Center for Middle East Policy

The only thing holding the [US-Saudi] relationship together now is Trump—he has a peculiar affinity for Saudi Arabia... I think this [in reference to the oil price war of April 2020] is a very significant and potentially existential moment in the relationship. There have been ups and downs, and no foreign country has inflicted as much economic pain as they did in 1973, but the relationship survived and recovered because there was still that basic bargain. But we don’t need the Saudis anymore—this comes in a very different geopolitical environment than previous crises... The image of oil sheiks rubbing their hands in glee as we waited to fill up with gas [in 1973] has never made them popular... There’s no question that the Arab Spring unsettled the U.S. relationship with the Saudis. For them, the U.S. response [to calls for reform in the Arab world] was way too sympathetic, and the relationship cooled... The Saudis have a deep problem with the Democrats, and that’s been clear for a long time. Now they have spoiled their relationship with Republicans... I think this time is different. If Biden wins, we will likely see a very fundamental reassessment of the relationship.

U.S. options are limited. Iran has done such harassment in the past, and the U.S. Navy has a set of procedures to handle it — so making a big issue of it may be a surprise to Tehran.... The United States could sink some ships or take a similar military response, but this would achieve little.

[The Saudis] are facing the perfect storm—weak oil, prices, pandemic, and quagmire in Yemen. [The combination] will impact stability [inside Saudi Arabia and possibly in throughout the region].

The clerics see people not going into the mosques physically as a manifestation of weakened power. [Their defiance of government orders was saying] look, our domain of control is the mosque and you cannot take this domain of control away from us.