swarming into the kingdom to defend it against a perceived invasion threat from Saddam Hussein. When he wasn’t entertaining congressmen and spreading good cheer through his highly paid lobbyist, Fred Dutton, Bandar was busy making friends with, at first vice president, and then president, George H.W. Bush, and by extension with Bush’s son, the future president. This personal relationship with the Bush family has served Bandar and his family very well, as documented in Craig Unger’s book, House of Bush, House of Saud.
But the prince and his royal relatives evidently also impressed the Clinton administration. Before he died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, the former FBI counterterrorism chief John O’Neill complained to French investigator Jean-Charles Brisard that Saudi pressure on the State Department had prevented him from fully investigating possible al-Qaida involvement in the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen, and of the destroyer Cole in 2000. As with Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, there’s always talk of the Saudis playing a double game with al-Qaida — publicly denouncing it and privately paying it off — but you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to understand that the Saudis don’t have America’s best interests at heart.
So it gets worse. Now, according to Seymour Hersh, Bandar has virtually joined the Bush administration as a shadow cabinet member. Hersh’s New Yorker article last month described “the redirection” of U.S. foreign policy against Iran and Arab Shi’ite terrorists in collaboration with such Sunni-dominated countries as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt (this in spite of the fact that Sunni rebels, funded in part by Saudi “private citizens,” have killed the bulk of American solidiers who have died in Iraq).
The wise men in this new policy council reportedly include Vice President Cheney, deputy national security adviser Elliot Abrams (an Iran-Contra convict who is very pro-Israel), the nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, and none other than Bandar, now the Saudi national-security adviser. Such is the cynicism of Bushian, Israeli and Saudi foreign policy that Abrams collaborates with Bandar, whose country does not recognize Israel and whose “charities” give money to the families of suicide bombers who blow themselves up inside the Jewish state.
Lately, King Abdullah has been making anti-American noises, calling the U.S. presence in Iraq an “illegitimate foreign occupation.” But like the Saudis’ paper-thin devotion to the Palestinian cause, this is just so much realpolitik. In March 1974, the oil embargo was lifted without any conditions concerning Palestinian rights. Today, as the Shi’ism scholar Amal Saad-Ghorayeb told Mohamad Bazzi, of Newsday, “the Saudis are being more autonomous, but it’s a very contrived sense of autonomy” designed “to give [them] more political cover so they can rally Arab support against [Shi’ite] Iran.”
If you’re naïve enough to believe that the Saudi king’s rhetoric signifies a genuine break with the United States over Iraq, or anything else, then you might also believe that the Israel lobby is more powerful than the Saudi lobby. And if you think that Israeli security means more to George Bush than Saudi oil, then you might even believe that Bush saw 9/11 coming.
John R. MacArthur, a monthly contributor, is publisher of Harper’s Magazine.
© 2007 The Providence Journal
Thanks for this well crafterd article.
The point I have to think about is:
Is what’s good for Saudi Arabia good for Exxon? I wonder if the Oil companies were really upset about the oil embargo? Maybe Saudi Arabia has a lot of control over its resources, but at that time, they probably were, and probably still are, highly dependent on technology provided by multnationals. Don’t higher oil price mean more royalties? and more money for further investment? The whole American political aparatus is joined at the hip with the oil industry. Republicans more so. Israel is an important strategic and symbolic partner. Both at home and in the Middle East, it can always be used to whip up division, conflict and support for military adventures and arms deals. No doubt, the Israel lobby is a strong and organized force. But it’s not the tail that’s wagging the dog. They are successful in large part because their interests coincide with the strategic interests of those who run the global scene.
Hell the Saudis don’t need a lobby. They have unlimited access to the white house and every time they visit cousin George they find him waiting with a frige full of beer and an eagerness to hear their latest ideas on how to make the poor poorer still.
Bush and the neocons had every reason to see the September attacks coming. They had been warned of it by
France, Israel, and others foreign and domestic. The family ties between the Bushs, the Ibn Sauds and the Bin Ladins goes back a long way. The attacks of September ‘01 were almost like a gift from a friend in that they allowed a preconcieved policy of aggression to come to fruition.
