Title: Dr. Yasmine Farouk on Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Policy

GJIA: What are Saudi Arabia’s current regional priorities in regard to foreign policy?

YF: The first priority right now on the Saudi agenda is to end their war in Yemen because of the intensity, the geographical reach, and the nature of the targets that Houthis attack on its territory (critical infrastructure: energy production, airports, military bases). The second priority in terms of regional policy—that is also linked to Yemen—is Iran. Iran has always been perceived in Saudi Arabia as the number-one threat because of Iran’s capacity to threaten Saudi Arabia’s national security and regime stability. Outside of Saudi Arabia, Teheran holds a vast network of regional non-state allies and is harming Saudi Arabia’s strategic interests across the Middle East, especially in the Gulf area. Iran is of special concern nowadays in Saudi Arabia because the Biden administration is perceived in Riyadh as a continuation of the Obama administration in terms of how to deal with Iran, that is through negotiations and containment instead of confrontation. The Saudis are very concerned that in the case of a new deal between the United States and Iran, their interests will be marginalized and Iran will have a freer hand in the region—as was the case after the Obama administration’s JCPOA with Iran. 

Another interest for the Saudis right now is the transformation of their economy, which requires a stable region and definitely fewer attacks on Saudi Arabia itself. All economies across the world are suffering from the impact of COVID-19, but Saudi Arabia suffered a twin crisis because of the decrease in oil sales and in oil prices. Saudi authorities were able to push the price up thanks to their policy of cutting down production that angered other oil producers and caused a confrontation with Russia in March 2020. 

Their foreign policy is also motivated by the fulfillment of Vision 2030, which is a mega comprehensive endeavor to transform the Saudi state and society.

What does Saudi Arabia seek to do in terms of addressing Iran?

Primarily, Saudi preference is to enlist US military support and sanctions against Iran. In the case of a new JCPOA between the United States and other international powers with Iran, Riyadh wants this deal to include Iran’s engagement to curtail and roll back its activities across the region that it conducts through non-state militias. To be very honest, this is something very hard to achieve because the United States and the international community’s priority when it comes to Iran is its nuclear file. So the Saudis are seeking to influence not only US policy but also the European policy towards Iran, to make sure that a new deal with Iran would take Saudi Arabia’s interests into consideration. Yet the Saudis are becoming more realistic and have just started talking to the Iranians directly. 

Saudi Arabia would also like to see a larger regional coalition to counter Iran, but this is also hard to achieve because different states have different approaches on how to address the Iranian threat.  This is where you see the Saudi contemplation of, for example, normalization with Israel. The reason why Israel has become a more pressing item on the agenda is because the Saudis perceive that there is common ground between Israel and Saudi Arabia when it comes to their animosity towards Iran, and that the Israelis are militarily capable of standing up to Iran. The Saudis would like to count on the Egyptian and the Pakistani militaries for their defense against Iran, but both countries have very different policies towards Iran. 

What is the current state of relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and how do you see them evolving under the Biden administration? In particular, how do you think Biden will approach the situation regarding the Khashoggi killing and its relation to the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman?

The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has always been complicated. The debate of whether they are allies or not has always been there, especially in Congress and in public opinion. The difference nowadays is that the tension is becoming very personalized around the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and very public. I do not think that since King Faisal—who actually imposed a boycott on oil exports during the 1973 war between Israel and the Arab states—the United States has had a personal problem with a Saudi leader. 

A lot of the bilateral tensions have to do with Saudi Arabia’s policies against dissidents and activists as well, which is also something that we had seen under the Bush administration after the September 11 attacks. But the tensions nowadays are exacerbated by the Saudi regime’s persecution of dissidents abroad resulting in crimes such as the killing of Jamal Khashoggi and spying on Twitter. In the age of social media, the Saudi and the US governments are no longer able to hide their normative differences; US decision-makers as well as the public have access to the Saudi government’s human rights violations domestically and are putting pressure on the Biden administration to adopt measures such as the publication of the ODNI report and the imposition of the Khashoggi ban. That being said, if you look at the career of President Biden or the people he chose to manage the Middle East, none of them have a plan to radically transform the relationship with Saudi Arabia. I do not expect the United States to impose sanctions or downgrade relations with Saudi Arabia as a country, only with its Crown Prince.

I do expect the Biden administration, however, to restore the institutionalization of the relationship. This means that the privileged access that the Saudis had to the Office of the President of the United States under the Trump administration will no longer exist: it is going to be a holistic state-to-state relationship. I expect that the Biden administration will no longer shield Saudi Arabia from the legal consequences of its policies inside Congress.

I also expect that, in addition to the Khashoggi ban, if the Saudi government continues persecuting its dissidents abroad, that there will be other consequences. The fact that Saudi Arabia has more exiled dissidents abroad now is also something new that both countries will have to manage. 

The Biden administration has shown that it values the relationship with Saudi Arabia, and I do understand why. The US dilemma with Saudi Arabia is that Saudi Arabia is a very important country that you want on your side, i.e. behaving in a certain way and not just stopping a certain behavior. It is not always easy because countries are sovereign and Saudi Arabia’s actions have consequences that impact the United States. From now on, the Saudis will have to bear the consequences of their actions.