Why the Saudis get a pass

The White House’s decision to accept the Saudi government’s unlikely explanation for the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has united many on the left and on the right in outrage. These critics need to remove their rose-coloured glasses. Any other decision by the U.S. would have seriously, perhaps grievously, harmed western interests. Our economic well-being and our prospects for avoiding war hung in the balance.

The world’s military powers are now loosely allied in two competing blocs: authoritarian countries led by China, Russia and Iran versus western democracies led by the United States and Sunni nations led by Saudi Arabia. Military spending is up enormously in both blocs as they jockey to maintain or increase their spheres of influence. While flashpoints exist — in the China Seas, the Middle East and countries bordering Russia — the balance of power has been relatively stable, with no imminent threat of major war.

That stability would be shot if the U.S. took the advice of many Republicans and Democrats alike by cancelling arms sales to the Saudis and demanding that the king of Saudi Arabia punish Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. If the Saudi king had to choose between his favoured heir to the throne and the U.S., he would go with his heir and bring the Sunni world into the China-Russia-Iran alliance. The Saudi king almost did that after president Barack Obama’s rapprochement with Shia Iran’s mullahs, threatening the decadeslong U.S.-Saudi alliance; the king would certainly do that now if his honour was at stake, and if Saudi Arabia was forced to turn to the Russians and Chinese for the arms purchases needed to defend his country from Iran.

With the Saudis and other Sunni states in the authoritarians’ camp, the West would no longer be able to count on the ability of the Saudis to quickly ramp up their oil production for geopolitical purposes, whether to drive down prices to bleed the treasuries of Iran and Russia or to lubricate western economies when high prices threatened their economic growth. To the contrary, with a much larger share of the world’s energy supplies in the authoritarians’ control, they would then have untoward influence over oil markets, enabling them to threaten boycotts and blackmail Europe, in particular. Russia has repeatedly wielded its energy weapon against European countries since the early 1990s and the OPEC countries did so twice against the West in the 1970s, throwing our economies into turmoil. Had Saudi Arabia switched camps, the authoritarians would have been emboldened to diplomatically and militarily press their advantage.

The U.S. acceptance of the Saudi government’s claim that the crown prince is innocent, though lame, is wise. Punishing the Saudis by forcing them into an accommodation with the authoritarians would have accomplished nothing for the western alliance, other than allowing us to claim that we were occupying some moral high ground. Because the U.S. is prudently keeping the Saudis as allies, the Saudis will keep oil prices low, protecting western economies while limiting the ability of Russia and Iran to flex their muscles. The Saudi military and Saudi funding of Sunni militants will continue to counter Iran’s attempt to control the Middle East. And they will continue to promote a normalization of relations between the Sunni world and Israel, lessening decades of hostilities.

U.S. acceptance of heinous behaviour by allies and enemies alike is consistent with long-standing practice. Moreover, by international standards, the Saudis are slackers in the business of murdering offending journalists. Turkey, the country that most decries Khashoggi’s murder, leads the world in killing and jailing journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Russia and China are also notorious. Yet the West has taken no meaningful action at all against any of these regimes for their murders of journalists. The outrage voiced over Khashoggi’s murder has more to do with Saudi amateurism: Had they arranged a mundane driveby shooting on a city street rather than a whodunit murder-by-appointment at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Khashoggi’s death would have hardly registered.

The West needs to keep its eye on the ball in its alliances. In the Second World War, FDR and Churchill allied themselves with a murderous Stalin to defeat a murderous Hitler, the more immediate threat to their freedom and democracy. After Hitler was dealt with and they no longer needed Stalin’s help, they set about countering Stalin. In the same way, the West now needs the Saudis to protect our freedoms. If the Saudis ever become the most, rather than least, of our problems, we can then turn our gaze to them. Meanwhile, holding our noses and keeping the Sunni world close is a nobrainer.

ACCEPTING THE SAUDIS’ CLAIM THAT THE CROWN PRINCE IS INNOCENT IS LAME — BUT WISE.