By:
Andrew Gavin Marshall
In the midst of World War II, Saudi Arabia secured a
position of enormous significance to the rising world power, America. With its
oil reserves essentially untapped, the House of Saud became a strategic ally of
immense importance, “a matter of national security, nourishing U.S. military
might and enhancing the potentiality of postwar American hegemony.” Saudi
Arabia welcomed the American interest as it sought to distance itself from its
former imperial master, Britain, which it viewed with suspicion as the British
established Hashemite kingdoms in the Middle East – the old rivals of the
Saudis – in Jordan and Iraq.[1]
The Saudi monarch, Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman al Saud had
to contend not only with the reality of Arab nationalism spreading across the
Arab world (something which he would have to rhetorically support to legitimate his
rule, but strategically maneuver through in order tomaintain his
rule), but he would also play off the United States and Great Britain against
one another to try to ensure a better deal for ‘the Kingdom’, and ensure that
his rivals – the Hashemites – in Jordan and Iraq did not spread their influence
across the region. Amir (King) Abdullah of Transjordan – the primary rival to
the Saudi king – sought to establish a “Greater Syria” following World War II,
which would include Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, and not to
mention, the Hejaz province in Saudi Arabia. The image and potential of a
“Greater Syria” was central in the mind of King Abdul Aziz. The means through
which the House of Saud would seek to prevent such a maneuver and protect the
‘Kingdom’ was to seek Western protection. As the United States had extensive
oil interests in the Kingdom, it seemed a natural corollary that the United
States government should become the ‘protector’ of Saudi Arabia, especially
since the British, long the primary imperial hegemon of the region (with France
a close second), had put in place the Hashemites in Transjordan and Iraq.[2]
For the Saudis, the British could not be trusted.
The
Saudi King rose to power and established the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1927
and made formal ties with the United States in 1931. An oil concession was soon
granted to the Rockefeller-owned Standard Oil of California, and thereafter,
large quantities of oil were discovered in the Kingdom, thus increasing the
importance of the Saudi monarch. This was especially true during World War II,
when access to and control over petroleum reserves were of the utmost
importance in determining the course of the war. In 1943, President Franklin
Roosevelt acknowledged as much when he signed Executive Order 8926, which
stated that, “the defense of Saudi Arabia [is] vital to the defense of the
United States.”[3] United States Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes,
several months earlier, suggested to President Roosevelt that the United States
be more involved in organizing oil concessions in Saudi Arabia not only for the
war effort, but “to counteract certain known activities of a foreign power
which presently are jeopardizing American interests in Arabian oil reserves.”
That “foreign power” was Great Britain. In fact, there was immense distrust of
British intentions in the Middle East, and specifically in Saudi Arabia, on the
part of the State Department’s Division of Near East Affairs (NEA). A great
deal of this tension and antagonism, however, emerged from Saudi diplomacy
which sought to play off the two great powers against one another in the hopes
of securing for itself a better deal.[4]
Anthony
Eden, the British Foreign Secretary (and later Prime Minister), wrote to Prime
Minister Winston Churchill in September of 1943 that, “our difficulty is to
keep the Americans in line,” in relation to Saudi Arabia. As Roosevelt’s
Executive Order categorized Saudi Arabia as “vital to the defense of the United
States,” this allowed Saudi Arabia to qualify for the Lend-Lease program during
the war, reducing Saudi dependency upon the British, and which included arms
sales to the Kingdom. Following this event, British Foreign Office officials
lamented, “We would not dream of entertaining a direct application for arms
from a South American country for example, without at once consulting the
American arms representative in London and deferring to his views.” This, of
course, was a reference to Latin America in the context of the Monroe Doctrine
– America’s “backyard” – and thus, was implying, that the Middle East was
Britain’s “backyard.”[5]
Adolf
A. Berle, Roosevelt’s Assistant Secretary of State explained to the British the
objective of American designs for the Middle East. As Simon Davis summarized,
European imperial “spheres of influence were to give way to open political and
economic circumstances in which Americans interests were not to be demarcated
by other great powers.”[6] In short, it was to be the demise of formal
imperialism for the rise of informal empire, led by the United States. The
“open political and economic circumstances” desired by American officials were
in no small part influenced by petroleum concerns. Technical studies had been
undertaken which pointed to the Middle East as the most oil-rich region in the
world. At the time, Saudi Arabia was the only country in which American oil
