Professor Madawi Al Rasheed

Rachel Bronson Thicker Than Oil America’s Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia  Council of Foreign Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, hardback, 353pp, ISBN-13: ‎‎978-0-19-516743‎

Thicker than Oil investigates the U.S-Saudi relationship after this relationship became controversial in the aftermath of  9/11. It scrutinises the decision making process on both sides, ‎by necessity an account of the policies of kings, presidents, senior cabinet officials, royal confidants and chief intelligence officers (pp. 11). Bronson situates her narrative in between ‎two poles: Saudi bashing in America and anti-Americanism in Saudi Arabia. For fifty years, the partnership rested on shared interests, held responsible for sowing current radicalism ‎in the Muslim world. Yet because it was an uneasy partnership, the relation had to be conducted behind closed doors for over half a century.   ‎

For over fifty years, U.S-Saudi relationship proved to rest not only on oil but also on two other important factors, geostrategic interests and Saudi religious identity, hence the title ‎‎“Thicker than Oil”.  In addition to oil, Saudi Arabia was important for the U.S because of its location and religious ideology. Since the Second World War, the U.S sought a military ‎presence in the Kingdom. The Dhahran airfield, proposed in 1944, shortened the air route to the Pacific. When this location provided unlimited capacity to refuel, Saudi Arabia ‎became extremely important for American overseas policies and expansionist projects. Since then Saudi territories became a transit hub for American commercial and military ‎interests. With the loss of Iran in 1979 after the Iranian Islamic revolution, America relied more and more on Saudi strategic territory for its overseas adventures.  ‎

Saudi religious outlook also proved to be a useful instrument in America’s foreign policy. Saudi Arabia’s extensive proselytizing of a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam was not a ‎source of considerable concern because it had an anti-Communist justification, writes Bronson. In fact religion was a crucial factor cementing the U.S.-Saudi partnership. America ‎enlisted Saudi Islam to fight its own enemies and the enemies of capitalist expansion not only in the Arab but also the Muslim world. Bronson introduces  a factor, rarely mentioned ‎in international relations studies into the equation of inter-state relations.  Saudi Arabia’s religious identity, now contested and even detested in the U.S was mobilised to fight ‎America’s wars. This religious identity in the form of a fringe interpretation within Islam, proved to be crucial for defeating Communism during the Cold War,  thus culminating in ‎the collapse of the Soviet Union after the Afghan Jihad, in which many Saudis and other Muslims participated. Without Saudi oil and religious mobilisation, the project of defeating ‎Communism would not have been achieved in regions where it was least expected to be thwarted. ‎

In Riyadh, U.S support was seen as a shield against subversive ideologies that flourished in the Arab world, including Communism and nationalism espoused by Arab regime that ‎endorsed them. Mutual interests, therefore, consolidated a partnership that was founded on multiple layers rather than the single factor of oil. ‎

The oil thesis is not new since many international relations observers had already explained the partnership in terms of this factor. The novelty of the book lies in documenting how ‎the three pillars of the partnership, namely Oil, location and religion, served to maintain a unique relationship between two unlikely partners.  ‎

There is substantial documentation and evidence cited in support of Bronson’s thesis about the combination of oil, location and religion, all made Saudi Arabia an important hub for ‎U.S. national interest. Bronson lifts the veil on the secretive and sometimes too intimate adventures and awkward cross-cultural encounters between the leaderships of two countries ‎separated by religion and political culture but united by their intrigues to maintain their own respective interests, which at times contradicted the aspirations of substantial sections of ‎the population on both sides.  Many in the U.S regarded Saudi Arabia as a backward fanatical and undemocratic place where one can only do business while in Saudi Arabia America ‎is seen as a morally bankrupt society with a biased political position in favour of Israel. Against such stereotypes a controversial partnership which in recent years became ‎increasingly difficult to camouflage, justify or maintain, developed and was consolidated by successive American presidents and Saudi kings. Since the 1950s America sought to ‎transform  Saudi kings into  globally recognised Muslim leaders for its own interests, as long as Riyadh was willing  to spend its revenues in American-supported causes. This ‎willingness which was proved and enforced with every regional crisis earned Saudi Arabia  considerable favour at the highest levels of leadership in Washington. ‎

