Ali AlAhmed is director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Gulf Affairs.

President Barack Obama travels to meet with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah on Friday amid what can only be described as a falling out between Washington and Riyadh. After enjoying strong military and economic ties with both Bush administrations, the ruling Al Saud family has grown more and more wary of Obama ever since he took office. For the past several months, Saudi officials have lambasted the United States for abandoning its Gulf allies: “The big bear has not proven to be very bearish-like recently,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, said in December. The two main sticking points are Syria—where the United States refuses to become entangled in the country’s civil war, despite the Saudis’ calls to intervene on the rebels’ behalf—and Iran—which has warmed to Washington, including in a nuclear deal late last year that was a major blow to the staunchly Sunni Saudi monarchy.

Pundits like to declare Saudi Arabian oil, military might and supposedly cooperative foreign policy essential to a strong U.S. presence in the region. And they justify maintaining close Washington-Riyadh ties by claiming that the Saudi king is a reform-minded ally in the Middle East. But as Obama visits Saudi Arabia for a second time, it’s time to set the record straight. After all, America’s growing distance from the Saudi monarchy might not be such a bad thing.


Myth 1: The U.S.-Saudi relationship is all about oil.

This myth assumes that if the United States steps once too often on Saudi toes, the kingdom can simply decide to suspend or stop oil exports at any time, in turn driving up global prices, angering the West, China and India, and potentially leading to a global economic meltdown. But while oil is certainly Saudi Arabia’s most valuable economic asset—accounting for a whopping 91 percent of the country’s 2013 budget, according to the International Monetary Fund—it is also the Saudis’ biggest vulnerability: They rely so much on oil that they are held hostage by the revenue it yields and have no choice but to keep exporting it. Total Saudi exports to the United States—the vast majority of which is oil—reached $51.8 billion in 2013. But if oil were the primary reason for Washington’s kid-glove policy toward Saudi Arabia, then the U.S. relationship with China—which owns $1.3 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds—should be all sunshine and daffodils. And U.S. economic dependence on China, of course, hasn’t stopped the United States from criticizing Beijing’s human rights record.

There’s no question oil is still important to the U.S.-Saudi relationship, but it too often overshadows the Saudi lobby in the United States—the monarchy’s petro-dollar investments in various political, economic, media and other organizations that influence or drive U.S. foreign policy, as well as cash infusions, lucrative contracts and joint-ventures between American and Saudi companies. Nearly all former living U.S. presidents have received millions of dollars from the kingdom for their libraries and foundations. The same goes for many former U.S. ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, former members of Congress, senior State Department officers and other federal officials. Academic stalwarts including Harvard, Georgetown and the University of California at Berkeley, to mention just a few, have and continue to receive substantial donations and endowments from the kingdom, inevitably muting critical evaluation of Saudi policies by these institutions. The Saudi monarch wouldn’t send millions of dollars funding American institutions and politicians if they weren’t getting a good return.

Perhaps worst of all, the United States is paying a steep price to safeguard its access to Saudi oil. Princeton University’s Roger J. Stern estimates that between 1976 and 2007, the U.S. Department of Defense spent some $7 trillion to secure American oil assets in the Persian Gulf (excluding the cost of the 2003 invasion of Iraq). Now, in the wake of the North American shale oil and gas boom and America’s declining net oil imports, it makes much more sense for the Saudis to pay for the security of their own oil fields; American taxpayers are wasting their dollars to protect Saudi and Gulf oil deposits with less and less return.

Myth 2: The United States needs Saudi Arabia more than Saudi Arabia needs the United States.

This myth implies that because of U.S. dependence on Saudi oil, Washington is not in a position to challenge the ruling family on its widely documented support for extremism or its counter-revolutionary interventions in the Middle East, including violently suppressing protesters in Bahrain in 2011. The truth is that it is the Saudi monarchy that needs American protection from rising Shia powers in the region, including Iran and Bashar Assad’s blood-soaked and unstable regime in Syria. After the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal reached late last year and other signs of rapprochement, the Saudi government fears it will lose its preferred status in the eyes of the United States, which has led to erratic behavior. For example, last October the Saudis lost their cool and withdrew from the U.N. Security Council, upset over President Obama’s refusal to wage another war in the Middle East on Riyadh’s behalf, this time against Syria.

This reaction reveals the existential fear expressed privately by senior Saudi princes—that the United States will one day turn against the Saudi monarchy and allow its internal and external enemies to remove the ruling family from power. While the United States can always find another Saudi Arabia for its oil needs by diversifying its energy resources, the Saudis have no other America they can ask for protection.

Myth 3: Saudi Arabia promotes stability and supports U.S. interests in the Middle East.

In reality, Saudi Arabia has clashed with nearly every neighboring country, including most of the five other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Saudi Arabia supported a 1995 coup attempt in Qatar, for instance, which soured relations between Riyadh and Doha. Now, Qatar-based Al Jazeera consistently offers negative coverage of Saudi affairs, and the two monarchies’ are clashing over Egypt. (The Saudis, fearing the Muslim Brotherhood’s competing Sunni Arab model, supported Egypt’s violent June 2013 military coup that ousted members of the Brotherhood, which Qatar backs.)For decades, relations have also been cold between Saudi Arabia and Oman, which is dominated by Abadhi Islam—a branch that Saudi officialdom considers deviant. No wonder that Saudi Arabia and Oman share a 435-mile border without a single active entry point, or that Oman has publically objected to the Saudis’ push for a Gulf Union, a proposed political and military alliance to replace the Gulf Cooperation Council. Although the United Arab Emirates might appear to be closer to Saudi Arabia, the two countries are in the midst of a border dispute over the Saudis’ 2012 blockade of the coastline that once connected them by land with Qatar. Emirati officials responded by opposing Riyadh’s bid to host the Gulf Central Bank for a proposed GCC common currency—a plan that ultimately went nowhere.