interests had established themselves prior to World War II. The British had
actually approached the United States on behalf of the House of Saud in the
early 1940s to secure funds for the Saudi government, as the British were stretched
thin by the war in Europe. The United States had at first rejected the
proposals, suggesting that Saudi Arabia was British responsibility. The
American Minister in Cairo, Alexander Kirk, complained that such a move
suggested to the Arab world that the United States was “resigning to the
British all initiative in the Near East generally and in Saudi Arabia
particularly.” The Saudis then approached American oil companies for support in
1942, who in turn approached the State Department’s Division of Near East
Affairs, raising fears that leaving “responsibility” for the Near East and
Saudi Arabia to the British would eventually mean a loss of oil concessions in
Saudi Arabia to British interests. At the same time, Saudi officials were also
quietly approaching the British to increase their interest in the Kingdom,
suggesting that the Americans were attempting to maneuver the British out of
the Near East. The Saudi Foreign Minister told a British official in December
of 1942 that, “although [King Ibn Saud’s] relations with United States are
friendly both in themselves and because United States is Britain’s ally… yet
his relations with United States could never be so close and friendly as with
His Majesty’s Government with whom he has so many interests in common.”[7]
A
deceptive diplomatic game between the United States, Great Britain, and Saudi
Arabia ensued. As the Americans shifted their interest in Saudi Arabia in 1943,
Gordon Merriam, the assistant chief of the State Department’s Division of Near
Eastern Affairs suggested in January of 1943 that the possibility of the
British pushing their way into America’s oil concessions in the Kingdom after
the war “has been very much on our minds.” Secretary of State Cordell Hull
wrote that, “It should be kept clearly in mind that the expansion of British
facilities serves to build up their post-war position in the Middle East at the
expense of American interests there.”[8]
Britain,
however, was not trying to exclude the United States, but to include it in an
Anglo-American approach to the region. British Foreign Office documents
stressed that the British were “by no means prepared to sacrifice a century of
hard-earned political influence in the Middle East to their upstart American
cousins,” however, the British sought to “coopt rather than preempt US
interests.”[9] Churchill even wrote to Roosevelt to stress “the fullest
assurance that we have no thought of trying to horn in upon your interests and
property in Saudi Arabia.” The British even acknowledged in their internal correspondence
that, “it seems probably that sooner or later the United States will become the
foreign power most concerned with Saudi Arabian affairs.” The aim of the
British, then, was not to expand their influence at the expense of the
Americans, but to maintain their influence as the U.S. increased its own.[10]
In
July of 1944, British diplomat Lord Halifax wrote to the United States, “We
have made it perfectly plain that we have no wish to oppose increased American
influence in Saudi Arabia so long as it does not seek to crowd us out. But it
would be helpful if the Americans would realize that they cannot hope to
achieve overnight quite the same position that we have built up over long
years.” The United States was pressuring Britain to replace their representative
in Saudi Arabia, S.R. Jordan, over State Department fears that Jordan was the
primary British antagonist of expanding American influence in the Kingdom.
Jordan was ironically, at that time, writing in cables to the British that,
“Strategically, it would appear that we have little to fear from the presence
of increasing US participation in Saudi Arabian affairs.” What became most
frustrating to the British, however, was not the expansion of American power,
but rather the perspective of Americans at the State Department (with fears
stoked by the oil companies and Saudis) that the British were trying to keep
the US out of Middle Eastern affairs. As the British Minister of State in the
Middle East, Lord Moyne, observed, “I am afraid it is another of the many cases
we have had in the Middle East where the local American idea of cooperation is
that we should do all the giving and they all the taking.” As the British
realized the Saudi role in creating these fears among the Americans, Moyne
wrote, “It has subsequently turned out that the Finance Minister and the King’s
Syrian advisers have been furnishing misleading figures and exploiting their
position for political ends.”[11]
In
1944, President Franklin Roosevelt wrote a memo to the American Director of Economic
Operations in the Middle East in which he made clear: “The Middle East is an
area in which the United States has a vital interest.” That interest, of
course, was oil. Roosevelt made assurances that Middle Eastern oil belonged to
the Western imperialist nations and not the Middle East itself, as he wrote
that “the objective of the United States” in the Middle East “is to make
certain that all nations are accorded equality of opportunity,” and that
“special privileges… should not be afforded to any country or its nationals.”
