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. 

What do you see as the United States valuing in Saudi Arabia and what do you see as Saudi Arabia valuing in the United States? 

Saudi Arabia will always have a very special status in the Islamic world. Its rulers and sheikhs will always have some kind of influence over public opinions in the Islamic world thanks to the country’s status, its financial resources, and its huge state-controlled media empire. 

Second of all, Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest economies in the world and it is still a swing producer on the oil market. It is also one of the biggest humanitarian donors in the world. It has investments across the globe. So we are talking about a country that has a global outreach that the United States is actually benefiting from. Despite all of its weaknesses, Saudi Arabia is still a political, religious, and economic trendsetter in the Middle East and North Africa. 

On top of all that, in terms of geopolitics and geography, Saudi Arabia is crucial to all US military plans in the Middle East. The price, privilege, and the primary access that the US military gets from cooperation with Saudi Arabia is significant. Saudi Arabia occupies three-quarters of the Arabian Peninsula, which is highly strategic for the security of the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. So a country with this geographical, political, economic, and financial status is important for the United States. At the same time, only the United States can provide Saudi Arabia with the security umbrella needed to preserve its status, security, stability, and economic prosperity. If you look on the other side as to why the Saudis need the United States, you will read a lot about the pact of oil for security, meaning Saudi Arabia provides oil to international powers in exchange for US protection. A few months ago, when Saudi Arabia decided to flood the oil market, we saw the kind of impact it had on the oil market inside the United States. So this pact of oil for security still stands to some degree, and the Saudis do need US protection, even if there is no large US military presence in Saudi Arabia like there used to be. 

There was a newly established ceasefire proposal in Yemen that Saudi Arabia played a large part in developing. Given how historically many of the ceasefires between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia have not held up, why do you think Saudi Arabia suggests this proposal? How do you foresee this ceasefire from the Saudi perspective?

First of all, this is not the first time that Saudi Arabia has declared its readiness to implement a ceasefire. Every time it was the Houthis who violated the ceasefire that was unilaterally declared without a prior agreement with Houthis. The Saudis have always had a problem with strategic timing: they are very bad in choosing the time to act. Today, they are doing this at a time when Houthis feel that they are winning militarily and that they can have more concessions from not only Saudi Arabia but also the United States and the international community, than before. The idea behind this new ceasefire is to prove to the world that the Saudis are ready to end their campaign in Yemen and show the world, especially Congress, that if the war does not end, it is solely on the Houthis. Also, Saudi Arabia can no longer count on the United States’ support in this war. One of President Biden’s first decisions after coming to the White House was to cut any kind of US support to the Saudi war in Yemen and the absence of US support puts Saudi Arabia in an even weaker position militarily and politically. 

Riyadh wanted to prove to the administration that Saudi Arabia is serious about ending the war. The situation is very complex in Yemen, and Saudi Arabia cannot end the war and just leave Yemen on its own. It needs US mediation with the Houthis. Originally, Saudi Arabia had a list of goals for its military campaign—one of which was to restore the legitimate Government of Yemen. Today, all of its objectives have been reduced to having a secure border with Yemen, which shows how much the situation has changed.

A ceasefire is also hard to implement because there are many factions within the Houthis today, so one faction accepts but the others refuse. There are also other parties to this war in addition to Saudi Arabia and the Houthis who need to accept and participate in the peace process. A ceasefire cannot solve the Yemen problem immediately.

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This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Dr. Yasmin Farouk is a visiting fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, specializing in Saudi Arabia and regional foreign relations. Prior to joining Carnegie, Yasmine was based in Egypt where she taught political science. Her previous research and publications cover Egyptian and Saudi foreign policies, international relations in the Arab world, and social participation in policy and constitution-making. Dr. Farouk studied political science at Cairo University, Sciences Po Paris, and was a Fulbright Fellow at Yale University during her postdoctoral studies.