It actually works to the kingdom’s advantage to maintain instability in the Gulf and the Middle East, since the more volatility there is in the region, the more valuable the monarchy becomes as an ally to the West and, in turn, the more legitimate and strong it appears. Advocates of close Saudi-U.S. ties will point out that Riyadh has provided Washington with support dating back the World War II. More recently, the United States used Saudi territories to launch the two wars in Iraq, and bombings against Yemeni-based members of al Qaeda. But the Saudis have also undermined U.S. goals in Iraq and Yemen (and Afghanistan and Egypt, too). More than 6,000 Saudi nationals have been recruited into al Qaeda armies in Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen since the Sept. 11 attacks. In Iraq, two years after the U.S. invasion, an estimated 3,000 Saudi nationals fought alongside Al Qaeda in Iraq, comprising the majority of foreign fighters targeting Americans and Iraqis. All this may have been officially frowned upon, but it was also a direct result of Saudi government clerics, such as then-Chief Justice Saleh Al-Luhaidan, and their incitement of violence against Americans and Iraqis alike. Luhaidan, who remains a member of the senior council of Ulema, the country’s highest religious body, once told an audience in Riyadh to join “jihad” in Iraq and send money to fight the enemies of Muslims. Since then, the Saudis have not supported the emergence of an elected government in Iraq—dominated as it is by the hated Shiites—nor have they opened an embassy there. And the recruitment networks that provide al Qaeda with money and men remain active in Saudi Arabia.

Oddly enough, U.S. officials and media alike have bought into the absurd notion that the Saudi government bears no blame for the thousands of Saudis fighting and dying in extremist groups across the Muslim world. Instead, Washington praises the Saudi government for its counterterrorism efforts and “reeducation” program, which actually redirects militants to serve the Saudi government’s regional goals. Thetruth is that the Saudis are playing both sides, helping the United States fight against al Qaeda in certain areas, but using the terror group to advance Saudi foreign policy goals elsewhere—and Saudi Arabia remains the leading source of manpower, ideological legitimacy and funding that sustain Sunni extremist groups in Iraq, Syria and other countries.

Myth 4: The Saudi monarch is forward-thinking.

The Saudi state media empire, one of the most sophisticated in the world, has heavily promoted the idea that the Saudi king is a forward-thinking reformer. Last year, one prominent pro-monarchy columnist in Saudi Arabia even elevated the king to a superhuman being, saying he knows the past, the present and the future. One of the state media’s favorite tactics is to paint those who oppose the monarchy, in contrast, as extremists or Iranian agents. Yet the media rarely mention other opposition figures or groups who advocate for democracy and human rights in Saudi Arabia, such as the American-educated Mohamed al-Qahtani, the president of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, who is serving a 10-year sentence for his human rights work. Many other activists from around the country have been also jailed for decades over calls for constitutional monarchy and democracy.

By far, the bulk of the extremist practices in Saudi Arabia are the doing of the monarchy, which has controlled the country’s economic resources and political and religious institutions since 1932 with very little challenge. The only thing stopping the Saudi ruling family from passing reforms is its fear of losing power to the Saudi people. It is the monarchy that mandates the teaching of extremist religious curricula at all Saudi schools and universities, including banning philosophy, drama, critical thinking and modern social sciences. It is the monarchy that still enforces Dark Age punishments, such as public amputations and beheadings. And it is the monarchy that bars women from gaining legal status as individuals separate from men. The conservative Salafi-Wahhabi religious establishmentbehind these strict practices is nothing more than an agency of the ruling family, with the king himself appointing the movement’s religious leaders. (Ironically, many members of the ruling family are not particularly religious themselves. They use the Wahhabi ideology to maintain their grip on power while indulging in all pleasures of the West, including alcohol and other vices—“whiskey Wahhabi,” as I like to call it.)

Myth 5: The Saudi monarchy is stable and sustainable.

Although the ruling family has not shown any inclination toward true reform, the reality is that a new generation of Saudi citizens has much higher expectations of their government when it comes to sharing power and wealth—and they are speaking out about it. With the monarchy’s legitimacy weakening under the stress of the Arab Spring and worsening economic conditions, these activists, who describe themselves as “ post-ideological,” are sweeping the country online and sometimes even the streets, finally willing to express their opposition to—even to insult—the ruling family. I predict that within matter of few years it will be common among young people in Saudi Arabia to dream of being the next prime minister or even the future president of the Arabian Republic.

While the radical remnants of the Saudi state might survive in some form, they will likely be in the minority—and the country won’t fall apart as a result. For one thing, U.S. and regional cooperation makes that outcome highly unlikely. In fact, the end of the monarchy will make the country more stable, by removing the key financial and ideological backer of extremism in the region: the ruling family. Most Saudis are much more progressive than we think— 50 percent of the population is under age 25. They’re young and likely to adopt progressive policies if—and when—their government begins to push for them.