The power of the Saudi lobby (and the Israeli, Japanese, and Chinese lobbies for that matter)is the eager willingness of American politicians and policy makers to sell out like so many high priced ladies of the night to the highest bidder.
This they have continued to do for decades becasue the rest of America cannot find it in themselves to get angry while their bellies are filled with junk food and their lives are filled with distraction.
Say “Amen” Siouxrose!
What has happened is that a ultra right wing minority has taken over in Israel and is being enabled by AIPAC. It is in no ones interest to have a right wing Israeli government forming US middle east foreign policy. to the Saudi’s credit, right before 9/11, they issued an ultimatum to Bush telling him that they were going to cut off oil if he didn’t push the Isralis to a piece deal with the Palestinians. Thus came into being the road map. But with 9/11 every thing got pushed to the back burner. The difference between the Saudi lobby and the Israeli lobby is that the later is alienating the whole world against us for our un-measured support of Israel. A perfect example was our green light for the latest destruction of Lebanon, ( a US ally, and one of the only legitimate governments in the middle east)Aipac is the devil in all this tragic mess. If they didn’t have the power to destroy any elected official in the US, then we could pressure Israel to give the Palestinians there land back, and be recognized by the Arab world etc.
The Bush Gang DID see 9/11 coming–in fact, they did it.
I happen to be a passionate student of history–and 9/11 stank of the Maine explosion in La Habana’s harbor, as well as of the Reichstag Fire.
Be that as it may, I spend part of each year in Bahrain–right across the bridge from Saudi Arabia, from where a number of my university students have come–and I can say that some things are beginning to change there. In 2005 there were municipal elections–not a big deal, but a beginning of something that is congruent with elections in the other Gulf countries. That was the same year that Abdullah took over on the death of his profligate playboy brother.
What it comes down to is that the Saudis are finally becoming part of the world–for good or ill–thanks to globalization. That means that they don’t have to be an appendage of US foreign policy–IF they choose not to be.
They are astute enough to see that the world is moving away from being unipolar, and they would like to see their country be a player in the coming multipolar world of geopolitics.
Israel, on the other hand, has no cards for that game dealt to it. Its only hope is to hang onto the special relationship with the US.
When the empire tanks, Israel may well be de-countrified. If I am still alive I will dance in the street when that happens.
I would like to know what happened to my post!
What has happened is that an ultra right wing minority has taken over in the United States and is being enabled by a nation of sheep who have forgotten the fine art of resistance and revolution. Nothing short of that will be required to deal with the auto-coup of the Bush-fascists. As for the relationship between the corrupt Saudi royals and the US elite class, what’s new? Study your history. We have always gotten into bed with the sleaziest dictators on the planet when our elites thought it would be to their economic benefit. Americans are simply impossibly dumb about their own history. They should all be forced to read Howard Zinn’s Peoples History of the United States to get the real story. But then they would have to read a lot more to correct the falsities purveyed in the US education (propaganda) system.
Excuse my repeating a previously posted analogy, but when neighbors complained about the stench emanating from Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment, and a cop was sent to check things out, he chose to believe Dahmer, that a pot roast had burned. Human beings tend to disconnect when what they are about to confront overwhelms their senses. Television’s crime-time-live overload has definitely lowered the bar on what a civilized society can tolerate. I wonder how many are living in semi-schizophrenic states, where they believe their REALITY is separate from that of others. I met a woman from London whose reaction to 911 sounded like real estate, “It’s not MY grief.” People seem to think reality is optional now, they just have to change the channel. And the excellent posts regarding a posting 3 days ago on that awful THE SECRET explain how self-centered impulses are being celebrated while a sense of “we’re all in this thing called life together,” that it’s a shared tapestry is becoming dangerously passe. On the other hand, you don’t have to BELIEVE in gravity (for it to hold you to its imperatives.)
