We’re Not Part of the Challenge to American Political Identity; Matters that Are Constant Won’t Become Variables

The U.S. intelligence report represents nothing more than soft warfare, an attempt to use tools and techniques to control public opinion about the current U.S. administration, first and foremost, by resurrecting certain issues from the Donald Trump era, and is an effort to demolish his strategic achievements to serve the current administration’s interests.*

The U.S.-Saudi relationship did not begin with the current administration, as the United States knows from history. When two of the world's great personalities, King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, met aboard the USS Quincy in 1945, they established the fundamental rules of this strategic and inviolable relationship for strategic reasons of concern not only to these two countries, but for international stability and maintenance of the global order.

The U.S. intelligence report, unacceptable in all its details, does not test the political standing of the Saudi leadership, either at the international or the popular level, as Saudi society shows unprecedented loyalty to the governing institution in Saudi Arabia, led by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who, through his accomplishments, has achieved prominent standing at the international and regional level, as well as among the people.

Historical fact will ensure that the constants in the Saudi-American relationship do not become shifting variables. Throughout their long history, Saudi Arabia and the United States have experienced many political tight spots. Perhaps the crisis of the 1973 oil embargo provides the best evidence that this solid relationship will not see matters that are constant become variables just because the current U.S. administration has endorsed an intelligence report that used semantically imprecise language to reach its conclusions. The report’s language incorporated the use of speculative terms in both Arabic and English (e.g., "assess," "highly unlikely," "probably," "suggests," "claimed publicly," "we judge").

Before we consider the important question underlying this report and the timing of its publication, it is important to point out that the Kingdom has, in fact, been more honest and transparent than the report. Saudi Arabia published its forensic data on the case of Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi through official channels and made it available to the world without hesitation. The Kingdom allowed international bodies to attend court proceedings, and released public statements that explained the circumstances of the heinous crime, which Saudi Arabia rejects and which stands in contradiction to Saudi Arabia's values, political history and Islamic values.

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a direct response to this report, affirming that “the Kingdom's government categorically rejects the report's offensive and inaccurate findings about the Kingdom's leadership and cannot accept it in any way.” Its official statement on the report further stated, “It is truly regrettable that such a report and the false and unjustified findings contained therein would be released at a time when the Kingdom has condemned this heinous crime and its leadership has taken the necessary steps to ensure that such an unfortunate incident would not happen again in the future. The Kingdom rejects any measure infringing upon its leadership, its sovereignty and the independence of its judicial system.”

The important question revolves around the circumstances that push the current U.S. administration to put strategic relations at risk with its most important allies in the Middle East. The U.S. strategy tries, through American officials themselves, to affirm the depth of this relationship, and yet it publishes an intelligence report of uncertain credibility that, in language more speculative than anything else, insults a strategic ally surrounded by the United States' international adversaries, China and Russia. The U.S. wants to revisit the killing of a Saudi citizen, an incident recognized by Saudi Arabia, which, acting through an independent judiciary, has held those who carried out the killing accountable.

Does the Biden administration’s action come as part of an effort to undo the previous president's legacy and forge a political identity in order to bridge the gap left by Donald Trump after 2020, all at the expense of a strategic ally? The American political identity is marked by a contentious relationship between engagement and separatism, between the left and the right. The American nation is facing the emergence of an ideological disparity that appears to be challenging the principles set forth by the Founding Fathers.

The U.S. intelligence report represents nothing more than soft warfare, an attempt to use tools and techniques to control public opinion about the current U.S. administration, first and foremost, by resurrecting certain issues from the Trump era, and is an effort to demolish his strategic achievements to serve the current administration’s interests. The report has created new interpretations of how Joe Biden wants to return America to the world stage. On the other hand, the Biden administration is aware of the danger of undermining strategic alliances that have contributed to America's success and secured its strategic interests since World War II, and therefore we have witnessed efforts to reinforce this relationship between allies, given a turbulent international atmosphere that presages the rise of strong competitors for America’s standing in the global arena.

*Editor’s note: The author is referring to a Feb. 11 declassified report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence entitled “Assessing the Saudi Government’s Role in the Killing of Jamal Khashoggi.”