King Ibn Saud and President Franklin D. Roosevelt meeting on the deck of the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal on February 14, 1945 (U.S. Navy / Naval History and Heritage Command)

Early last month, Elizabeth Warren issued a tweet that sent a chill down my spine: “On my first day as president, I will sign an executive order that puts a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases for drilling offshore and on public lands. And I will ban fracking — everywhere.”


Never was the idea of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs more applicable.

I think national energy independence is desirable for its own sake. But I especially like the idea of being weaned from Middle Eastern oil — and from Saudi oil in particular. Our alliance with “the Kingdom” is troubling. That government is a nasty, foul, murderous regime (like so many in the Middle East, and throughout the world).

Wouldn’t it be nice to be free of the need for this alliance? (The Beach Boys could set that sentiment to music: “Wouldn’t it be nice . . .?”)

I brought up the issue with Ryan Crocker, though our main topic of discussion was Afghanistan. I detailed what Crocker had to say about Afghanistan here; I will have a related piece in the forthcoming issue of NR. Here and now? We will talk Saudi Arabia.



Crocker, you remember, was “our man in the Middle East” — or one of them — for many years. A leading Foreign Service officer, he was U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

On Saudi Arabia, Crocker threw a bucket of cold water in my face. That water is salutary (damn it).

Start with history, he said. FDR met with the Saudi king, Ibn Saud, in February 1945, just two months before our president’s death. The meeting took place in the Suez Canal, aboard the USS Quincy.

“Look up those wonderful photos of the two leaders together,” said Crocker. American sailors are peeking at the Saudi delegation as if those men had come “from the moon.”

At this historic meeting, “the core of our post-war presence in the Middle East was hammered out: oil for security.”


Today, “we are in a position where we don’t need Middle Eastern oil anymore — not directly — although our allies do. East Asia runs on Middle Eastern oil, and that means Saudi oil. So, before we tear up that history — that relationship — we need to take a cold, hard, sober look at the impact on our interests.”

And remember: “Our interests are, in part, the interests of our allies.”


To be sure, “the Saudi government has not made any of this easy. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi was horrific. They are intolerant of any form of dissent. They blow hot and cold on the question of women’s rights.”

Bottom line: “Are they an ideal government? Very far from it. Are they a leader in the modern Middle East? You bet they are. So, I would not advocate a sudden and dramatic erosion of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. We got too much uncertainty going on out there in that region.”

Consider Iran: “We are watching their steps in Syria, in Yemen, and in Lebanon, of course. The Saudis are a bulwark against all that.”


In light of these facts, “I would not advocate the dismantling of the U.S.-Saudi relationship but more like its opposite. We should do what we can to get to the point where we can have a very serious, sustained conversation with the Saudis. We have to have a stable relationship with them if we want to see any changes. They certainly aren’t going to change if we just make demands.”

We Americans “need to steer them to a better place, where our security interests are upheld but we don’t see these outrageous violations of human rights continue as they are right now.”

My heart may balk at what Ambassador Crocker is saying. But my head tells me that — damn it — he is probably right.

To be continued . . .