You can't question our alliance with Saudi Arabia without questioning our alliance with Israel. Well, you can, but the former flows from the latter. If we're going to be allies with Israel, then Iran is our enemy. If Iran is our enemy, then Saudi Arabia is our friend. We've come up with all sorts of other rationalizations over the years, but that is the core of it.
I've begun to see the faintest whiffs of questioning the Saudi alliance among the foreign policy establishment, but I suspect our deeply pro-Israel sentiments will prevent anything from changing for a long time.
Israel and the Saudis are pretty close allies. To the extent that the two have plotted out air corridors by which Israel jets could fly through to bomb Iran.
Your understanding is wrong. Saudi Arabia has great relations with Israel - they're just not being officially flaunted that much. In fact, not only is Israel's politicians and state apparatus acting in synch with Saudi positions and interests, but even the media and academia are awash with pundits and so-called experts which are essentially parroting the skewed Saudi outlook: Demonization of Iran, presentation of almost every conflict in the region as Shiites vs Sunni, suppression of criticism of US/Saudi-supported regimes and strong men, ignoring the government's active support of Islamic fundamentalists etc.
There are political differences to be expected, but let me try to explain why the USA is willing to rub elbows with the Saudis and not with Iran. My credentials are this: I spent 6 months working on strategy in the CENTCOM AOR bitching about every single country in the Persian/Arabian Gulf every single day. The choice is one of picking the lesser of two evils. The USA has a great interest in keeping and increasing its geopolitical influence in the Middle East (Israel is not included in this region even though we have to plan for their actions). The two main regional powers in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia and Iran. We used to be friendly with both countries back in the 1970s but Iran had a revolution and the Ayatollah didn't want anything to do with us, and it remains that way today. Although the current President of Iran (Rouhani) has mentioned that he would like to improve relations with the USA, he is not the boss regardless of how many people voted for him; the Ayatollah is the Supreme Leader and he still openly calls for the death of Israel and the USA. So we obviously can't be friends with Iran. That leaves us with Saudi Arabia, and while they also sponsor terrorism, they are all we have left. We overlook their actions, and in exchange we are allowed to keep a significant military force there, which props up their government and provides them with a pretty big stick when negotiating with the smaller countries in the region (the only other stick they really have is their gargantuan oil production). So our PATRIOT batteries protect the family of Saud from Iran, and we get to have a little say in their goings on. It's as simple as that. Just about everybody we deal with is a piece of scum that would like to see the USA brought down a peg, but Saudi Arabia doesn't do it openly and they depend on our money and protection, so we get along a little better than them. Iran openly calls for our destruction. The last several US presidents, both Republican and Democrat have decided that it's better for us to support Saudi Arabia than not have any influence in the Middle East at all. The only other option is to withdraw our forces (without Saudi Arabia's cooperation we would probably lose our basing agreements with all the other countries in the region) and have no say whatsoever and watch as the Middle East goes in a direction that isn't beneficial to the USA in the slightest.
--And to get back to the topic of the parent post, yeah, this is exactly what the NSA is supposed to do. It is supposed to do two things: Secure the information of the USA and its citizens, and to undermine the security of everything else. A lot of US citizens were upset when they found out that the NSA vacuum had gotten their information as well, and rightfully so. But the NSA is still primarily focused on targeting external entities, and although those entities are well within their rights to complain, don't expect the NSA to stop just because someone didn't like it. Regardless of what a federal judge says about collecting on US citizens, no judge will EVER tell the NSA to stop its clandestine activities on foreign networks.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are "mortal enemies" on many levels, India is an option but it co-develops allot of its weapons with Israel.
Also don't confuse overt and covert politics in the Middle East.
There's allot of posturing and pretense on the surface but allot of cooperation under it.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are as close to allies as they can be in the current geopolitical landscape.
But then who has "really" been an ally since whenever? All sovereign nations have national interests, and they are not 100% allied with the US interests.