Poet: Amen? or maybe you’re in synch with me. I am working on a script right now about overweight people on a survival boat trip, but it’s a metaphor of our entire society. Years back when I lived in London there was a terrific film that was never (?) released in the U.S. Marcello Mastrioani and his pals realize it’s time to leave this difficult earthy life, and the best way to go out is via a surfeit of the senses. They therefore rent a cottage in the countryside, hire a chef, and have an enormous amount of food delivered. The idea is that since our bodies TRY to shut down when we’ve had enough (there are built in homeostatic mechanisms to our intended biology) the dishes have to become increasingly tempting. Each person indeed eats himself to death, and each dies in a manner that symbolizes how he lived. Quite the commentary on Western consumerism…. this is a more kind and gentle, comedic take on the same conclusion. So amen to that… apart from losing myself in these most excellent forums (this is the only site I respond to and on), the first draft is done!
Only problem I have with the powerful Saudi lobby theorum is this: The war in Iraq. The Saudis anticipated how catastrophic it would be for them. They warned the U.S. it would empower Iran. They tried to bring Saddam back into the fold during the Arab league summit in 2002.
And yet the war happened anyway. So how powerful could this lobby be?
McCarthur critical of Israel? You got to be kidding me. Having Ball and Said as mentors while being silent on selected issues of theirs does not mean anything.
In regards to the Saudi lobby, is the Saudi tail wagging the American dog or the other way around? Lets see. Carter and Reagan administration stirs up the islamics to lure the Soviets into Afghanistan. Wasn’t it the Saudis that obliged, amassed tons of radical and send billions of dollars in their Jihad? Wag the dog’rs might say Saudi was waging the war to protect Afghanistan. I don’t think so, especially given the fact that it took place before the Soviets even invaded. And to think the American base was in the Muslim holy land for the protection of the House of Saud from Iraq is laughable. American doesn’t have bases all over the world for the protection of the puppet countries they reside on, but for its imperial reach. Iraq was laid to waste in the first war along with the genocidal sanctions, but the base remains.
What issue did the Saudis bring up with Bush time after time? It has been brought up time and time again to Bush that they want a settlement on the Palestinian issue, and you can see from the statements that Bush constantly makes, it ain’t having any effect whatsoever on him. Ron Susskind’s “One Percent Doctrine” illustrates such an incidence of a trip by Crown Prince Abdullah as quoted in this article:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/02/09/helping_israel_die.php
And how could the Arabs have influence on Bush, given that he was no friend to his father’s ways, as quoted again in the above articl on Susskind’s book:
“There is, no doubt, more at play here regarding Bush’s attitude and behavior regarding Israel and Palestine. One need not be a psychologist to see ample evidence of oedipal tendencies. It is no secret that the president has been privately critical of what he perceives to be his father’s mistakes. Susskind notes, for example, that Bush defended his tilt toward Israel by telling an old foreign policy hand, “I’m not going to be supportive of my father and all his Arab buddies!” And it seems certain that Ariel Sharon gave the young Bush an earful about the efforts of James Baker, his father’s secretary of state, to do the unthinkable; i.e., crank Arab grievances into deals he tried to broker between Israel and the Palestinians. It seems clear that this is one reason the Baker-Hamilton report was dead on arrival.”
From what I remember, it was the Israelis that feared an Shiite expansion and recommended secret cooperation with the American sunni puppets regimes to give the impression that those countries have a concern of this shiite crescent, and not much after, voila, the sunni puppets starts raising a ruckus on Iran’s expansions.
McArthur’s vile way of spewing things, along with using authors like Craig Unger (who was part of the gang that goes on smearing Florida professor Sami Al-Arian) shows that he is nothing but a islamophobe (pretty much what the mainstream left does anyway). Unger might be a johnny come lately on saying the neo-cons are at it again with their plan on Iran (this is after completely ignoring them as the mastermind of Iraq (just like the corporate and mainstream left media) and instead kept pointing to Bandar Bush, a point not unnoticed by Michael Moore on his F911 movie), but MacArthur is still in denial.
I am sure it is not the Saudi lobby screaming about invading Iran. Look at the meetings between the two countries that took place the State level. I don’t see the Saudis using the phrase “existential threat” like senators like Clinton is repeating regularly. Only Israel uses that phrase, and I don’t think the Saudi lobby has persuaded her to hammer that phrase into people’s mind.
