Re: [A-List] US/Saudi tensions

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Michael: I object to your thread title vehemently. This is not "tensions"
anymore than what is happeneing in Iraq is an "Iraqi-American crisis". In
both
cases it all is initiated by America, period.

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As I recall your most substantive interventions to this list have been to
remonstrate concerning thread titles, whether regarding the Spanish civil
war, the potential for a popular front spanning red & green, or now this. So
big deal. Furthermore I don't agree completely with your analysis.
Fundamentally it is correct, but it ignores too many overdeterminations and
contradictions within the imperialism that you loathe so vehemently -- maybe
even as much as the thread title. To say that the US initiated this or that
is to ignore both the complicity of those with whom it initiates things and
the unintended consequences (blowback, contradictions, crisis management)
caused by these "initiations". In this particular case the symbiosis between
Saudi finance and US hegemony is particularly ironic given the Gordian knot
that threatens to untangle should any investigators really get serious about
getting to the bottom of it all -- a danger of such supposedly diversionary
reportage. That media reports may simply be smoke screens or diversions is
not the point -- although of itself it is noteworthy inasmuch as it tells us
about what some among our "masters" would have us believe. The fact is that
while some of the idealistic (nutso) elements of the US ruling class would
like nothing better than to "provoke" the Saudis (e.g. Perle), many others
would much rather wash the whole shoddy business under the carpet, e.g.,
James Baker, who was doing business with the bin Laden family on 11
September 2001.

In any case it's much more complex than "evil US dictates to weakling
Saudis, ergo condemn US racist scum". The fact is that "weakling Saudis"
(their ruling class/family) have done very well indeed out of an arrangement
in which they effectively sold Arab solidarity down the river in order to
promote themselves as the centre of Arab politics and culture over and above
the Egyptians, who had dared to say no to US hegemony under Nasser and
initially under Sadat. The US was delighted to reach its accomodations with
the Saudis, not least in ensuring that 100% of global oil trade was
denominated in dollars (a deal struck in 1974 by William Simon and cemented
further by Michael Blumenthal in 1977), and by putting uppity Egypt in its
place. Sadat got the message, and Camp David was the result. But in
defusing/smashing Arab nationalism and pro-Soviet sentiment the US and the
Saudi regime eventually got its own problem with wahhabism, i.e. blowback --
not a morality play of necessity (I don't read it that way but it can, of
course, be read that way -- Chalmers Johnson I think does read it that way)
but nevertheless richly ironic in that the solution to one crisis leads only
to another, and another, and another, etc. The US and its Saudi satraps are
in this together, and Saudi disinvestment in the US I do not believe was
insignificant, if you consider just how much trouble successive US
administrations went to to make sure that petro*dollars* were recycled
through US banks. At a time when the dollar is looking dangerously weak
while the price of oil looks upward bound there are profound economic
implications. The US needs to attract over $1bn every day simply to support
its mammoth current account deficit. Saudi disinvestment, actual or even
imagined, at a time like this is not to be sneezed at. Thus I justify my use
of the title thread because, like each other or loathe each other, each
regime, for different reasons and to different degrees, depends upon the
other, whatever the personal chemistry and inconvenient facts that may
complicate the relationship. Meanwhile you are free, of course, to
contribute your own more incisive thread title, should you so wish.

Michael Keaney