Saudi Arabia Exerts Itself

Is the United States-Saudi Arabia alliance undergoing potentially unprecedented strains? That is a difficult question to answer without visibility into what is happening behind the scenes. But, from the vantage point of someone whose primary job is simply running a website, the answer appears to possibly be "yes." The de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is not exactly known for his subtlety. This is a man who, after all, had a journalist opponent bone-sawed and once invited most of his domestic opponents — including relatives — to the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh where they underwent "psychological abuse and — in some cases — torture" in order to force them to sign away much of their wealth. As such, one would expect that the Saudi Crown Prince would express his views by a means more visible than, say, tea leaves. Indeed, some fairly obvious signs have appeared.

For decades, Saudi Arabia has been a key ally of the United States. The U.S. has sold billions of dollars of weapons to the Saudis, who, in turn, have invested heavily in the United States. The Saudis' use of dollars for selling petroleum and the subsequent need for dollar reserves has helped strengthen the dollar. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has had especially close ties to the Saudi regime. Saudi Arabia was the first foreign destination for Trump during his first presidential term. It might have been the first foreign stop of his second term as well had not Pope Francis' funeral intervened. As it was, Saudi Arabia was Trump's second foreign destination of his second term. On that trip, MBS, as the crown prince is known, pledged $600 billion worth of new Saudi investment in the United States. When MBS returned the visit a few months later, he increased the pledge to $1 trillion.

Saudi Arabia has also invested personally in Trump and his family. The Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, invested $2 billion in a fund controlled by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Saudi conglomerate Dar Global spent millions of dollars to license Trump's brand for real estate deals. The Public Investment Fund also invested heavily in the LIV Golf Tour, that has held a number of events at Trump's golf courses.

The first sign that Saudi Arabia, or perhaps more specifically MBS, might not be happy with Trump came when Saudi Arabia pulled its LIV investment and announced that the tour would end this year. Trump spent this weekend at his golf course in Virginia, which was hosting what now might be its last LIV event. Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly suffering significant economic damage from the United States-Israel war on Iran, and its sovereign wealth fund probably does need to reconsider its investments, but there must have been many options that were much less personal for Trump. It is hard to see Saudi Arabia ending LIV funding as anything other than a shot across Trump's bow.

In case stopping LIV funding was not clear enough, MBS sent a much stronger signal of his displeasure a few days later. On May 3, Trump announced "Project Freedom," an U.S. initiative to assist ships trapped in the Persian Gulf due to Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz to traverse the strait. The following day, two U.S.-flagged ships were escorted by the U.S. Navy through the strait, but then Trump paused the project. It soon emerged that Trump's hand had been forced by a Saudi refusal to allow the U.S. to use bases in the kingdom or its airspace. As NBC News reported:

A call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not resolve the issue, the two U.S. officials said, forcing the president to pause Project Freedom in order to restore U.S. military access to the critical airspace.

It is extraordinary that Saudi Arabia refused the U.S. the use of its territory and that even a direct call from Trump to MBS could not change things. This forced Trump into an embarrassing reversal. Subsequently, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia announced that they have resolved their differences, but given that Project Freedom has not resumed, that might be nothing more than a public relations ploy.

An even more explicit indication of Saudi dissatisfaction came two days ago in the form of an article titled "This is how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman succeeded" first published in the Arabic language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat and later published in Asharq Al-Awsat's sister newspaper, the English-language Arab News. Both Asharq Al-Awsat and the Arab News are owned by brothers of MBS and the newspapers are largely seen as royal family mouthpieces. The author of the article was Prince Turki Al-Faisal who previously served as Saudi Arabia's head of intelligence and also did a stint as the kingdom's ambassador to the United States. It can safely be assumed that Al-Faisal's article reflects the views of the royal family.

Early in the war, there were suggestions that MBS supported the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran and was even hawkish, urging stronger attacks. These were followed by rumors that MBS was egging on Trump to "finish the job." This article directly refutes such claims. In the first paragraph, Al-Faisal writes, "the Kingdom had initially worked hard to prevent" the war and then "made intensive efforts to stop and resolve [the war] diplomatically." So, right off the bat, Al-Faisal says that Trump's war is one that Saudi Arabia did not want and would like to end peacefully. For Trump, this public display of opposition must hurt.

Al-Faisal indicates that Iranian deterrence worked with regard to Saudi Arabia, writing:

Had the Kingdom wanted, and it is capable of doing so, to respond in kind to Iran by destroying Iranian facilities and interests, the outcome could have been the destruction of Saudi oil facilities and desalination plants along the Arabian Gulf coast, and even deep inside the Kingdom.

Al-Faisal then goes further and says:

Had the Israeli plan to ignite war between us and Iran succeeded, the region would have been plunged into ruin and destruction. Thousands of our sons and daughters would have been lost in a battle in which we had no stake. Israel would have succeeded in imposing its will on the region and remained the only actor in our surroundings.

The allegation that Israel's plan was to create a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is quite extraordinary. Even more significant is the suggestion that Israel is attempting to establish itself as the sole regional hegemon and that Saudi Arabia is not necessarily comfortable with that development.

Al-Faisal gives full-throated support to the peace process and adds:

As for the advocates of war, they continue in their arrogance and cawing, perhaps unaware that the rug has been pulled from under their feet.

While Trump is not mentioned in this article and the U.S. is only mentioned once (in the context of a reference to the "US-Israeli war on Iran"), this is obviously a message meant for American leaders, including Trump. The message could not be more clear: Saudi Arabia does not want the fighting to resume and, rather, wants a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is not interested in Israel being established as the sole dominant power in the region and believes that Israel wanted Saudi Arabia's destruction.

I want to again emphasize that this is not a random radical author writing this, but rather a member of the Saudi Royal Family who has held high-level governmental positions and who is writing in the mouthpiece of the Royal Family. As is MBS’s style, there is no subtlety here.

As I have written repeatedly, Trump has the choice between a humiliating agreement with Iran or an escalation of the conflict (which will probably only delay a humiliating agreement). This choice may now have been taken out of Trump's hands. The Saudis have acted to prevent the use of U.S. military force by bringing a quick end to Project Freedom and have now signaled their preference for a negotiated outcome. Trump will be lucky to reach a deal that is only a little worse than the one negotiated by former President Barack Obama, that Trump tore up. More likely, Trump will only be able to reach an agreement that is considerably worse. This will be mortifying to Trump, but the Saudis are clearly telling him to take the "L". Moreover, as the Saudis have shown by cutting their funding for LIV, they are quite capable of making things personally uncomfortable for Trump if he ignores their wishes.

Typically on the weekends, Trump is very belligerent in his Truth Social posts about Iran. Yesterday, however, after receiving Iran's latest negotiating proposal, Trump wrote, "I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!" However, there were no threats to destroy Iran's civilization or to bomb Iran's civilian infrastructure. This was very much out of character for Trump and could suggest that he now understands that the fighting is over. The next step will be for him to swallow his pride and accept the best offer he can get from Iran, which will likely not be a very good offer.