9/11 law: Saudis rethink US alliance

Many in the US accuse the Saudi government of helping create a fertile ground for terrorism

Throughout US President Barack Obama’s time in the White House, Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Persian Gulf have watched with dismay as the kingdom’s decades-old alliance with the US seemed to be slipping.

Then came the overwhelming congressional support for Jasta, or the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which will allow relatives of those killed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for any suspected role in the plot.

That was all the proof many Saudis needed that the alliance that has underpinned the regional order for decades was fraying — perhaps irreparably.

“Jasta is a wake up call for the Saudis, that it is time to revisit the concept of the alliance with the US,” said Khalid al-Dakhil, a Saudi political sociologist and writer.

Saudis responded to the passage of the bill, after both houses of Congress voted on Wednesday to override Obama’s veto, with a mix of anger and disappointment, while many have already begun thinking about how their country will need to adjust.

Passage of the law was a huge blow to the Saudis, who have long maintained strong ties in Washington though close cooperation with the US government on a range of issues, from economic and oil policy to counterterrorism to shared intelligence and military programmes.

Saudi diplomats, and a range of public relations companies hired by the Saudi government, lobbied hard against the bill, with Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister and former Saudi ambassador to Washington, leading the effort. But that failed to persuade enough lawmakers to vote against a bill promoted by the families of victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

That resilient association of Saudi Arabia with the attacks angers many Saudis. Their government disowned Osama bin Laden, a Saudi citizen, in 1994. Al-Qaida, and more recently the jihadis of Islamic State (IS), have frequently targeted the kingdom, killing Saudi civilians.

Many question why suspicions of Saudi involvement in the September 11 plot persist in the US, despite the passage of 15 years, a congressional investigation and the release this year of the long-classified 28 pages that were believed to contain evidence of complicity by Saudi officials. None of that has produced evidence of Saudi involvement, they say.

In a statement released on Thursday, the Saudi government said the act “is of great concern to the community of nations that object to the erosion of the principle of sovereign immunity, which has governed international relations for hundreds of years.”

“The erosion of sovereign immunity,” the statement added, “will have a negative impact on all nations, including the US.” Saudi and Gulf analysts said that the depth of the Saudi-US alliance gave the kingdom many ways to express its displeasure.

“It is certain that the strategic alliance between the two countries is in a real crisis,” Salman Aldossary, the editor-in-chief of the Saudi-owned Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, said in an email. “If it is true that Riyadh shall be harmed by the crisis, Washington also has interests in the region, and they will definitely be affected as well.”

Saudi Arabia has lots of money invested in the US, and al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, warned that such investments could be withdrawn if Saudi Arabia feared that its assets were in jeopardy of seizure as part of US legal proceedings. It remains unclear if Saudi Arabia will start withdrawing those assets.

The US has a large military presence throughout the Gulf, with training missions in Saudi Arabia and large bases in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The US also cooperates with Saudi Arabia in military operations in Yemen and elsewhere, as well as sharing intelligence for the fight against al-Qaida and the jihadis of IS.

“This situation, if exploited, would do a great deal of harm to US interests, let alone Riyadh’s effective cooperation in combatting terrorism and the reflection of this on the war on terrorism as led by the US,” Aldossary said.

Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of political science in the United Arab Emirates, said that while the law appeared to be aimed only at Saudi Arabia, other countries in the region feared that it was only a matter of time before the US decided, “Let’s go after them, too.”

While 15 of the 19 hijackers who carried out the September 11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one from Lebanon and one from Egypt.

“There is thinking now more than ever that maybe the US is not the safest place for future investments,” Abdulla said. “So eventually, maybe, we’ll have to stay away from the US and invest elsewhere.”

Turbulent ties
The alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States goes back seven decades, to when King Abdulaziz, the founder of the modern Saudi state, met President Franklin D Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy at the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal.

Ties between the two nations have expanded enormously since then, as the US has sought a steady supply of oil and a partner in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia has sought the security of protection from an international power.

Other links have developed as well. Tens of thousands of Saudi students attended schools in the US, the Saudi government has invested billions of dollars in US military technology and the countries’ intelligence services have shared information on terrorist threats.

But tensions have endured, largely reflecting the difference in values between the nations.

Many in the US accuse the Saudi government of helping create fertile ground for terrorism by exporting what they regard as an intolerant version of Islam. Others have raised concern about human rights in a country where women cannot drive and where atheism is a crime sometimes punished with a public caning.

The Saudi government watched in dismay as the US tacitly encouraged the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt during popular protests against him. The Saudis have tried and failed to overcome US reluctance to intervene more forcefully in the civil war in Syria. They opposed Obama’s push to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional rival.

The September 11 law has left many analysts questioning the alliance’s future. “The countries still need each other, but it does increasingly look like a marriage that is past its sell-by date,” said Michael Stephens, the head of the Royal United Services Institute, Qatar. “Both sides are questioning the utility of being hitched together.”