< continued from - The
Religion Card
[Part 6] >
Working with Washington
Although Saudi Arabia argued strenuously against the invasion of Iraq before it took place, since the overthrow of Saddam it has made clear that it hopes for and supports the success of U.S. efforts to restore order. This position clearly does not mean that the Saudis have agreed with everything the United States has done in Iraq. For example, Saudi leaders opposed the dismantlement of the Iraqi Army and the Baath Party, both of which they argue were key institutions that should have been purged and then utilized for the reconstruction of the country. The Saudis contend that both decisions had the effect of unnecessarily making enemies of many who might otherwise have been neutral toward the occupation.
Despite these differences over the past, and Saudi anxieties over the empowerment of Iraqi Shia, U.S. and Saudi objectives toward Iraq are now largely in harmony -- for the time being. This harmony was reflected in Saud al-Faisal's statement to the Saudi-British Forum shortly after the Iraqi elections, which could as easily have been given by a U.S. official: "We must also work for a stable and unified Iraq, at peace with itself and in harmony with its neighbors. We are heartened by the electoral process and results in that country. And we must work together to achieve what the Iraqi people deserve." [26] Adel al-Jubeir, adviser to then�Crown Prince Abdullah, had previously emphasized the importance of U.S. success in Iraq in a speech to the Los Angeles Committee on Foreign Affairs on October 4, 2004, urging that the United States not give up on restoring order to Iraq and saying, "You must succeed. The challenge is, how do you do it, but you must persevere if you want stability in the region."
The Saudis' desire for stability in Iraq and for cooperation with the United States was also visible in then -- Crown Prince Abdullah's initiative proposing the establishment of an Arab-Islamic force to help secure Iraq, a proposal that the White House rejected publicly on October 18, 2004. Nevertheless, the fact that Saudi officials continued to cling to the idea well beyond the point that Washington considered it dead should be interpreted as clear evidence of Riyadh's interest in helping the United States cope with the Iraqi situation.[27]
If reservations about the politics and the practicalities led Washington to snub the Saudi proposal for an Arab role on the security front, Saudi reservations have likewise led Riyadh to temporize on steps the United States would like to see the kingdom take on the economic and diplomatic front. While Riyadh managed to put a positive spin on its response to former U.S. secretary of state James Baker's plea for debt relief for Iraq in January 2004, its actual commitment was far less than the Bush administration might have wished. Instead of expressing willingness to write off all or most of the debt incurred by the Saddam Hussein regime, the Saudis merely indicated openness to negotiations over debt relief, those negotiations to be conducted only when a fully legitimate, permanent Iraqi government comes to power. Despite the January 2005 elections and the installation of the transitional government, however, the farthest the Saudis have gone is Foreign Minister Saud's recent expression of readiness "to look into the matter of reducing Iraq�s debt burden" and to say, rather vaguely, that "with the formation of the Iraqi government, we are looking forward to direct talks on writing off debts." [28]
Given the windfall the Saudi treasury has realized from the oil price boom (a projected budget surplus of more than $50 billion for the current fiscal year [29]), this may be an opportune time to make concrete progress on debt relief. However, several factors argue against dramatic steps on that front. In the first place, the Saudis still have an enormous debt of their own, amounting to an estimated $164 billion, accumulated during the years of slumping oil prices; paying down that sum is the highest priority for the current surplus.[30] Second, a range of social welfare programs that have received short shrift over the past decade levy further demands on the surplus. Addressing such domestic needs and expectations in a country with high unemployment, a huge youth bulge, and serious questions about social stability is probably a higher priority for the Saudi government than doing favors for the Iraqis. Third, maintaining the kingdom's posture as the world's swing producer of petroleum requires enormous investments in infrastructure. Saudi Aramco plans to spend some $30 billion to increase crude production capacity by 2.5 million barrels a day over the next five years and additional billions to enhance its downstream capabilities in the areas of refining and petrochemicals.[31] Finally, and perhaps most important, the Saudis and their Gulf neighbors have always been loath to forgive debts in any case, feeling that generous rescheduling�or, rather, leniency in demanding timely repayment�provides a more effective way of maintaining leverage than the good will accrued by outright cancellation. It may well be that the Saudis are hedging their bets against the resurgence of a hostile Iraq, over which they would want to be able to exert leverage. Whether they understand that continued temporizing on this issue could well contribute to such hostility is open to question.
