m a d aw i a l - r a s h e e d
BOOK REVIEW
U.S.–Saudi Relations: A Deadly Triangle?
Rachel Bronson. Thicker Than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia. New
York: Oxford University Press. xxxi + 353 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. $28.00.
Thicker Than Oil investigates the U.S.-Saudi relationship after this relation-
ship became controversial in the aftermath of 9/11. It scrutinizes the decision-
making process on both sides, by necessity an account of the policies of kings,
presidents, senior cabinet officials, royal confidants, and chief intelligence offi-
cers (p. 11). Bronson situates her narrative between two poles: Saudi bashing
in America and anti-Americanism in Saudi Arabia. For fifty years, the part-
nership rested on shared interests, held responsible for sowing current
radicalism in the Muslim world. Yet because it was an uneasy partnership,
the relationship had to be conducted behind closed doors for over half a
century.
For over fifty years, the U.S.-Saudi relationship proved to rest not only on oil
but also on two other important factors, geostrategic interests and Saudi reli-
gious identity, hence the title “Thicker Than Oil.” In addition to oil, Saudi
Arabia was important for the United States because of its location and religious
ideology. Since the Second World War, the United States sought a military
presence in the kingdom. The Dharan airfield, proposed in 1944, shortened the
air route to the Pacific. When this location provided unlimited capacity to
refuel, Saudi Arabia became extremely important for American overseas policies
and expansionist projects. Since then, Saudi territories became a transit hub for
American commercial and military interests. With the loss of Iran in 1979 after
the Iranian Islamic revolution, America relied more and more on Saudi strategic
territory for its overseas adventures.
Saudi religious outlook also proved to be a useful instrument in America’s
foreign policy. Saudi Arabia’s extensive proselytizing of a fundamentalist inter-
pretation of Islam was not a source of considerable concern because it had an
anti-Communist justification, writes Bronson. In fact, religion was a crucial
factor cementing the U.S.-Saudi partnership. America enlisted Saudi Islam to
fight its own enemies and the enemies of capitalist expansion, not only in the
Arab but also the Muslim world. Bronson introduces a factor rarely mentioned
in international relations studies into the equation of interstate relations. Saudi
Diplomatic History, Vol. 31, No. 3 ( June 2007). © 2007 The Society for Historians of
American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). Published by Blackwell Publishing, Inc., 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.
595
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Arabia’s religious identity, now contested and even detested in the United
States, was mobilized to fight America’s wars. This religious identity in the form
of a fringe interpretation within Islam proved to be crucial for defeating com-
munism during the Cold War, thus culminating in the collapse of the Soviet
Union after the Afghan Jihad, in which many Saudis and other Muslims par-
ticipated. Without Saudi oil and religious mobilization, the project of defeating
communism would not have been achieved in regions where it was least
expected to be thwarted.
In Riyadh, U.S. support was seen as a shield against subversive ideologies that
flourished in the Arab world, including communism and nationalism espoused
by Arab regimes that endorsed them. Mutual interests, therefore, consolidated
a partnership that was founded on multiple layers rather than the single factor
of oil.
The oil thesis is not new, as many international relations observers have
already explained the partnership in terms of this factor. The novelty of the book
lies in documenting how the three pillars of the partnership, namely oil, loca-
tion, and religion, served to maintain a unique relationship between two unlikely
partners.
There is substantial documentation and evidence cited in support of
Bronson’s thesis about the combination of oil, location, and religion all making
Saudi Arabia an important hub for U.S. national interest. Bronson lifts the veil
on the secretive and sometimes too intimate adventures and awkward cross-
cultural encounters between the leaderships of two countries separated by reli-
gion and political culture but united by their intrigues to maintain their own
respective interests, which at times contradicted the aspirations of substantial
sections of the population on both sides. Many in the United States regard Saudi
Arabia as a backward fanatical and undemocratic place where one can only do
business, whereas in Saudi Arabia, America is seen as a morally bankrupt society
with a biased political position in favor of Israel. Against such stereotypes, a
controversial partnership which in recent years became increasingly difficult to
camouflage, justify, or maintain developed and was consolidated by successive
American presidents and Saudi kings. Since the 1950s, America sought to
transform Saudi kings into globally recognized Muslim leaders for its own
interests, as long as Riyadh was willing to spend its revenues in American-
supported causes. This willingness, which was proved and enforced with every
regional crisis, earned Saudi Arabia considerable favor at the highest levels of
leadership in Washington.
