Washington feels betrayed. Riyadh doesn’t understand why. A resetting of the Carter doctrine could restore trust between them.
The sudden crisis in US-Saudi relations is one of the worst — yet most unnecessary — in a partnership that has lasted almost 80 years. While it’s understandable that Americans are outraged at a decision by the Saudi-led OPEC+ group to cut petroleum production and bolster prices, both sides have failed to understand each other’s perspectives.
Viewing the production cut through the prism of the Ukraine war — Russia is part of the OPEC+ coalition — Washington feels betrayed. President Joe Biden’s administration believed that it had assurances Saudi Arabia would not raise prices, especially with Europe facing a cold winter and a lack of Russian natural gas. Washington, along with the United Arab Emirates, unsuccessfully urged the Saudis not to take this step.
The US perception is that Saudi Arabia instead sided with Moscow, given that high oil prices will strengthen the Russian economy against sanctions. The Saudis have also stumbled into US domestic politics. Democrats in general have a negative view of Saudi Arabia, bluntly expressed by candidate Joe Biden in 2019 when he threatened to treat the country as a “pariah.” Democrats in Congress are now threatening Saudi Arabia with harsh reprisals and want to downgrade the relationship with what they see as a faithless ally.
This attitude is partly rooted in the perception that the Saudis are aligned with Republicans, especially former President Donald Trump. They assume Riyadh is attempting to put its thumb on the scale to help Republicans in next month’s congressional elections and even set the stage for a Trump comeback.
The Saudis have a very different point of view. The official line is that it is “just an economic decision” — but it’s more than that. It’s a strategic move in the broadest sense, yet not aimed against Washington and even less toward Moscow. Saudi Arabia is attempting an epochal socio-economic transformation in short order. The country has a few decades to use its remaining oil revenue to remake itself into a society that can function without relying on petroleum exports.
It had a long-term policy of seeking to maintain oil at $100 a barrel, which Washington was comfortable with for a long time. In recent months, the price per barrel was steadily dropping, and the OPEC+ move was designed to maintain an $80 per barrel minimum and, the Saudis hope, sustain it at $90 per barrel, consistent with their development plans.
The Saudis weren’t thinking about Ukraine — like many people in Asia and Africa, they don’t think in absolute terms of being pro- or anti-Russian — although that was certainly shortsighted. And it’s frankly narcissistic for Democrats to imagine that the Saudis are adjusting their national grand strategy around the upcoming midterm vote. Once the Trump administration declined to respond to the devastating Iranian drone and missile attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities in September 2019, any lingering sense that Republicans were the answer for Saudi concerns evaporated.
Americans are shocked because they expected Saudi Arabia to be more attuned to US imperatives. Saudis are taken aback because they don’t see why anyone is surprised or any of this is a big deal.
It’s not just incompatible perceptions at work. There’s an underlying deficit of trust. The US wants and expects Saudi cooperation, above all on energy pricing. Saudi Arabia wants and expects US security support, but feels its protector is shifting its attention to Europe and especially China.
But the countries do still need each other. Only the US can provide Saudi Arabia the security it requires. And the Saudis are the only plausible regional partner for the still-strategically crucial US dominance in the waterways of the Persian Gulf, which constitutes one of Washington’s most potent forms of leverage over rivals like China.
After tempers cool, the US needs to formulate a new security commitment to Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia. This would effectively update the 1979 Carter doctrine — a pledge to rebuff any nation that attempts to dominate the Gulf by force — and respond to contemporary threats like the 2019 missile attacks. And that agreement, of course, would be contingent on the Gulf Arabs renewing their commitment to US interests and Washington’s global as well as regional strategies.
Without such a new commitment, this long-lasting alliance is likely to deteriorate into a transactional relationship that is much less useful to both sides.
The next OPEC+ meeting, on Dec. 4, gives the Saudis an important opportunity to adjust the pricing decision. It’s essential they do that in coordination with Washington, as a first step toward repairing a partnership that has lasted so long because it offers so much.