| New York Times | - |
RIYADH,
Saudi Arabia - Persian Gulf leaders, led by King Salman of Saudi
Arabia, are making their growing displeasure with the Obama
administration known ahead of meetings this week at Camp David.
RIYADH,
Saudi Arabia — Persian Gulf leaders, led by King Salman of Saudi
Arabia, are making their growing displeasure with the Obama
administration known ahead of meetings this week at Camp David.
But
the Saudis and their gulf allies remain heavily reliant on support from
the United States, and they have few other options to ensure their
security and exercise their more activist foreign policy.
The gulf countries’ alliances with Washington that have served for decades as a linchpin of regional order are fraying as President Obama presses for a nuclear agreement with Iran that could greatly empower a regional rival and aggressor.
That has led to a crisis of confidence among gulf nations, and the announcement Sunday that King Salman of Saudi Arabia will not attend
the Camp David meetings — after the White House announced that he would
— has been seen by many here as the king’s way of expressing his low
expectations. The Saudi foreign minister, speaking in Washington on
Monday, said the decision was not related to any disagreement between
the countries.
The
monarchs of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman also will not
attend and are sending other officials. The emirs of Kuwait and Qatar
will be present.
“It is a diplomatic message that Saudi Arabia
is not expecting anything new from Camp David,” said Abdullah
al-Shammari, a Saudi political analyst and former diplomat. “Everyone
knows that Saudi Arabia is not pleased with the administration of
President Obama, especially when it comes to the deal with Iran and the nuclear program.”
The
solution for the kingdom, he said, was for Saudi Arabia to depend less
on the United States and to increase cooperation with other powers.
Saudi
pilots trained by the United States are bombing Yemen using jets built
by American defense contractors. In Saudi Arabia, forces from the
military, the Interior Ministry and the National Guard have been trained
by the United States.
“Just
as the United States is trying to lessen its dependence on Saudi oil,
the Saudis are trying to lessen as much as possible their reliance on
the American alliance,” Mr. Shammari said.
Such
thinking has grown more common in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the
Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia has asked for help from allies like Pakistan
in its campaign against Shiite rebels in Yemen, and Qatar last week
announced a large arms deal with France.
Persian
Gulf leaders have so appreciated France’s hard line in the Iranian
nuclear talks that they invited President François Hollande to attend a
meeting last week of the Gulf Cooperation Council, making him the first
head of state from outside the alliance to do so.
Analysts
say the gulf states’ shift away from dependence on the United States is
real, but they point out that the extent of the ties still keeps the
countries bound tightly together.
Jean-Francois
Seznec, a professor of Persian Gulf political economy at the School of
Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, estimates
that Saudi Arabia, for example, has spent about $500 billion to build
its military in the last 20 years. About three-quarters of that money
has gone to the United States.
“Those are huge amounts of money,” he said.
The
United States remains heavily involved in training Saudi forces, from
soldiers to National Guard members, and top officials communicate and
regularly share intelligence information on terrorism and other threats.
There
is little reason to believe that Saudi Arabia’s other allies can fill
that role. Despite generous Saudi aid to Pakistan over the years, the
Pakistani Parliament voted down a Saudi request to send troops for the
military effort in Yemen. Egypt, whose government has been kept afloat
by billions of dollars in Persian Gulf aid in recent years, has also
declined to send ground troops.
Gulf nations appear to be at the start of what could be a long process of learning to rely more on themselves and other allies.
“They
would prefer for the U.S. to be the godfather and protector, but they
also realize that they have to stand on their own feet,” Dr. Seznec
said.
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