Arab-China Summit Leaves US-Mideast Relations on Rocks

With relations between Washington and Riyadh currently under strain, China’s leader Xi Jinping’s Dec. 7 trip to Saudi Arabia to meet with leaders of six Gulf Cooperation Council countries reportedly discussed prospective trade deals worth $29 billion including increased Beijing purchases of oil and gas in yuan payments to replace the U.S. dollar as the long-standing standard world reserve currency.

Amid heightened tensions under the Biden administration and a global reshuffling of power alliances accelerated by the Ukraine war, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E in particular, appear to be pursuing foreign policies with closer ties with China, and more independent of American influence.

Although China is already Saudi Arabia’s top trading partner and oil purchaser, growing military and geopolitical aspects of their expanded interactions warrant special U.S. concern.

In recent years, China has aided the Saudis in the development of ballistic missiles, construction of a facility to fabricate uranium yellowcake — an early step along the path to developing a civil nuclear-energy program or nuclear-arms capability, and the two countries have discussed building a naval base on the Red Sea, one of the world’s most strategic waterways.

Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest sites, has also publicly defended China’s policies in its western region of Xinjiang, giving cover to Beijing’s crackdown on the Uyghur Muslim minority, and supported China’s position on Taiwan.

In addition, Chinese construction and technology companies like Huawei Technologies Co. have secured large contracts in Saudi Arabia to build entirely new smart cities, upgrade the kingdom’s telecommunications infrastructure, and establish an artificial intelligence industry.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have had a rocky, yet durable bilateral economic and defense relationship dating back to a bargain struck between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and then-King Ibn Saud in the waning days of World War II which consummated the relationship 75 years ago.

The fundamentals underpinning this odd-couple alliance essentially involved U.S. security to the Saudis in exchange for assured access to then-vital oil supplies along with support for mutual anti-Iran terrorism interventions and other American and allied Middle East interests.

Although dynamic circumstances which originally prompted this marriage of convenience have changed and will continue to do so, both sides must consider dire consequences of divorce … threats to global security being chief among them.

Thanks to an energy revolution made possible by fracking over the past decade — prior to the Biden administration war on fossils — America had become not only independent of Middle East oil, but a net exporter as well.

Dramatic consequences of this unfortunate turn of events took global theater central stage prior to 2020 American midterm elections when Joe Biden returned from mid-July meetings with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman begging for help containing surging U.S. gasoline prices with empty hands.

This snub may have been influenced by Biden’s previous reference to Saudi Arabia as a “pariah,” and his threat to cut off military sales over the brutal 2018 slaying of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Subsequently, in an apparent peace gesture, the Biden White house recently acted to give Crown Prince bin Salman immunity from a lawsuit over the murder.

As reported in The National, a United Arab Emirates newspaper, bin Salman had wisely warned Biden during those meetings, "Adopting unrealistic policies to reduce emissions by excluding main sources of energy will lead in coming years to unprecedented inflation and an increase in energy prices and rising unemployment and a worsening of serious social and security problems."

The Biden administration’s obsession with reestablishing the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or “Iran Nuclear Deal” cancelled by Trump  also unpopular with Saudi’s and other U.S. Mideast allies — appears finally to be deservedly dead as a contentious issue.

One of Iran's obvious goals is to blow up last year's Abraham Accords negotiated by the Trump administration between Israel and several Arab states which afford the best opportunity for Jewish-Arab peace in decades as a potential united front against Iran's designs for regional dominance.

U.S. envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, indicated in late October that the Biden administration is no longer going to "waste time" on trying to revive the deal at this time considering Tehran's crackdown on protesters and support for Russia's war in Ukraine with Iranian drones used in attacks aimed at crippling the country’s energy network ahead of winter.

It should be noted that Malley had helped craft the original JCPOA as a member of Obama's National Security Council.

However, according to Bruce Riedel, a 30-year CIA veteran who directs the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution, "Riyadh’s concerns about Iran have never been primarily focused on the nuclear danger" because they have calculated risks that Iran would not be likely to use such weapons and they also believe the American nuclear umbrella protects them.

Riedel concludes that "The key Saudi concern is their belief that Iran seeks regional hegemony and uses terrorism and subversion to achieve it."

Saudi officials are now far more likely to lack confidence in America’s willingness or competence to afford protection from Iran evidenced by the Biden administration’s disastrously inept 2021 exit from Afghanistan.

An America weakened by self-inflicted energy policies and military capacities can’t be counted on to provide urgent leadership needed to prevent an already rocky Middle East allied relationship from careening further down the cliff.'