Democrats are mad as hell, and don’t want to take it anymore.
The problem is Saudi Arabia is under new management. King Salman is still alive, but he’s 87, and is comfortably retired. His son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 37, runs the country. And probably will for a long, long time.
The prince isn’t exactly a big fan of democracy or civil rights, which used to be popular here in America. He pissed off (some) Americans by having U.S.-based journalist Jamal Kashoggi murdered. He’s also reportedly a wife-beater.
Then Biden went to Riyadh a couple months ago, bumped bin Salman’s fist (infamous photo at left), pleaded with him to pump more oil, and got backstabbed when OPEC announced a production cut last week (see story here). The prince isn’t OPEC, but he rules the Saudi roost, and the Saudis rule OPEC. And he probably wasn’t happy that Biden shunned him for 18 months.
Democrats aren’t happy. With midterms 4 weeks away, escalating pump prices is the last thing they need. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CN) says America’s decades-old partnership with Saudi Arabia “is broken” (see story here). Rep. Rho Khanna (D-CA) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-NY) want to cut off military aid to Saudi Arabia until the prince stops sucking up to Putin (see story here).
They have an ally in Hossein Askari, an Iranian-born and MIT-educated academic economist who teaches at George Washington University. He implies the OPEC cuts may anticipate weaker demand and increased supply from Iran and Venezuela, and crude prices may rise only $5 or so, but argues bin Saman has “cozied up to Putin” and thinks “the United States should be much, much tougher with Saudi Arabia because we have bent over backward to accommodate them in every way” (see story here).
America may have some leverage here. If you’re the Saudi ruler, which do you want, American or Russian military equipment? And bin Salman probably knows a real loser when he sees one.
OPEC’s move surely is political. What OPEC doesn’t like is NATO’s proposal to slap a “cap” on Russian oil’s price (details here). Oil revenues are the main source of Russia’s government revenues, and they want to starve Putin’s military of funding. But the oil producers don’t like the idea of buyers dictating anybody’s oil price. They think that should be a prerogative of sellers (i.e., them).
On the surface, this looks like an argument between friends over money, and not worth getting divorced for. Beheading rights activists and sawing up journalists into pieces complicates the relationship, of course. But something deeper is going on: This isn’t the Saudi ruler we married. The new guy is, quite simply, an asshole.
The Saudis also sell a product that’s destroying the habitability of our only planet, one that’s headed for obsolescence, and they face a frantic scramble to pump out and unload their remaining reserves before the Oil Age is over and there’s no market for it anymore. The sooner that happens, the better.
Imagine not having to suck up to the Saudis, wouldn’t that be nice? But for now, it looks like we still have to. And get shivved even when we do.
Related article: For a deeper dive into U.S.-Saudi relations, go here. There’s more to it than oil.