Still, Riyadh is not sitting completely idle; at a donors' conference in June 2005, Foreign Minister Saud pledged $1 billion for Iraqi reconstruction. On the other hand, this seems to be the same $1 billion commitment that the Saudi government "renewed" when interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi visited Riyadh almost a year earlier, at which time the Saudis also committed to the establishment of diplomatic relations and the expansion of trade ties. While some $300 million of humanitarian aid has already been given, according to Prince Saud, the diplomatic promises, like the agreement to discuss debt relief, still await fulfillment.
As it looks to Saudi Arabia to help legitimize and strengthen post-Saddam Iraq diplomatically, the United States must bear in mind that attempting to leverage the new government in Baghdad into becoming the point of the wedge for an Arab deal with Israel will encounter stiff Saudi resistance. It is not that Saudi Arabia opposes a peace agreement; indeed, the new king has been in the forefront, at least among Arab leaders who are not already at peace with Israel, in pushing for a settlement very much along the lines proposed in the Bush administration�s "Road Map for Peace" initiative. Given the right opening, Abdullah might even be prepared to renew his long-standing peace proposal and, if the U.S. president shows personal commitment to the process, to take an active role himself; the war in Iraq, however, has made it harder for him to do so than in the past. The Saudi leadership is acutely attuned to charges that the United States is doing Israel's bidding in Iraq, and that the royal family is culpable for aiding and abetting that work by having allowed the use of its facilities to prosecute the war. For the Saudi regime to be seen as abetting the Israeli agenda�even if only by supporting an Iraqi government that gets too far in front of the Arab consensus toward Israel�might well be political dynamite within the kingdom.[32] In particular, Washington cannot expect its Saudi partners to stand aside quietly if it chooses to push the new government in Baghdad toward a separate peace.
Nevertheless, as the foregoing makes clear, there remains ample room for the Saudis to make a greater contribution to the long-term stabilization of Iraq. More could be done to address the problem of border security, an issue of deep concern to both Riyadh and U.S. officials in Baghdad, as well as to the new Iraqi government. The more progress is made on the Iraqi political front, the stronger the position of the Iraqi government, along with the United States, to go back to the kingdom and insist that it make good on its commitment to negotiate in good faith on the question of debt relief.
The kingdom may also be able to help Iraq and the United States diplomatically, particularly with Syria. Saudi Arabia has shown in the past that it can contribute to the moderation of Syrian behavior -- as in the case of the Taif Accords to end the Lebanese civil war -- and Abdullah, as crown prince, was able to use his personal ties to Syria in 1999 to help avert a looming Turkish-Syrian confrontation. This influence might be useful in pushing Damascus toward more effective control over foreign fighters trying to enter Iraq by way of Syria. As the dominant partner in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Saudi Arabia could also take the lead in shaping a constructive collective policy toward Iraq on trade and investment issues.
Finally, the extent to which Saudi Arabia will be inclined or able to help the United States with the political and economic reconstruction of Iraq or anything else will be limited by the kingdom�s need to focus on two interrelated aspects of its own political future, the first of which is the issue that looms over all discussions of the future direction of Saudi policy -- namely, the question of generational transition in the royal succession.
With the passing of his half-brother Fahd, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz now will have only a few years to grapple with the nagging question of how to get the next generation of princes into the succession picture. As politically problematic as it is, this is not a challenge that can be put off much longer. Since the death of the founder of the modern Saudi state more than half a century ago, the throne has passed from elder brother to younger. The youngest of King Abdul Aziz's sons are nearing 60 years of age; the eldest are in their eighties, and it seems apparent that some arrangement on moving on to the grandsons must be reached in the fairly near future. The alternative would appear to be a chain of brief reigns by increasingly elderly monarchs. Yet one must also assume that Prince Sultan, the new crown prince, would lead his five surviving full brothers in blocking any move to settle the issue until they have had their turn on the throne and can guide the outcome of the decision. The intra-family politiking that will be involved in dealing with this issue will further limit the ability of any ruler to pursue policies on any issue outside the bounds of family consensus, but it is improbable in any case that any successor in the immediate future will be any more supportive of U.S. objectives than Abdullah has been.
< continued - Conclusion
/ Notes
[Part 8] >
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Notes contained in Part
8 >
Complete Report (PDF):
Saudi Arabia and Iraq: Oil, Religion, and an Enduring Rivalry
Joseph McMillan
Complete Section:
Iraq and Its Neighbors - USIP
