By Paul Malone
When everyone knows that 15 of the 19 al-Qaeda 9/11 terrorists were Saudi Arabian citizens and that Saudi Arabia is the major sponsor of the intolerant, extremist Sunni form of Islam – Wahhabism – you may wonder why the United States is so supportive of Saudi Arabia.
Why is the US so tolerant of Saudi support for jihadists in Syria and so silent on Saudi intervention in Bahrain and its bombing of Yemen?
We will have to wait and see if President-elect Donald Trump modifies the US approach to Syria.Credit: AP
We will have to wait and see if President-elect Donald Trump modifies this approach.
But to do so he will need not only to break away from the policies of Republican elites but also risk US jobs in the armaments industries.
According to the just published book, The Age of Jihad by Patrick Cockburn, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the US and head of Saudi intelligence until 2014, was a key player in directing Saudi support for rebels in Syria.
As ambassador, Bandar also did favours for the Americans.
Bob Woodward in his book State of Denial says that, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration asked Bandar to arrange $22 million in covert funding for the Nicaraguan Contras.
Bandar also worked closely with presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, helping the US economy by flooding the market with oil and supporting Saudi purchases of US weapons.
In 2004, according to Woodward, George W. Bush called in Bandar, telling him Pakistan was in desperate need of 26 helicopters that cost $250 million.
Bush asked Saudi Arabia to pick up the tab and Saudi Arabia duly paid $235 million for 24 helicopters for the Pakistani army.
Bill Clinton, as governor of Arkansas, also asked Bandar to help pay for the Middle East Studies Centre at the University of Arkansas. The Saudi government coughed up $20 million to establish the centre.
Such favours build obligations and may in part explain the US administration's willingness to accept Saudi Arabia's role in inflaming conflict in the Middle East and the US's muddled policies since the major blunder of invading Iraq.
On the one hand, the US government claims that its aim is to defeat the Islamic State and jihadist groups, while, on the other, it lends support to rebels who are closely associated with such terrorists.
Cockburn points out that, as far back as December 2009, leaked official US documents show Saudi support for anti-Shia militants.
The then secretary of state Hillary Clinton wrote that Saudi Arabia "remains a critical financial support base for al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan] and other terrorist groups".
More recently an email from John Podesta, the counsellor to the president, to Clinton on August 19, 2014, stated that, while the Kurdish and Iraqi paramilitary operation against IS was moving forward, "we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region".
Podesta went on to say that the Qataris and Saudis would have to balance their policy between ongoing competition to dominate the Sunni world and the consequences of serious US pressure.
Hopefully Donald Trump will bring serious pressure.
So far, his promise to join the Russians and target IS bodes well.
There is hope this will bring an end to one chapter of the wars in Syria and Iraq, as the Syrian government and Kurdish forces take eastern Aleppo and the Iraqi government, Kurdish and Shiite militia take Mosul.
With eight wars being fought in Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa at present, no one expects that victories in Aleppo and Mosul will bring an end to the killing.
Nor does anyone expect the emergence of tolerant, pluralist, democracies.
The best we can hope for is fewer lives lost, the rebuilding of basic services and the opportunity for some refugees to return home, or find a safe refuge.
Fighting will continue in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Cockburn says the political struggle in Yemen was largely local until March 2015, when Saudi Arabia started bombing the Houthi rebels who had seized most of the country.
The Houthis are frequently described as Iranian-backed Shia, but Cockburn says they belong to the Zaidi sect that is very different from other variants of Shi'ism.
Iranian influence was limited. But, he says, the branding has made Sunni-Shia conflict self-fulfilling.
The Yemen conflict presents another example of intertwining US and Saudi interests.
The Saudis are bombing Yemen with US smart bombs.
Nevertheless, in November 2015, the US State Department approved a $1.29 billion sale of smart bombs to Saudi Arabia to help replenish supplies used in bombing Yemen and Syria.
This is only a fraction of the many billions of US armaments sales to Saudi Arabia, providing a key reason why the US administration kowtows to the monarchist dictatorship.
Lockheed Martin sells aircraft, helicopters and air traffic control systems, Boeing sells fighter jets, General Dynamics sells Abrams tanks and others supply everything from missiles to small arms.
Saudi Arabia's killing of civilians in, for example, Yemen has not received the same critical media attention as civilian deaths in, for example, Aleppo,
Much media reporting uncritically accepts the US perspective of the wars and fails to point out the bias of sources.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, for example, is a pro-opposition group based in Britain whose claims should be treated every bit as sceptically as Syrian government claims.
The White Helmets, or the Syrian Civil Defence, which features in much television coverage rescuing people, is not a pacifist organisation and has argued for US bombing of not just jihadists but also Syrian government regions.
The SCD is not affiliated with the International Civil Defence Organisation, nor is it connected to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which is affiliated with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement.
Western media report the US-backed Iraqi government sources saying they have killed nearly 1000 "militants" in the battle for Mosul.
But in the battle over eastern Aleppo, reports say "civilians" and "children" are killed by Syrian government bombardments.
US bombs are, of course, smart bombs. Syrian and Russian bombs are barrel bombs.
There is no doubt that, in these battles, many innocent people are casualties.
There is no clean-cut way to take control of Mosul or Aleppo.
It is dishonest to characterise one lot of casualties as collateral damage and another as wanton slaughter.
It remains to be seen if Mr Trump will adopt a more independent foreign policy.
Given his wild campaign statements, anything is possible.
At worst, he may deliver an outrageous outburst on Islam and inflame the Muslim world.
But at best he can clarify the US stance on fighting terrorism and work to achieve some sort of stable, if uneasy, settlements for the countries of the region.