Thicker than Oil traces the historical development of the partnership since its inception in the 1950s. Each of the thirteen chapters documents an episode in the evolution of the ‎relationship. Bronson stops at regional crisis in Palestine, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, the Horn of Africa, Angola,  and many other locations to document the excesses and ‎sometimes the folly of this partnership.  Throughout the case studies of these varied and complex regional conflicts and international crises, the Saudi-American connection seems to ‎be prominent in shaping the outcome apparently in favour of both but in reality too complicated to be classified as an absolute success story. ‎

Bronson argues that the September 11 attacks exposed Americans to the dark underside of the U.S-Saudi relations. Perhaps this is true but people on the receiving end of this unholy ‎alliance  where U.S-Saudi co-operation was enacted must have been aware of some of the detrimental consequences.  Americans must have been the last to recognise the flaws and ‎the last to know. “We did America’s dirty work”, one Saudi told Bronson (pp. 237). This dirty work was bound to backfire as demonstrated in the book. The fragile and fractures ‎partnership needed the War on Terror to limp towards the future, in Bronson’s words. ‎

It is unfortunate that throughout the book Bronson uses ill-defined labels and names. For example, she refers to ‘battles’ between Saudi ‘pragmatist’ and ‘zealots’ without further ‎explanation. Sometimes, one may conclude that Saudis critical of U.S foreign policy are considered zealots, easily lumped together with militants and radical Jihadis. Similarly, ‎pragmatists are those who are likely to be practical rather than ideological in their evaluation of the partnership. Sometimes one wonders whether Bronson considers King Abdullah a ‎pragmatic leader while his brother Minister of Interior Naif a zealot, since he is more ‘willing to cater to society’s most conservative elements’ (pp. 246). Similarly, is Prince Turki ‎al-Faisal, now Saudi Ambassador in Washington, who carried out U.S policy in Afghanistan a pragmatist or a zealot? Was he pursuing Saudi national interests in Qandahar or an ‎American war on Communist Russia? Or were the two the same? Bronson hopes that Prince Salman, whom Bronson describes as a pragmatic prince, would revive the U.S-Saudi ‎partnership if appointed second deputy prime minister. If the post goes to the ‘conservative’ prince Naïf, Bronson anticipates a worsening of the relationship. Sections of the book ‎where such labels are thrown without serious consideration of the roles the various princes play in the Saudi polity tend to be superficial and can easily slip into unfounded ‎assumptions and superficial wishful thinking. Bronson thinks in terms of a partnership based on intimate relations between individuals rather than between nations. The partnership ‎then becomes entirely dependent on whether so-called zealots or pragmatists occupy the highest positions in the policy making hierarchy. We are not told in the book whether the ‎same applies in Washington. For example what are the prospect for U.S.-Saudi relations if policy makers in Washington move from being zealots to being pragmatists or vice versa?   ‎

Another weakness in the book is Bronson’s assumption that terrorism is a product of classroom teaching material rather than the policies that she describes in over three hundred ‎pages.  Bronson admits that both the U.S and Saudi Arabia have contributed to today’s problems through sins of omission or commission but when she recommends solutions she ‎seems to forget the underlying causes she already identified. The problem for Bronson is the ‘financing of extremist thought’ rather than serious intrigues practised by both ‎successive American administration and Saudi princes, presidents, intelligence officers, royal confidants and others who are responsible for current security problems. The disputed ‎religious discourse that Bronson and many others identify as the source of terrorism is not new. It existed in the region for several centuries. It is only in recent times that this ‎discourse was re-appropriated by groups,  that saw in the U.S-Saudi partnership humiliation and subservience. The discourse that Bronson objects to seems to have been acceptable ‎when it was enlisted to fight America’s war during the Cold War as she considers religion one of the factors that endeared Saudi Arabia to the U.S. It is only when this discourse ‎turned against its original sponsors, both in Washington and Riyadh, that it became problematic. Perhaps it is better to turn attention to the sins of omission and commission, which ‎may actually prove more productive in fighting terrorism.             Reading the book, one comes to the conclusion that 9/11 was a disaster waiting to happen.  ‎

The book will appeal to policy makers and the general public. It is written in an accessible style weaving anecdotal evidence with documentation.  ‎