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0 pointslukasm2y ago0 comments

In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. The number one problem for SA is security. The state is fragile. Wahabi, Muslim Brotherhood, tribes that hate House of Saud. Secondly, Iran possess a direct threat, Houthi could destroy critical infrastructure. $$$$ spent on military doesn't help - they lost the war in Yemen.

SA is on a lookout for allies: Defence partnership with Pakistan which probably end up in a nuclear technology transfer or purchase of atomic weapons.

If USA would give better security guarantees to SA (similar to Jordan) with some tech transfer, SA would increase the output by 2x, which would result in $45 per barrel.

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mamonster2y ago· 2 in thread

Wahhabism isn't an internal threat to Saudi, like at all. It's their export ideology and it is not at all appealing to the citizens of one of the best welfare states in the world. Wahhabism in actual Saudi is completely different to what gets exported.

As for Iran, seems like recently there has been a rapprochement(mediated by China), will need to see where it leads. It's pretty clear to me SA is on the lookout for allies, but US is low on their list, as they realised(correctly) that all the human rights issues in Russia exist there as well and might get tackled by the West in a decarbonised future.

alephnerd2y ago

> It's their export ideology

Not anymore after MBS came to power. Wahabhi missionary worm was a King Fahd policy (and why so many foreign mosques are named after him).

> it is not at all appealing to the citizens of one of the best welfare states in the world

Not to most, but it's definetly appealing to a small subset similar to how White Nationalism is appealing to a small subset of Americans.

The religious reforms post-2017 have been massive [0], and the fact that shows like Masameer or Bait Tahrir are being openly produced is a testament to that fact

> As for Iran, seems like recently there has been a rapprochement(mediated by China)

Only limited to Yemen. The relationship post-rapprochement was still fairly shaky and went down the gutter once 10/7 happened [1]

> pretty clear to me SA is on the lookout for allies, but US is low on their list

Yea no. Saudi is still continuing with US lead Israel-Saudi normalization [2] along with pushing for a US Defense Pact similar to what Japan has [3]

[0] - https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/06/07/saudi-arabia-s-reli...

[1] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/12/saudi-iran-rapprochemen...

[2] - https://www.mei.edu/publications/saudi-israel-normalization-...

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-pushe....

mamonster2y ago

I think the notion that US Defense Pact is a sign of the countries being true allies needs to be examined. It's clear what the benefit for Saudi is, but it isn't so clear what the benefit for the US is/what the cost for Saudi is(beyond spending money on US arms which they wanted to do anyway).

The reason why I say this: Around the time of the price cap on Russian oil US was already asking Saudi to pump supply so that Russian budget would suffer, and of course Saudis didn't do anything. I think MBS is going fully down the Erdogan/Orban route where he is nominally "West aligned" but is going to be playing both sides as much as he can. When I said allies I meant someone who they would have reciprocal relationships with(which IMO isn't really the case with US atm).

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