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On the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some developments have refocused attention on the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. On August 27, the US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines (Avril Haines) asserted state secret privileges in a civil lawsuit filed by a Saudi-controlled entity against a former senior official of the Saudi government to prevent the leakage of classified information.
A few days later, under continued pressure from the families of the 9/11 victims, US President Joe Biden instructed the Department of Justice to review the FBI’s investigation documents into the attack for declassification and public release.
Twenty years have passed, and the remaining problems of the 9/11 incident continue to cast a shadow over bilateral relations. Since the terrorist attacks, bilateral relations have developed greatly in certain aspects. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers are Saudi nationals, and the mastermind Osama bin Laden is a member of one of Saudi Arabia’s most successful business families. This fact threatens to create U.S.-Saudi relations since the beginning of full diplomatic relations in 2017 The biggest rupture. The 1930s. Some Saudi leaders, including Interior Minister Nayef bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, initially refused to admit that the Saudis were involved in the attack, which caused additional anger.
After 9/11, a “homecraft industry” composed of think tanks, columnists, and retired officials appeared to defend the “special” nature of the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia and put it in the background. In their narrative, it tells of 1945 The legendary meeting between President Franklin Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia on the aircraft carrier Quincy on the Suez Canal.
However, when the American political scientist Robert Vitalis examined this issue, he found that not only did the 1945 meeting not mention oil or security, but the “oil for security” first appeared in 2002, which is 9/11 attack. Since then, the term has been widely adopted and considered to have historical significance.
As far as the special relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia is concerned, it emerged after 9/11. Washington and Riyadh worked closely together. The former hunted down Al Qaeda and their Taliban host in Afghanistan, and later extended its “war on terrorism” to Iraq in 2003. And Saudi Arabia, through diplomacy rather than force in other less intrusive or intrusive ways. For example, just imagine that if 15 of the 19 hijackers were Iranians, the reaction might be different.
The 9/11 incident did not completely disappear, although 20 years later, the “old guard” of the high prince in power at the time in Riyadh was removed, and only King Salman remained in this generation.
The United States continues to pay attention to charitable fundraising activities in Saudi Arabia, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not claim until 2009 that private donors in the country continue to constitute “the most important source of funding for Sunni terrorist organizations in the world.”
In 2016, both houses of Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism Supporters Justice Act (JASTA) by an overwhelming majority, which shows that 9/11 still produced a powerful and sometimes populist political legacy.
After overcoming the pitfalls of the emotional period after 9/11 and ensuring the political and strategic sustainability of relations with the United States, it is paradoxically that the Saudi leader spent most of the second decade after 2001 They are all in a certain state of anxiety about their relationship with Washington. From the perspective of Riyadh, compared with 2001, the period of 2011 and beyond worries them even more.
In the eyes of Saudi Arabia, the United States believes that the United States has “abandoned” its long-term regional partner, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in response to the Arab Spring, the Obama administration’s willingness to contact Islamic organizations that Saudi Arabia considers a threat, and the subsequent disclosure of secrets in 2012 -The dialogue between the United States and Iran in 2013 is more worrying than the consequences of 9/11.
Ironically, given that the Saudi leader enthusiastically greeted Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory and generously received him during his first visit to the president in May 2017, the decision made during the Trump administration Further disrupted bilateral relations. When Trump supported Saudi (and UAE) blockade of Qatar on Twitter in June 2017, he initially sided with Saudi (and UAE) but faced opposition from his State Department and Ministry of Defense and military commanders , He quickly changed direction.
Subsequently, the Saudi-led military operation in Yemen caused strong public and political opposition in the United States. In October 2018, the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, triggering an almost unanimous Disgusted.
There are two issues that may bring the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia into an unknown new field. The first is the politicization and individualization of relations in the Trump era, partly because people believe that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the president’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and other key figures have developed unhealthy intimacy. .
This has led Saudi Arabia into the polarization of American political discourse and reduced the bipartisan and institutional foundations of the U.S.-Saudi partnership. Although the leaders of Israel and the UAE are also closely related to the Trump White House, the U.S.-Israel relationship is based on common values that are difficult for the Saudis to replicate. The UAE has rebuilt its political position in Washington through the Abraham Agreement, creating a vision for the U.S. Some distance from Riyadh.
The second issue is that Riyadh is increasingly uncertain about the future of security. Leaders in Saudi Arabia and other regions believe this is the backbone of their security and defense partnership with the United States. To a certain extent, this is a repetition of the Obama administration’s belief that they have given up their interests, but this time has greater substance, especially since Trump not only failed to respond to Iran-related attacks on Saudi oil facilities in 2019, but also One point that distinguishes the interests of Saudi Arabia and the United States.
This shocked the leadership in Riyadh (and Abu Dhabi), who had long believed that they and the United States had the same interests in regional security, especially on any issue related to Iran, as they had in the beginning. The military operations in Yemen in 2015.
Soon, Mohammed bin Salman, who was only a teenager when the 9/11 attacks occurred, will rule Saudi Arabia and try to steer the kingdom into the middle of this century. One of his possible responses to the uncertainty of US-Saudi relations and his own political difficulties in Washington is to diversify Saudi Arabia’s defense and security partnerships.
These measures were deemed necessary after the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in chaos and Riyadh and other parts of the region generally believed that the United States was retreating from the Middle East. Sure enough, within a few days after the fall of Kabul, the crown prince’s brother and Deputy Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman signed a military cooperation agreement with Russia.
However, the dilemma facing the Saudis is still that no other country can rival the US partnership in breadth and depth, which makes Riyadh vulnerable to political and economic fluctuations.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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