We could have as many famous people vilify the Saudi as much as they want, and you are sure not to have one congress member come and distance themselves from those statements. But if you do what Jimmy Carter said, heck, hell breaks loose.
Siouxrose–we’re in synch–synchronicity that is–write me at tlmac75@yahoo.com and tell me more about your script. It sounds really interesting.
Saudi lobby, Isreali lobby….what ever happened whats best for the American people? There are so many issues that I see here on CD and think, well thats a nice idea but our representatives are owned by corporations and lobbies. What scares me is that the very people needed to pass meaningful legislation are too busy sucking on the money tit. I am scared that the only answer would be revolution, and I would rather fix what is not broken, just not working well.
that came out funny….
Fix the system that isnt broken,just not working well
Uh….It IS broken.
The Saudis are not the dummies they are cracked up to be by Westerners. I spend part of each year in the Gulf and I always have some super sharp Saudi graduate students. (Almost as sharp as the Iraquis.)
More to the point, Abdullah is not the profligate playboy that his brother was, and things are slowly changing in Saudi. Two years ago they had their first municipal elecions–a baby step but a step towards democratic process.
The Saudis are well aware that the US is in the toilet waiting to be flushed, that the horizon shows a multipolar world–with the big energy producers being part of that–and they are wanting to start playing geopolitics on their own.
wangman. The mainstream left is Islamophobic? The corporate and mainstream left media? I don’t think you eyes and ears are seeing and hearing reality. I for one have not heard anyone one the left talk in a manner that could be defined as Islamophobic. What I have read are for the most part even handed discussions of various topics. As to the mainstream media being leftist, you are just flat out wrong. Do you know who owns the major media outlets? If you do, you will see that not one of the owners of television and media is left leaning. They are all owned by right wing businesses. The news we are allowed to read or hear is filtered and dumbed down. Do you think Fox News is a left leaning media outlet? Why would the New York Times allow its reporters to publish unsupported material in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq? Why would the Washington Post give a page to Alberto Gonzales in an attempt to cover the truth? In fact, only one day later, what Gonzales had written in the Post was proven wrong in some e-mails the committee investigating the firing of the 8 US attorneys had just read.
Please, look at the facts and read a little more of what is posted here. I think you will find that most everyone posting here tries to be fair and respectful of others. If I make a mistake about something, I am kindly told about it and why, often with referrals to verify their claims. The last thing I would like to say is that I think the people who write their thoughts, feelings and experiences are progressive thinkers. The term “leftist” has lost its meaning.
hybridma2001,
I should have used the term mainstream liberal, since that is a term that floats in whatever direction the wind blows. Left is always left. As far as the mainstream liberal being islamophobic, all you have to see Michael Moore’s F911, quoting Craig Unger (who is so anti Bush that he is willing to go to any length to dig the dirt on him, including smearing Sami Al-Arian). You just have to see all those that come to denouce the beating of Sihk Hindus mistaken for Muslims. But when Muslims gets beaten, it is just silence. There is almost complete silence on the mass registration of Muslims along with wholesale deportation, splitting up families on the way. Why is the mainstream liberal all worked up on Darfur and why does it even attract right wing christian groups? Why the absolute silence on the conflict in Congo with its death that is much much higher? Is it because in Darfur, one group of people are constantly labeled arabs while the other blacks even though they are all african blacks?
As far as mainstream media being leftist, you misread what I wrote. “corporate and mainstream left media” are two distinct entities, one being the corporate media, which is also known as mainstream media. They are the ones who spews government propaganda as if it is the truth, along with instilling fear in people, whether announcing any dark skinned person on the loose that had committed any kind of crime, or the potential terrorist target that could be right in your neighborhood. The other entity is mainstream left, which often spews the DNC talking points. That group includes Air America, Kos, buzzflash and much of the others that sticks with the Democrat’s view no matter which direction it goes. There are many lines where the mainstream left won’t cross, like support for Nader, denounce the Iraqi sanction genocide by Clinton, truth on Chavez or anything Israel.
MacArthur’s Harper’s is just another variation of The New Republic.