Breakfast with the ABGR

The American Business Group of Riyadh is a professional organization promoting business between American and Saudi companies. I've been impressed with the organization, while here and attended a breakfast they had yesterday. The speaker was Gregory Gause from the University of Vermont. I'll try to briefly summarize his talk. First, even though he identified himself as a lifelong Republican who switched parties, because of the Iraq war, he gave credit to both President Bush and King Fahd for spending lots of political capital on maintaing the US-Saudi relationship after 9-11. He then discussed what he saw as two myths and two legitimate problems in the future for US-Saudi relations.

Myth 1: China will began projecting force in the Gulf. This myth extrapolates from the fact that China increasingly has economic interests in the Middle East and will further those interests by projecting military power, thus threatening the U.S.'s own military. Gause thought that this was wrongheaded. He said for better or worse, the Gulf is more or less an American lake and it makes little sense for China to do anything but free ride off that fact. Since China's main interest is in the free flow of oil, and the U.S. was already providing the security to meet that goal, there is little reason for China to expend its own resources. Twenty years down the road the geopolitics may be different, but for now, he saw China as a non-problem.

Myth 2: The U.S. will sell out Saudi interests in brokering a deal with Iran. This is apparently a real concern from Saudis. The Saudis are in a precarious position, because they really don't want a U.S./Iranian conflict, since it may well play out in their backyard. But they also fear U.S. becoming too chummy with Iran and brokering a deal that hurts Saudi interests. Iran has 3 times the population of Saudi and have gained considerable power since we invaded Iraq. But Gause thought that Iran's power was a bit overblown. Iran has terribly mismanaged their own government and economy in recent years and not capitalized on the fall of Sadam. Also, if the U.S. couldn't dominate the region, there is no reason to believe Iran would be able to, even if the U.S. brokered an unlikely deal.

The two problems are:

Israel - No suprise here. The ongoing problem of the middle east that has been managed so far, but he pointed out that the Palestinian problem is increasingly a problem all Muslims identify with even if they have no connection to it directly. He thought that when Patreaus went before congress and said flat out that the lack of a Palestinian state was costing Amercian lives was not a monumental shift in policy, but enough to sit back and take notice.

Environment - He saw the U.S.'s new interest in Green technology and the environment as potentially a challenge for the relationship. The Saudis have fought a little bit to keep oil prices down below $100, helping broker important deals at OPEC in part to mitigate pressure to develop alternative energies. Gause didn't have a strong opinion about whether a Cap and trade or other important environmental bill would pass, but it is something that seriously concerns the Saudis.