Israel and Saudi Arabia longtime regional rivals actually share some common ground.
Both nations contain ample quantities of desert and Israel is slowly developing into an international energy giant albeit on a smaller scale than the Saudis.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are boxed in by enemies mainly Iran and its various proxies and both countries are chafing at the bit to reduce their military dependence on the US.
There’s one more expression of commonality. Both are profoundly disappointed with an Obama administration foreign policy that in their view has contributed to the implosion of the Middle East since the so-called Arab Spring began four years ago this month.
This formed the backdrop for President Obama’s visit this week to Saudi Arabia during which he paid respects to its deceased monarch King Abdullah and met with its newly crowned king Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Obama met Salman on his previous visit to Saudi Arabia last March but this time Obama will likely get an earful.
“The Saudis in general are disappointed with a lack of robustness in American leadership and they will let their feelings be known to the Americans” says Dr. Joshua Teitelbaum a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. “They feel that America has not done enough to stop Iran has done nothing to bring down the regime of Bashar Assad and that the US invaded Iraq against Saudi wishes which resulted in a pro-Iranian Shiite regime in Iraq.”
That’s just for starters says Dr. Teitelbaum.
“The Americans don’t like that el-Sisi overthrew Egypt’s elected Muslim Brotherhood regime while the Saudis are delighted to have a military strongman in power in Egypt. The Saudis are giving Egypt money and America is withholding money. Saudi Arabia also doesn’t like how America has been cozying up to Qatar whom the Saudis see as a rival.”
Saudi Arabia is still the world’s largest oil exporter though the United States is currently the world’s largest oil producer for the first time in decades. While the US has reduced its dependence on foreign oil in general and on Saudi oil in particular 1 million of the 7 million barrels of oil a day that the US imports comes from Saudi Arabia according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Oil prices have crashed from $110 to $45 a barrel on world markets in the last year. The Saudis with an estimated $12 trillion in proven oil reserves even at today’s prices engineered this drop by not reducing production in response to slacker demand to put the squeeze on weaker competitors including Iran Russia Venezuela and even the US where talk of America achieving 100% independence from foreign oil in the next generation is now on hold.
“The Saudis want to make it unprofitable for the American oil industry to extract shale oil ” explains Dr. Teitelbaum. “The Saudis don’t want to see oil prices this low forever but it has a huge cushion and is willing to use that to weaken its competitors. I don’t think Saudi Arabia’s new regime will change that policy.”
Yet there is a limit to how far Saudi Arabia might go in pushing the US into a corner — when they feel cornered themselves.
The desert kingdom is the world’s 13th-largest country by land mass but it is sparsely populated and its borders are difficult to defend.
A nuclear Iran threatens Saudi Arabia as much as if not more than it does Israel. Just as Iran funds proxies such as Hamas Syria and Hezbollah to menace Israel Iran looming to Saudi Arabia’s northeast across the Persian Gulf has similarly hemmed in Saudi Arabia.
Iran is behind the new Shiite-led government in Iraq on Saudi Arabia’s 500-mile long northern border. The newly installed Shiite government that just took control in Yemen is a potential threat along an 800-mile southern border.
While Saudi Arabia also considers the more geographically distant Israel an enemy state they would like to emulate Israel in one respect.
“The Saudis are trying to develop room to maneuver unilaterally as Israel does ” says Dr. Teitelbaum. “Saudi Arabia sees Israel carrying out military operations independently from the US according to its interests and they would like to develop the same capability.”
While reports have surfaced that Israel and Saudi Arabia have met surreptitiously to discuss their mutual security dilemmas and that there might even be an informal regional alliance in the offing including Egypt and Jordan Dr. Teitelbaum suggests taking this news with a grain of sand.
“None of this means that Saudi Arabia and Israel have much in common. They really don’t but at times mutual interests do bring countries together.”
—Binyamin Rose