Thicker Than Oil traces the historical development of the partnership since its
inception in the 1950s. Each of the thirteen chapters documents an episode in
the evolution of the relationship. Bronson stops at regional crises in Palestine,
Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, the Horn of Africa, Angola, and many
other locations to document the excesses and sometimes the folly of this part-
nership. Throughout the case studies of these varied and complex regional
conflicts and international crises, the Saudi-American connection seems to be
U.S.–Saudi Relations: A Deadly Triangle? : 597
prominent in shaping the outcome apparently in favor of both but in reality too
complicated to be classified as an absolute success story.
Bronson argues that the September 11 attacks exposed Americans to the dark
underside of U.S.-Saudi relations. Perhaps this is true, but people on the receiv-
ing end of this unholy alliance where U.S.-Saudi cooperation was enacted must
have been aware of some of the detrimental consequences. Americans must have
been the last to recognize the flaws and the last to know. “We did America’s dirty
work,” one Saudi told Bronson (p. 237). This dirty work was bound to backfire
as demonstrated in the book. The fragile and fractious partnership needed the
War on Terror to limp toward the future, in Bronson’s words.
It is unfortunate that throughout the book, Bronson uses ill-defined labels
and names. For example, she refers to “battles” between Saudi “pragmatists” and
“zealots” without further explanation. Sometimes, one may conclude that Saudis
critical of U.S. foreign policy are considered zealots, easily lumped together with
militants and radical Jihadis. Similarly, pragmatists are those who are likely to be
practical rather than ideological in their evaluation of the partnership. Some-
times one wonders whether Bronson considers King Abdullah a pragmatic
leader while his brother, Minister of the Interior Naif, a zealot, as he is more
“willing to cater to society’s most conservative elements” (p. 246). Similarly, is
Prince Turki al-Faisal, ex-Saudi ambassador in Washington, who carried out
U.S. policy in Afghanistan, a pragmatist or a zealot? Was he pursuing Saudi
national interests in Qandahar or an American war on Communist Russia? Or
were the two the same? Bronson hopes that Prince Salman, whom Bronson
describes as a pragmatic prince, would revive the U.S.-Saudi partnership if
appointed second deputy prime minister. If the post goes to the “conservative”
Prince Naif, Bronson anticipates a worsening of the relationship. Sections of the
book where such labels are thrown about without serious consideration of the
roles the various princes play in the Saudi polity tend to be superficial and can
easily slip into unfounded assumptions and superficial wishful thinking. Bronson
thinks in terms of a partnership based on intimate relations between individuals
rather than between nations. The partnership then becomes entirely dependent
on whether so-called zealots or pragmatists occupy the highest positions in the
policymaking hierarchy. We are not told in the book whether the same applies
in Washington. For example, what are the prospects for U.S.-Saudi relations if
policymakers in Washington move from being zealots to being pragmatists or
vice versa?
Another weakness in the book is Bronson’s assumption that terrorism is
a product of classroom teaching material rather than the policies that she
describes in over three hundred pages. Bronson admits that both the United
States and Saudi Arabia have contributed to today’s problems through sins of
omission or commission, but when she recommends solutions she seems to
forget the underlying causes she already identified. The problem for Bronson
is the “financing of extremist thought” rather than serious intrigues practiced
by both successive American administrations and Saudi princes, presidents,
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intelligence officers, royal confidants, and others who are responsible for current
security problems. The disputed religious discourse that Bronson and many
others identify as the source of terrorism is not new. It has existed in the region
for several centuries. It is only in recent times that this discourse was re-
appropriated by groups who saw in the U.S.-Saudi partnership humiliation and
subservience. The discourse that Bronson objects to seems to have been accept-
able when it was enlisted to fight America’s war during the Cold War, as she
considers religion one of the factors that endeared Saudi Arabia to the United
States. It is only when this discourse turned against its original sponsors, both in
Washington and Riyadh, that it became problematic. Perhaps it is better to turn
attention to the sins of omission and commission, which may actually prove
more productive in fighting terrorism. Reading the book, one comes to the
conclusion that 9/11 was a disaster waiting to happen.
The book will appeal to policymakers and the general public. It is written in
an accessible style, weaving anecdotal evidence with documentation.
