Sandstorm between Riyadh and Washington

Feb. 14, 1945, on board the USS Quincy cruiser anchored on the Great Bitter Lake, located between the north and south of the Suez Canal, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al-Saud, known as Ibn Saud, struck a historic agreement: The United States would guarantee the security of the Saud Kingdom, while the latter would ensure the United States’ oil supply. This agreement was in fact the key to the modern Middle East: Riyadh became a privileged ally of Washington in the region, a role that would later be shared with Israel.

On March 28, 2014, Barack Obama, visiting Saudi Arabia for the first time since 2009, was received by King Abdullah — one of Ibn Saud’s last sons — in his Rawdat Khuraim residence, just northeast of Riyadh.

Diplomatic smiles for the official photo, which shows the two leaders sitting around a coffee table on which sits a huge bowl of sweets; a reassuring tone from the White House’s press release reaffirming a close relationship born seventy years earlier on the deck of the Quincy cruiser. Everything is misleading. It is far from the truth.

The world’s leading oil producer — the “House of Saud” — is concerned. It does not fully trust its American ally. Saudi Arabia assumes the leadership of the Sunni Camp — Islam’s largest branch — in the religious clash against the smaller Shia branch, led by Iran. There are growing fears that the ongoing Iranian nuclear negotiations could bring Tehran closer to Washington. The Saudi Kingdom further fears that the United States is less and less dependent on Saudi oil because of its growing shale gas exploitation.

Should this scenario develop further, Saudi Arabia fears it will lose its status as a privileged ally of Washington in the Gulf.

Obama’s intention was to reassure King Abdullah. The strange and old alliance between the largest Western democracy and the theocratic monarchy with a tendency to dictatorship still holds. The 35,000 U.S. troops deployed in neighboring emirates will not leave just yet. The United States will continue to superbly ignore the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia.

The conversation between the president and the monarch lasted two hours. Apart from that, Abdullah, who is 89 or 91 years old according to sources, is worn out. His health is not great. He is overweight (too many sweets?), he breathes with an oxygen tube in his nose, and cannot move without a walker. Tired, he must think of a difficult domestic succession in a moment when everything is externally capsizing. Abdullah’s half-brother, Salman, defense minister and former governor of Riyadh, is the crown prince. However, he is 78 years old and rumor has it he is ill. Being prudent, the king has already designated Salman’s successor, in the person of Prince Muqrin, the youngest of the monarch’s half-brothers. However, Muqrin being 70 years old, the transition is ever near: Ibn Saud’s grandsons, a new generation, perhaps a leap into the unknown?

Tehran, the “Snake’s Head”

On the deck of the Quincy cruiser, Roosevelt, charming and mindful of his host, had seduced Ibn Saud. The patrician from the United States’ East Coast and the Bedouin tribe’s chieftain appreciated each other. Abdullah and Obama, however, do not share the same relationship. The president is playing diplomacy. The Saudi king, on the other hand, is at war. He is of the opinion that the regional dominance of Saudi Arabia — Guardian of the Holy Places of Islam — is being threatened.

The main threat comes from Iran, known as the “snake’s head” in Riyadh. It is not even a nuclear Iran that worries the Saudis, but rather, the breakthrough of Tehran’s influence in the Middle East: in Damascus of course, with the ever increasingly narrow supervision of the regime by Iran; in Lebanon, with Hezbollah abiding by the Ayatollahs’ orders; and in Baghdad, with a Shiite-lead regime.

To Abdullah, who wants the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Obama’s wait-and-see policy in Syria and the opening of Washington-Teheran talks are alarming signals. He notices a dangerous overall reflux of the United States’ leadership in the world.

Nonetheless, things are not going so well in the Sunni family either. The Arab Spring has brought about the Muslim Brotherhood as a force capable of challenging the theocratic form of government found in Riyadh. This notion of an electoral Islamism — the Brotherhood’s plan — is anathema to the Saudis. The consequence? The King supports the military regime in Egypt and was angry at Qatar, accused of being a haven and henchman of the Brotherhood.

Saudi Arabia pays for some of its contradictions. Under pressure from a fundamentalist religious establishment, which the Saud family has to cope with, Riyadh has never hesitated playing the jihadist card in foreign policy. The Kingdom has spread the poison of its ultra-reactionary Islam everywhere. On behalf of the fight against Shiite’s progress, the Kingdom has helped groups affiliated to al-Qaida. The Kingdom also fears that the hundreds of young Saudis that are today enrolled in these groups could be a force of destabilization upon their homecoming. In a dramatic turnaround, the Kingdom now threatens them with heavy prison sentences when they come back.

An explanation from Stephane Lacroix, a political scientist specializing in the region: With a fast-changing Middle East they can no longer control as before, “the Saudis feel threatened.”

And the “House of Saud” does not entirely trust the White House anymore.