This was, of course, indirectly referring to France and especially Great
Britain, the imperial hegemons of the Middle East. The “equality of
opportunity” to exploit the resources of the Middle East was simply referring
to the expansion of America’s “vital interest” in the region.[12]
In
1945, the British were increasingly frustrated with the American approach to
Middle East relations. Some internal documents from the British Foreign Office
reflected the varied positions of their diplomats:
The Americans
are commercially on the offensive… we shall enter a period of commercial
rivalry, and we should not make any concession that would assist American
commercial penetration into a region which for generations has been an
established British market.
For some years
the United States have been showing an increasing interest in the Middle East.
They worried us by an obstructive and disapproving attitude, the basis and
reason of which remained obscure… On the American side there is the lively
conviction that the USA have the right to go where they wish and to the extent
that they wish… But we, on our side, feel that the Americans, irrespectively of
any suspicion on their part that we are trying to exclude them, are trying by
means that seem to us both aggressive and unfair to build up a position for
themselves at our expense, or at any rate without regard to our established
interests.[13]
It
seemed, then, that both the Americans and the British feared and suspected each
other of attempting the same thing: to increase their own influence in the
region and decrease that of the other power. The Saudis, in the middle, were
playing a game between two great powers in the hopes of securing their own
interests. And they had good leverage which allowed them to play such a game:
oil.
There
was continuous reference to Britain’s apparent ‘right’ to the Middle East,
drawing the comparison to the United States Monroe Doctrine (of 1823) declaring
a U.S. ‘right’ to Latin America. As one British official wrote, “The U.S.
hasn’t invited us to share her influence in Panama… we are entitled to our
Monroe Doctrine in the Arab countries.”[14]
In 1945, President Roosevelt held a formal meeting with the
Saudi King aboard the USS Quincy. The issue of Palestine was an
important one in discussions, and was viewed as a major challenge to the cause
and potential of Arab nationalism across the Middle East. Roosevelt informed
Aziz that the U.S. would make “no decision altering the basic situation of
Palestine… without full consultation with both Arabs and Jews,” and that, “he
would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no hostile
move to the Arab people.” Aziz, in the meeting, also stressed the issue of
Syrian and Lebanese sovereignty, seeking to ensure they kept separate from a
potential Hashemite “Greater Syria,” to which Roosevelt ensured that if Saudi
sovereignty were ever under threat, the United States would undertake “all
possible support short of the use of force.”[15]
King
Ibn Saud asked Roosevelt, inquiring on the future of Saudi-US ties, “What am I
to believe when the British tell me that my future is with them and not with
America? They constantly say, or imply, that America’s principal interest in
Saudi Arabia is a transitory war-interest… and that America, after the war,
will return to her preoccupations in the Western Hemisphere… and that Britain
alone will continue as my partner in the future as in the early years of my
reign.” To this, Roosevelt assured the King that the United States would
maintain an interest and added that the America wanted freedom and prosperity
for all, while the British wanted “freedom and prosperity” which was marked:
“Made in Britain.” The King replied, “Never have I heard the English so accurately
described.”[16]
American interest in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East more
broadly did not die with Roosevelt. His successor, Harry Truman, was just as
eager to “open the door” to the Middle East. A 1945 memorandum to President
Truman written by the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs in the U.S.
State Department, Gordon Merriam, stated: “In Saudi Arabia, where the
oil resources constitute a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the
greatest material prizes in world history, a concession covering this
oil is nominally in American control.”[17] Adolf A. Berle, one of Franklin
Roosevelt’s closest advisers, particularly in relation to the construction of
the post-War world, years later remarked that controlling the oil reserves of
the Middle East would mean obtaining “substantial control of the
world.”[18]
For
King Abdul Aziz, his main concerns continued to be focused on his rivals, the
Hashemites, and the possibility of “Greater Syria.” This naturally increased
his interest in promoting the Palestinian cause of self-determination, and thus
also put him at odds with the United States on issues related to Palestine.