Still, in the case of Saudi Arabia, their most important security concern is Iran. And there, they are aligned with the US. Also, the US is the most important security partner of Israel, and, according to wikipedia [1], Saudi Arabia has quite a good working relationship with Israel
reports have surfaced in recent years indicating extensive behind-the-scenes diplomatic, intelligence, and security cooperation between the two as part of a larger Arab-Israeli alliance against Iran (see Iran–Israel proxy conflict and Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict) and, more recently, Turkey under Erdogan. At the same time, the Saudi relationship with the Palestinian National Authority is deteriorating.
A former general working for Saudi Arabia is in no way traitorous. It absolutely makes sense, both in their personal interest, but also in the general US national interest.
Yes, I know about Kashogi. But those guys are not going there to tell MBS to kill more disidents. They are going there to give security advice. And that security advice will benefit the US, not hinder it, because it will result in a stronger ally, not a stronger enemy.
The friends we've chosen in the region also don't help us. Neither Saudi Arabia nor Israel are particularly well-liked in the region (and that's putting it lightly), but both are seen as US puppets.
Honestly I don't think we really care much anymore what the Saudis think; the regime has fantastic wealth but very little real power beyond holding the purse strings for hyper conservative terror groups. I think eventually the hypocrisy and opulence of the regime will cause the terror groups to throw off their former masters and come after them -- and all credible reports say the Saudi army isn't much more than a facade propped up by a handful of US contractors. We probably wouldn't let them fall to terror groups, but we also aren't really comfortable propping up a regime that is actively funding a proxy war against us.
I have the same impression. Unfortunately the Saudis have the oil and that makes them valuable allies. Whereas Iran is basically at war with Israel, which means the US will never be able to be in good terms with them.
Have you been following the Middle East news lately at all? Israel is clearly allied with Saudi camp, and there already have been plenty of almost official visits.
Saudi Arabia has a much larger budget to spend on arms deals (the real US interest) and allying with Iran would anger Israel who the US considers an important ally (for tech, geopolitical, military, and electoral college reasons).
The Saudis are kind of like a Bishop (our chess piece) checking a Knight (Iran) from doing anything too nuts (and once upon of time, Iraq). I’d also say they act a little bit like West Germany as a forward base against the Soviet threat (kind of an old model at this point, Obama mostly wanted to steer our forces east toward China going forward). Israel got hip to this too. The alliance is really Saudi Arabia, America, Israel.
In fact, I’d say they are a check on a region that could easily fall under the influence of Iran, Russia, and China. Global oil supply being messed with in a destabilized region is a concern, and festering of Islamic terrorism (think about how Russia let’s ransomware terrorists fester).
Russia would go pretty far to destabilize oil in that region. Plus, they are for sale. If we don’t pay them, China will.
The price for all of this is the same price the devil always charges - your soul and values. Genocide in Yemen in 2020, murdering of journalists (in an embassy, goodness), all done with impunity.
Saudi Arabia is hostile towards Iran and friendly towards the US (and therefore at least neutral towards Israel).
We like to maintain countries that are hostile towards countries that are hostile towards Israel for obvious reasons (enemy of my enemy, etc), especially if they are good trade partners.
The Saudis sell oil to us, we sell weapons to the Saudis, everybody benefits.
Well, except for the poor sods who have to live in an abusive theocracy, but we don't care about brown people, especially if they live far away from us.
I'm not sure friendly is a word I would use to describe Iran, and Saudi Arabia would exist with or without American support. The US-Saudi alliance is rocky at best, and only exists because the Saudis have oil, and largely persists because Saudi hates Iran, which is important to the US because of their strong alliance to Israel. You have to choose sides in the Middle East, and the US chose Israel. Everything else flows from there.
The US is an enabler of Saudi nonsense, but the Saudi state is not being propped up with American resources. They would be powerful in the region regardless of American support.
Why the heck are the Saudi's still considered 'allies' of the US. Besides the long-running terrorism concerns, there's the murder of Khashoggi, them spying not just on their own citizens but also on US ones, and they are currently waging a war against our domestic oil producers. With 'friends' like that who needs enemies?
I'm not really sure that Israel is the main force keeping Saudi Arabian regime out of harm's way, to be honest, even with the cooperation between them.
I've begun to see the faintest whiffs of questioning the Saudi alliance among the foreign policy establishment, but I suspect our deeply pro-Israel sentiments will prevent anything from changing for a long time.
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