"Occupation by Policy" - How Victors Inadvertantly Provoke Resistance Insurgency

[Dayuhan]

5. My understanding of Insurgency. Revolutionary Insurgency conditions between Saudi members of AQ and the KSA; and Resistance Insurgency conditions between Saudi Members of AQ (and their many sympathizers) and the US due to the widely held belief that the Saudi family has been far less willing to listen to the reasonable grievances of the people due to their commitment of protection from the US than they would be if there were no such external source of protection.

I think there's a great deal assumed here that is not supported by evidence or reasoning.

The idea that AQ is a reactive organization conjured up in response to American policy is widespread - the word "backlash" comes up rather often - but repeating something doesn't make it so. It is a peculiarly American conceit to assume that others have no capacity for agency, and can only be either manipulated by American policy or lash back against it. In reality many of those others have their own proactive goals, usually associated with power, and are perfectly capable of pursuing them on their own, without lashing back against anything. AQ wants power. They want to rule. Certainly they tap into a deep reserve of Arab and Muslim discontent, but I've seen few coherent arguments to suggest this is a backlash against US policy, or that any possible permutation of past American policy would have had the capacity to alter that.

Certainly AQ seeks to overturn and replace Arab governments, most particularly that of Saudi Arabia, but it's important to note that this element of their platform receives very little support among the populaces of these countries. Saudis are more than willing to cheer on AQ and to contribute money and fighters, when AQ fights foreign intruders in Muslim lands, or counts coup against anything associated with "the west". When AQ tried to bring the fight home and generate a rebellion against the Saudi monarchy, the effort fell completely flat: they never generated anything remotely approaching the critical mass needed to muster a credible insurgency or seriously threaten the government. People simply didn't buy the message: Saudis are quite willing to support and celebrate AQ as long as they fight somewhere else, but they have zero interest in being ruled by AQ. That doesn't mean they love the monarchy, of course, it just means that they don't see AQ as a viable alternative. It also doesn't help that the most consistently aggrieved section of the Saudi populace is the Shi'a, who of course are not about to jump on the AQ bandwagon.

There are certainly many Saudis who have grievances with their government, nut AQ is in no way a manifestation of popular anti-government sentiment. They tried to cast themselves in that role, but were categorically rejected.

Perhaps the weakest contention in your argument is the claim that US support has somehow enabled the Saudis to ignore popular grievance. Again, I see no evidence or reasoning to support that claim. The US has certainly supported the Saudis against foreign threats, and will continue to do so: that's not about supporting the royal family, it's about ensuring that Saudi oil reserves don't fall into hostile hands. The Saudis need no US help or advice to maintain internal security, and they could (and would) do it their way no matter what the US said or did. They don't need US help to oppress the populace, nor do they need or seek US permission.

Perhaps the most dangerous part of this argument is that it seems to point toward urging the US to try to impose itself as an unwanted mediator between the Saudi government and populace. That of course is an appalling idea. The US has zero standing to take on such a role, and any such effort would be resisted by all parties involved. The relationship between the Saudi government and their populace is complex, but it is none of our business and neither government nor populace wants us messing in it. Any advice we give their government is going to be rejected out of hand: for a suggestion of how that would go, look what happened when the US tried to council accommodation and negotiation when the Arab Spring hit Bahrain. The Saudis simply ignored us. Why would we think they'd do anything different if we tried to tell them how to manage their own populace?

My recommendation is that we sit down with the Saudis, President to King, and let them know what the new terms are in no uncertain way. Letting them guess is leading to them guessing the worst. That isn't good.

I don't see how the terms have changed.

The US will not bomb Iran or remove Assad just because the Saudis want us to. That's nothing new. The Saudis have tried to push in that direction, the US has not obliged (wisely, IMO), and the Saudis have gone about their own way. That doesn't represent any great change in the US-Saudi position.

The US will, of course, defend Saudi Arabia against any (rather hypothetical) attack from Iran (with Saddam gone there's no other reasonable candidate). Again, that's not support for the royal family, it's keeping the oil in congenial hands, something the Saudi government and people know quite well. The US will not withdraw that protection no matter what the Saudis do to their own people, and any threat to withdraw it is hollow... we know that, and so do they. No matter how awful the royals are, we will not accept Iranian control of the Saudi oil fields.

The US will not protect the Saudis in the event of internal uprising, but I don't think the Saudi royals ever expected that, or cared: they are quite confident in their own ability to manage that situation. That confidence may prove misplaced, but no matter what we do or say, they will do it their way. They don't care what we think, and they don't have to care. We have neither control nor meaningful influence over their actions.

/rant

At the end of the day, since the argument clearly focuses on Saudi Arabia, can we have some actual suggestions for policies and/or actions that you think would improve this situation?