Abdul Aziz had spoken out against policies in Palestine, and was increasingly
framing himself as the leader of the Arab world. The rivalry between the Arab
kingdoms of Transjordan and Iraq on one side, and Saudi Arabia on the other,
prevented the Arabs from uniting on the issue of Palestine. The American
Minister to Saudi Arabia, James Rives Childs, warned that, “Unless we proceed
with the utmost circumspection in considering all phases of the possible
repercussions of the Palestinian question… we may raise difficulties for
ourselves in this most strategic area of vital national interest which will
plague the United States constantly in years to come.” However, while King
Abdul spoke out publicly against Western interference in Palestine, he
privately informed American officials that he intended “never to let Palestine
interfere with his relations with the United States… I’m talking big because
everyone else is… it seems to be the most effective course.”[19]
King
Abdul was increasingly worried about the British possibly supporting Jordan’s
King Abdullah in his plan for a “Greater Syria” as they sought to end the
British Mandate in Palestine and find a new alternative to the “Palestinian
question.” Between 1946 and 1947, Saudi princes relayed the King’s concern to
President Truman that there existed a British conspiracy with the Hashemites to
depose him and destroy the Saudi dynasty. The State Department informed the
Saudis that the United States had no information “which would cause it to
believe that the British government was giving support to any scheme for the
extension of British influence in the Middle East through the establishment of
a Greater Syria.” Abdul Aziz was not convinced, and felt “that the development
of strong economic ties with the United States offers the greatest possible
available insurance from invasion.” As the British handed the Palestine Mandate
to the United Nations in 1947, the Saudi King relayed to the United States that
the question of Palestine, and thus ‘Greater Syria,’ was “the only thorn in
Saudi-American relations.”[20] However, as the United Nations partitioned
Palestine, despite Saudi protests against the United States on the issue, King
Abdul Aziz wrote:
I occupy a
position of preeminence in the Arab world. In the case of Palestine, I have to
make a common cause with the other Arab states. Although the other Arab states
may bring pressure to bear on me, I do not anticipate that a situation will
arise whereby I shall be drawn into conflict with friendly western powers over
this question.[21]
In
1948, after a great deal of diplomatic back-and-forth on the Palestine issue,
the Arab states invaded after months of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian
population by militant Zionists in the British Mandate. Saudi Arabia, together
with Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and even Jordan and Iraq, invaded Palestine
immediately after the Zionists declared the State of Israel in May of 1948.
However, as the Arabs were distrustful of one another, their incursion was
doomed to failure, and they grossly underestimated the military strength of the
Zionists, which was built up under the British Mandate.
The
United States took a stated position of neutrality amid the conflict, in order
to prevent upsetting its relations with the Arab world, which already were so
damaged as a result of recognizing the state of Israel, an act which had
created immense protest and condemnation from the State Department. In January
of 1949, a cease-fire was signed between Israel and Egypt, and Israel emerged
the obvious victor in the 1948-49 war. Thereafter, the United States lifted its
arms embargo to the Middle East to provide the Saudis with military aid. The
United States had emerged from the birth of Israel with a deeply scarred image
in the Arab world, and with that, increased fear over Soviet expansion into the
area led the U.S. to conclude that it had to support “strong men” in the region,
such as Abdul Aziz. In 1949, a U.S. survey mission was sent to Saudi Arabia to
examine the potential for building up a strong Saudi military force. King Abdul
desired “a military force equal to or greater than the forces [of] Jordan and
Iraq.” The U.S. mission recommended “the training and equipping of a Saudi
defensive force totaling 43,000 officers and men, composed of 28,000 combat
troops and 15,000 Air Force support and logistic personnel.”[22] Thus, a strong
Saudi-American relationship was established as one of the main outposts of U.S.
influence in the Middle East, control over oil, and containment of the Soviet
Union.
