Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, of the NY Times, write The Interpreter, a newsletter on many different subjects. The latest one discusses our relationship with Saudi Arabia and raises the question as to how important this relationship is to us. Their conclusion - not very.
They consider five items in their analysis:
1.Oil
We don't need it. We are making more than ever. There are many more producers than there ever were.
2. Mutual Enemies
The second most common argument for the alliance is that the United States needs the Saudis to combat shared enemies. There are two problems with this. First, the list of shared enemies has shrunk from three (the Soviet Union, Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq) to just one: Iran. Second, this formulation gets things mostly backward. It is the Saudis who need the United States to combat their enemies, not the other way around.
3. Counterterrorism
On this issue we deal with a lot of unfriendly states, including Russia.
4. Stability
n the rest of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is not so much upholding stability as the status quo. Those are not necessarily the same things.
5. Arms sales
We don't have the numbers, $100 billion in sales - that Trump boasts. Saudi Arabia is hardly the world’s only prospective buyer of American military equipment.
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