The Saudi Sunni Lobby (or should we say the Wahabi Lobby?)

Submitted by Martin H Katchen (United States), Feb 6, 2013 at 22:53

I agree, Daniel. Ali Baba looks very superfically at lobbying in the United States if he focuses on only one issue, that of relations between the United States and Israel. The potency of Saudi Arabia's lobbying ability can be shown in the fact that after the American exit from Vietnam, Saudi Arabia was able to convince American policymakers that the United States could retain it's preeminence in the world if Saudi Arabia would leverage it's market share in OPEC to define the price of oil in US dollars and deposit Saudi oil revenue in New York banks, thus protecting the US dollar as the world reserve currency(and making Saudi Arabia one of the top holders of US debt). In return, the United States had to undertake to protect the House of Saud and Saudi Arabia from enemies, foreign and domestic.

This is a special relationship on the order of that between the United States and Great Britain and it gives and has given Saudi Arabia and it[s allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council a lot of leeway in it's actions in the world. It has, among other things, given the Saudis weapons systems such as AWACS that Israel dosen't even get. It got members of the Saudi and Bin Laden Family diplomatic immunity, safe passage out of the United States and freedom from the inconvenience of having to answer awkward questions from federal investigators on 9/11 when all other planes were grounded. It got the Saudis a free hand to export Wahabi ideology into Afghanistan in the 1980s which got Osama bin Laden trained in terrorism in the first place, probably in order to prevent these young Saudi salafists from making trouble at home. It got the Saudis for 30 years a guaranteed share of the US oil market by discouraging Americans from exploring for oil in the US, allegedly for environmental reasons. And presently, the Saudi Relationship may be preventing American policymakers from responding effectively to Saudi-Qatari backed Salafists seizing control of the Syrian revolt against the Assad Regime and if Peter Copley's current report is correct and the Qataris are backing AQIM in Mali, may complicate America's decision to give more than logistical support to the fight against AQIM in that country.

All of which makes the Saudi Lobby much more pervasive, if lower profile in US financial and policy circles and the financial consequences (if not necessarily the electoral consequences) of crossing it far more severe than that of the Israel Lobby.

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