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To say the Middle East is a volatile region is an understatement, but its centrality to global stability is still often forgotten. In fact, the region could bring far more turmoil to the world without the influential power at the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, and its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), status quo powers with a vested interest in the smooth functioning of the global economic and political order.
Strengthening this foundation with a formal U.S.-Saudi security alliance would help keep the GCC firmly within the U.S. sphere of influence in an increasingly multipolar world. After all, these are countries that have the resources and the will to actively assist the United States in maintaining a U.S.-led regional order.
As the Houthis’ hostile actions against global shipping over the past six months attest, even small cracks in this order show just how much global chaos the region’s revolutionary forces can cause. So far, the Houthis have disrupted shipping lanes in the Red and Arabian Seas, causing huge increases in insurance and cargo prices, and presenting the United States and its allies with a conundrum of how to address the problem without landing troops to occupy Houthi-controlled Yemen. The Houthi challenge is only a harbinger of what will happen when responsible status quo states like Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are destabilized by revolutionaries like Iran and militias like the Houthis.
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That stability in the Arabian Peninsula is taken completely for granted by many Western observers shows a lack of imagination. Saudi Arabia is a country with wealth and holy sites that Islamic jihadists such as al-Qaeda and revolutionary Iran and its proxies have tried to subdue for decades. In fact, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the ultimate target for those who want to overthrow the US-led order in the region. To fail to recognize this and to not imagine what would happen if radical revisionist elements were to succeed in destabilizing Saudi Arabia is shortsighted and strategically dangerous.
FILE – Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman talks with U.S. President Joe Biden during the Jeddah Security and Development Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 16, 2022. (Bandar Al-Ghard/Courtesy of the Saudi Royal Family/Distributed via Reuters)
Controlling the Arabian Peninsula would mean control over roughly 50% of the world’s oil and gas reserves, and therefore control over global oil and gas prices, which would skyrocket in times of crisis, not to mention the influence of malevolent forces disrupting the heartland of Islam and affecting hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world.
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One example of this malign thinking can be found in the words of the late Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia who was killed in a US strike along with IRGC leader Soleimani. Iranian TV If he expected to be martyred for the liberation of Jerusalem, he replied, “Not in Jerusalem, in Riyadh!”
That is why helping Saudi Arabia secure and maintain a U.S.-led regional order through a formal security alliance between the two countries is critical to U.S. economic and national security interests. Moreover, this type of assurance would act as a powerful deterrent against Iran, emboldened in recent years by the weak U.S. response to a number of Iranian provocations, including the 2019 bombing of Saudi oil fields and the subsequent disruption of tanker traffic out of the Persian Gulf, and support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
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When American critics argue against a US-Saudi security alliance, they often emphasize the lack of “common values” between the two countries. What they mean is that Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, not a democracy, and therefore is not a suitable ally. Focusing solely on this difference ignores the many values and interests the two countries actually share, including a common desire for an open, capitalist global economy, predictable energy markets, safe trade routes, the containment of rogue states that violate international law, and a stable Middle East.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia is a country undergoing perhaps the most thorough and dramatic social, economic and religious reform of any modern country. The process has had its ups and downs, but what has been remarkable is the expansion of women’s rights, doubling female labor force participation, and eliminating Islamic extremism in all areas of life that were previously tied to conservatism. Saudi Arabia has transformed from a country that promoted radical Islamic conservatism around the world to one that today actively promotes tolerance among the global Muslim community.
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The kingdom still has significant challenges to overcome in reforming its legal system and improving its human rights record, a fact acknowledged by its leadership as it strives to unite the country through dramatic change in a highly polarized environment where radical religious dissent threatens to tear society apart.
The United States needs strong allies in this emerging multipolar world. Mid-sized countries like Saudi Arabia add great value to the U.S.-led world order. As an ally of the United States, Saudi Arabia will hold a vital part of the global political and economic infrastructure needed to maintain this order throughout the region and the world.
