Biden believes he really can’t boycott Bin Salman and put more pressure on him because Saudi Arabia is a long-term ally of the United States. On the other hand, it maintains and deters the influence of Iran in the region.
Despite many Saudi human rights cases of abuse and the crocodile tears shed by American policymakers over them, the United States will continue to be complicit in these crimes because the Saudis value the United States more than a barrel of oil.
To the editor: The U.S. . believes it cannot sanction the crown prince of Saudi Arabia for arranging the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi because the kingdom has been “a longtime Middle Eastern ally.” We accept limitations imposed by this marriage of convenience because they are necessary to contain “Iran and Islamic extremism.”
There’s another story to be told. Had the CIA not enabled the coup that toppled Iran’s democratically elected prime minister in 1953, then foisted on the Iranian people a monarch who ruled like Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman runs Saudi Arabia now, Iran could have been the strong democratically we need to contain a different extremist ideology: the Wahhabism that nurtured the 9/11 attackers and allows the Saudi royals to rule as absolute monarchs.
Despite however many Saudi human rights violations (and the crocodile tears U.S. policymakers shed over them), the U.S. will continue to be complicit in these crimes because the Saudis have us over a barrel — of oil.
