Who needs Saudi Arabia? Not the US.

By

Opinion

October 17, 2018 - 11:52 AM

Saudi Arabia, so far, has tried bluster and bullying to silence the questions about journalist Jamal Khashog­gi, who disappeared in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago Tuesday. On Sunday, a regime statement threatened to “respond with a larger action” to any sanc­tion stemming from the case; Saudi-owned media floated such steps as cutting back oil production, buying arms from Russia and holding back counterterrorism in­telligence. On Monday, King Salman told President Trump in a phone call that he “de­nies any knowledge of what took place,” according to Mr. Trump, who added “it sound­ed to me like maybe it could have been rogue killers.”

That preposterous sugges­tion may have anticipated a change in the Saudi story; CNN reported that the re­gime was preparing to admit that Mr. Khashoggi died in an interrogation gone wrong. If so, there must be conse­quences not just for those who supposedly erred in kill­ing the journalist but also for whomever ordered the illegal operation in the first place. U.S. intelligence intercepts suggest the order came from Mohammed bin Salman, the reckless crown prince whose excesses had been criticized by Mr. Khashoggi in columns for The Post.

We expect to learn more soon: Whatever happened to Mr. Khashoggi appears to have been recorded on video or audiotape. In the mean­time, it’s worth considering just how much the United States might have to lose if its relationship with Saudi Arabia ruptured. What about that oil, and the $110 billion in arms purchases Mr. Trump keeps talking about? What about the war on terrorism?

Start with the oil. Saudi Ara­bia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Admin­istration, supplied 9 percent of U.S. petroleum imports in 2017, or about 960,000 barrels a day. But thanks to the shale revolution, the United States is essentially energy indepen­dent: It, not Saudi Arabia, is now the world’s largest crude-oil producer. Last year, U.S. daily oil exports averaged 6.38 million barrels, or nearly sev­en times the Saudi imports. If the Saudis cut back produc­tion or boycotted the United States, they could temporar­ily drive up prices, but the beneficiaries would be U.S. shale companies, which over time would fill the gap — and deal a devastating blow to the Saudi oil industry.

AS FOR ARMS sales, someone needs to brief Mr. Trump on the actual results of the promises made to him when he visited Riyadh last year. As Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution sums it up, “The Saudis have not concluded a single major arms deal with Washington on Trump’s watch.” More­over, an end to supplies of U.S. spare parts and techni­cal support, something Rus­sia cannot provide, would quickly ground the Saudi air force. That would have the welcome effect of ending a bloody bombing campaign in Yemen that a U.N. investiga­tion concluded was probably responsible for war crimes.

Saudi Arabia does supply the United States with coun­terterrorism intelligence. But as Andrew Miller of the Project on Middle East De­mocracy points out, stopping it “would be a colossal er­ror . . . when there’s already a strong perception in Con­gress and with Americans that Saudi Arabia has fueled extremism.” Mr. Miller notes that a law passed by Congress in 2016 opens the way for civil suits against the Saudi government for any terrorist acts it enables.

The reality is that Saudi Arabia, which, as Mr. Trump himself has crudely pointed out, would not survive with­out U.S. security support, has everything to lose from a break in relations, while the United States no longer needs the kingdom as much as it once did. Mr. Trump has overvalued the relationship and encouraged Saudi lead­ers to believe they can behave recklessly and even crimi­nally without consequence. Whatever the outcome of the Khashoggi case, a fun­damental reshaping of the relationship — mandated by Congress, if necessary — is imperative.

— The Washington Post

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