The
aim, as articulated by State Department strategists, was to maintain
“substantial control of the world” through control of Middle Eastern oil: “one
of the greatest material prizes in world history.” In a 1948 State Department
Policy Planning Paper written by George Kennan – the architect of the
‘containment’ policy toward the USSR – it was explained that following World
War II, America held 50% of the world’s wealth, yet had only 6.3% of the
world’s population, a “disparity [which] is particularly great as between
ourselves and the peoples of Asia,” thus, destined to create “envy and
resentment.” The real task for America, then, wrote Kennan:
is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit
us to maintain this position of disparity without positive
detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all
sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated
everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves
that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.[23]
Notes
[1]
Maurice Jr. Labelle, “‘The Only Thorn’: Early Saudi-American Relations and the
Question of Palestine, 1945-1949,” Diplomatic History (Vol.
35, No. 2, April 2011), page 257.
[2]
Ibid, pages 257-258.
[3]
Ibid, pages 259-260.
[4]
Barry Rubin, “Anglo-American Relations in Saudi Arabia, 1941-45,” Journal
of Contemporary History (Vol. 14, No. 2, April 1979), page 253.
[5]
Simon Davis, “Keeping the Americans in Line? Britain, the United States and
Saudi Arabia, 1939-45: Inter-Allied Rivalry in the Middle East Revisited,” Diplomacy
& Statecraft (Vol. 8, No. 1, 1997), page 96.
[6]
Ibid, page 97.
[7]
Barry Rubin, “Anglo-American Relations in Saudi Arabia, 1941-45,” Journal
of Contemporary History (Vol. 14, No. 2, April 1979), pages 254-255.
[8]
Ibid, page 256.
[9]
Simon Davis, “Keeping the Americans in Line? Britain, the United States and
Saudi Arabia, 1939-45: Inter-Allied Rivalry in the Middle East Revisited,” Diplomacy
& Statecraft (Vol. 8, No. 1, 1997), pages 97-98.
[10]
Barry Rubin, “Anglo-American Relations in Saudi Arabia, 1941-45,” Journal
of Contemporary History (Vol. 14, No. 2, April 1979), pages 257-258.
[11]
Ibid, pages 260-261.
[12]
Letter from President Roosevelt to James M. Landis, American Director of
Economic Operations in the Middle East, Concerning the Vital Interest of the
United States in the Middle East, Foreign Relations of the United
States, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, 6 March 1944.
[13]
Amikam Nachmani, “‘It’s a Matter of Getting the Mixture Right’: Britain’s
Post-War Relations with America in the Middle East,”Journal of Contemporary
History (Vol. 18, No. 1, January 1983), pages 120-121.
[14]
Ibid, page 117.
[15]
Maurice Jr. Labelle, “‘The Only Thorn’: Early Saudi-American Relations and the
Question of Palestine, 1945-1949,” Diplomatic History (Vol.
35, No. 2, April 2011), pages 260-261.
[16]
Simon Davis, “Keeping the Americans in Line? Britain, the United States and
Saudi Arabia, 1939-45: Inter-Allied Rivalry in the Middle East Revisited,” Diplomacy
& Statecraft (Vol. 8, No. 1, 1997), pages 125-126.
[17]
Report by the Coordinating Committee of the Department of State, “Draft
Memorandum to President Truman,” Foreign Relations of the United States,
Diplomatic Papers, The Near East and Africa, Vol. 8, 1945, page 45.
[18]
Lloyd C. Gardner, Three Kings: The Rise of an American Empire in the
Middle East After World War II (The New Press, 2009), page 96; Noam
Chomsky, “Is the World Too Big to Fail?” Salon, 21 April 2011:http://www.salon.com/2011/04/21/global_empire_united_states_iraq_noam_chomsky/
[19]
Maurice Jr. Labelle, “‘The Only Thorn’: Early Saudi-American Relations and the
Question of Palestine, 1945-1949,” Diplomatic History (Vol.
35, No. 2, April 2011), pages 264-265.
[20]
Ibid, pages 266-268.
[21]
Ibid, page 270.
[22]
Ibid, pages 274-279.
[23]
George F. Kennan, “Review of Current Trends U.S. Foreign Policy,” Report
by the Policy Planning Staff, 24 February 1948.
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