Stephen Kinzer on Saudi Arabia: U.S. Foreign Policy vs. Wahhabi Clergy

Last week, I had a chance to attend a talk by the eminent New York Times journalist and writer, Stephen Kinzer. Kinzer's talk centered on Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, the countries he wrote about in "Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future." While discussing the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, Kinzer mentioned about the deepening schism in relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. In this piece, I share some of Stephen Kinzer's insights into the history of U.S.-Saudi relations and Saudi politics.

Following the end of World War II, the United States was in need of a strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia. On that note, Kinzer recalled a story: Upon the conclusion of the Yalta conference, Franklin D. Roosevelt did not go back to Washington directly. Instead, he traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in order to have a three day meeting with the King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud. The two leaders had long conversations about apple pies, American battleships, and their ailments while partaking of a goat, slaughtered especially for American Presidnet. Roosevelt even presented King Saud with an extra wheelchair, which the king accepted with gratefulness. Kinzer noted that, amid the Cold War, the two nations had strong incentives for cooperation, despite their inherent differences.

Mostly because of strong military ties and foreign policy calculations, Saudi Arabia's relationship with America became intimate in the following decades, despite tensions following the Arab-Israeli war in the early 1970s. The reason why Saudi Arabia choose the U.S. as its major partner is straightforward, according to Kinzer. The Saudis chose the U.S., since America, unlike Britain, France or Soviet Russia, was "very far away." Seeking to avoid the old powers' meddling, Saudi Arabia opted for closer engagement with the United States. After the end of the Cold War, however, the U.S.-Saudi relationship underwent an important change.

Although ties remained strong in such areas as defense cooperation and oil trade, Saudi Arabia embarked on a path of political independence from Washington. As Vice President of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Rachel Bronson, argued in her op-ed "5 Myths About U.S.-Saudi Relations": "deep oil reserves have never translated into easy relations with the United States." Kinzer's take on the changing relations between Riyadh and Washington is that the two nations have very little, if anything, in common, and the relationship will likely grow more controversial in the future.

Stephen Kinzer made several pungent comments about Saudi Arabia, including the one that the fundamental basis of this country is [hypocrisy]. The foundation of the regime lies in support for the U.S. and support for Wahhabi clergy. Accordingly, the ruling family has to wither between the two, since the interests of America and the clergy are discordant. Seeking to preserve dictatorial rule, the Saudi regime made a pact with the clergy to "export islam" and build mosques across the Muslim world. After 9/11, this contract became a fait accompli. Kinzer's view is that if the Saud House reneges on its promises to the Saudi Wahhabi clergy, the regime will be overthrown. Hence the adverse implications for U.S.-Saudi relations. On the decline of the UN bid by Saudi Arabia, Kinzer held that this decision was made by the king. He argued that neither the clergy nor strong groups among six thousand prices want to see a change in Saudi Arabia, and their opposition towards U.S. foreign policy ultimately dissuaded the king from accepting the bid.

The Speaker's Bio:

Stephen Kinzer is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has covered more than 50 countries on five continents. The Washington Post called him "among the best in popular foreign policy storytelling." He was the New York Times bureau chief in Managua, Berlin and Istanbul. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. He is a columnist for The Guardian and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books.

His many books include "The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War" (2013), "Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future" (2010), "A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It" (2008), "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq" (2006), "All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror" (2003), and "Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds" (2001).