Saudi Arabia's Friendship - or Oil?

Why hasn't President Bush, a man who has been known to invade countries, ordered a blueprint for taking Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, which has half the world's oil?

Oil prices are inching closer to an all-time high of $100 a barrel, which soon will translate into more than $4 a gallon at the pump. With energy costs at those levels, most economists agree, Western economies will be pushed to the brink of collapse. That is an outcome we must prevent at all costs, in one of two ways.

One is for the president's pals in Saudi Arabia to declare their intent to ramp up oil production, way above the kingdom's current output of 8.5 million barrels a day. Just the announcement of such a proposal would instantly rein in oil prices by at least 25%, before a single Saudi worker ambled over to flip a switch.

Within a month of the launch of the new plan, oil prices would fall below $40 a barrel, with prices at the pump dropping to less than $2 a gallon. All this would happen alongside frenzied efforts by every other oil producer, from Russia to the rest of OPEC, to increase their exports, too.

That the Saudis, whom we have protected for more than 60 years, can do this is beyond question.

Indeed, for years our supposed allies have bragged to the world about their phenomenal "spare capacity." In the oil business, this is what separates the men from the boys. For the Saudis, it is their vaunted ability to increase output by another 2 million barrels a day, to 10.5 million.

That is about as macho as you can get in the oil business.

But it isn't happening. As we watch oil and gas prices rise, America and the rest of the West are wondering if there can't be a quid pro quo for all the years of military protection the West has extended to the Saudi royal family to keep it on the throne and safe from the Iranian mullahs.

The answer from our Saudi friends seems to be "Get lost." As recently as yesterday, the Saudis and their OPEC spokesmen said they do not see any problem that requires special action. They went on to define an energy problem as an unexpected shortage of oil.

Western strategists and ordinary consumers think a problem is unbearably high energy prices, which at this level constitute a crisis. Now is the time to call in favors for the decades that Western navies, armed forces, and governments invested in protecting that Saudi oil, first from the Soviet empire, during the Cold War, and now from the Iranian ogre across the Persian Gulf.

As matters stand today, America is Saudi Arabia's main — and probably only — protector in a rough neighborhood in which Iran looms like a 900-pound gorilla.

Back in the World War II era, in a now famous deal struck on an American destroyer by President Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz al-Saud, America pledged to help the Saudis find and produce their oil and protect them militarily in return for fair oil prices. America and the West kept their end of the bargain, and more. In 1990–91, half a million Americans and Western Europeans reversed Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, as he was preparing to take Saudi Arabia, as well. Since then, America has kept one or two carrier groups in the Persian Gulf to make sure the Saudi, Kuwaitis, and citizens of other oil-producing Arab states sleep soundly.

The West, including France and Britain, supplies arms, warships, and warplanes, along with the training and logistical support to build what passes for a Saudi army and navy. Despite that, the kingdom's leadership has cheerily watched oil prices race to more than $85 a barrel from less than $20 without lifting a finger.

Which brings us to the other way of getting oil prices down: invading and occupying the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. This isn't a far-fetched scenario, but one that should be appearing on the radar in the West.

Far from acting like a friend and ally, the Saudis in the past decade have given us Islamic Jihad, Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, an ongoing Sunni insurgency in Iraq, and now higher and higher oil prices. Taking the Eastern Province sounds like fair compensation for services rendered.

ymibrahim@gmail.com