Mandel Ngan/Pool Photo via AP
President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attend a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 16, 2022.
There’s this autocratic regime in the Middle East that undeniably funds, arms, and exports terrorism.
They have ties to the 9/11 attacks and encouraged the pointless wars that followed.
They oppress women, arrest dissidents, and execute journalists.
They collude with our elites and our adversaries to steal from American families.
They use their huge oil revenues to infiltrate our politics, our economy, and our farmland.
They admit to fostering an era of conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 7,000 American service members, cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars, and contributed to worldwide instability.
They have nuclear ambitions that threaten our national security and the stability of the region and the world.
I’m talking, of course, about Saudi Arabia.
But instead of making them a much-deserved addition to our state sponsors of terrorism list, President Biden has instead been negotiating a near-final security agreement that would commit generations of American soldiers to the defense of a country that has funded the slaughter of their comrades, while simultaneously helping the Saudis develop their nuclear capabilities.
I’m a Marine veteran with multiple deployments in the disastrous war on terror and years of experience as an international negotiations and counter-WMD officer on the Joint Staff. Here’s my take: The imminent Biden-Saudi deal puts American families in danger, dishonors American service members, and makes our country a joke on the world stage.
It isn’t just because the Saudis have already proven we can’t trust them—like when they broke an agreement with this very president to keep oil prices low, or when they were exposed for doling out American anti-tank missiles and armored vehicles to al Qaeda–linked fighters. Or because we already spend billions of dollars every year protecting their shipping lanes, just to allow their oil cartel to continue robbing us at the gas pump.
It’s because while serving in Asia, Europe, and right here at home, I’ve seen firsthand how this supposed ally has done more harm to the American people than any other regime on the planet.
In Iraq, I led a team of a dozen Marines training Iraqi police and running missions in the Sunni Triangle. Just a few years later, most of the Iraqi officers we trained were either killed by or fled from the Islamic State—a barbaric terrorist organization that relied on the Saudis for funding and theological inspiration as a part of Saudi Arabia’s growing list of proxy wars.
In Afghanistan, where two Marines in my battalion were lost, I spoke with a Taliban prisoner in the Herat city penitentiary who was adamant that he’d kill me as soon as he had the chance. His organization was bankrolled by our supposed Saudi friends; that didn’t appear to blunt his resolve.
On my first assignment with the Joint Staff, I worked with the National Security Council, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and CIA to combat the proliferation of nuclear technology and weapons of mass destruction. I know the danger of adding the world’s most effective exporter of extremism to that marketplace of death.
Helping Saudi Arabia become a nuclear power would grant them even more leverage in their dealings with us.
As an international negotiations officer at the Pentagon, I watched as the Saudi-led cartel, OPEC+, used its energy monopoly to suck us and our allies dry, and dragged us into a new era of overseas conflicts that have brought us the closest we’ve been to nuclear confrontation since the Cold War.
Over the decades, our politicians’ Saudi-centered foreign policy left us trillions of dollars in the red while we protect them, fight wars for them, and risk our lives for them. It’s left the Saudis fat and rich—so much so that they’re using the profits from our one-sided relationship to move ahead in AI development, launch huge mega-construction projects, and even transition to the next generation of energy.
The same “experts” in Washington who always assure us our relationship with this despotic regime is a “strategic” necessity are going to argue the same thing about this Biden-Saudi deal. They’ll say it will make us “safer” and bring “stability” to the region—even though it would be strengthening the nuclear program of a brutal regime known for mass executions, deep ties to terrorism, almost medieval battles for succession, and an openness to developing nuclear weapons.
Helping Saudi Arabia become a nuclear power would grant them even more leverage in their dealings with us. The security guarantee would mean that at any moment, they could force us to defend their nuclear program with our lives and tax dollars. And if we’ve learned anything about doing things for the Saudis in the last 30 years, we know we won’t even get cheaper gas prices out of it.
But more importantly, as a former arms control negotiator, I’ve got one pro tip for the “experts” in Washington: The best way to prevent the possibility of nuclear conflict that could potentially destroy the entire world is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
Want an example? Look no further than Iran, whose nuclear program, you may be surprised to learn, was started by none other than the United States government, once again in the name of “peace.”
If I’m being honest, I’m not shocked by how out of touch these “experts” are—these are some of the same people who thought we’d be celebrated as liberators in Iraq. But what I am shocked by is the endless weakness shown by our leaders, who have a track record of openly identifying the same problems I am now and then doing nothing about it.
After calling the Saudis “free riders” for taking advantage of us, President Obama vetoed a bill passed by Congress that would allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudis for their ties to the 2001 attacks. President Trump campaigned on banning Saudi oil in an attempt to secure independence from “our foes and the oil cartels,” only to then proactively offer to use our military to defend Saudi oil supplies as president. And in 2019, Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia a pariah state, only to now be among their staunchest allies ever in the Oval Office.
One of the primary reasons behind these flip-flops is obvious—every president since Jimmy Carter has wanted to avoid sure political death at the hands of the Saudi-led oil cartel. Even lip service about energy independence, climate, and outcompeting China hasn’t ended the inevitability of giving Saudi Arabia whatever it wants, whenever it wants—especially in an election year.
So frankly, we can’t rely on any president from either party to do the right thing on the Saudi question.
What we need is real action from Congress, not just “expressing concern” while abdicating responsibility. Instead of chaining ourselves to another 30 years of the death and destruction that surround the House of Saud and its interests, we need leaders in Congress with the courage to do what’s right.
Kill Biden’s Saudi deal. End our relationship with the House of Saud. Bring our troops home from the Middle East. And invest in putting America first in the next generation of energy and industry, so we can finally break the death grip of the Saudi cartel.
It’s time we left the Saudis to fend for themselves. After all, they can afford it.
