Ending Saudi Arabia’s Impunity

Saudi Arabia has violated human rights both inside and outside of its borders. As the wars in Yemen and Syria continue and instability in the Middle East pervades and worsens, we must come to recognize that the House of Saud, along with the United States, is one of the culprits.

Recent problems with the punishment of blogger Raif Badawi speak to the broader political climate. Badawi's sentence, 50 lashes a week for 20 weeks and jail for a decade for criticizing certain governmental clerics, stands as an example of how harsh life can be in the Kingdom. By now, the whole world is familiar with Saudi Arabia's strict rules and interpretation of Islam. The Saudi government has been concerned with bottling the  deeply radical fervor within its country, going back to the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979 by a revolutionary group that desired "a return to the original ways of Islam, among other things; a repudiation of the West; abolition of television and expulsion of non-Muslims." To do this, Saudi Arabia has also avoided stemming the tide of dollars flooding out of the country to Syria's radical groups while playing its geostrategic game against Iran in Yemen. As the Sept. 2 New York Times reported in 2015, Saudi Arabia has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into funding terror organizations around the globe.

The United States ensures that Saudi Arabia does not have to face the consequences of its actions, which means Saudi Arabia's foreign policy gets worse, not better. With the Iranian nuclear deal underway, Saudi Arabia feels threatened and is attempting to stockpile more weapons than Iran to ensure its hegemony in the Middle East, creating an arms race that the United States actively abets. Business Insider reported earlier this week that the US agreed to sell another $1.29 billion of weapons to Saudi Arabia, supposedly to fight against terrorist groups that have been linked back to the Saudi Arabian government itself.

In fact, the Business Insider article furthers that the Saudi Arabia state-sponsored form of Wahhabism has many extremist ideologies that helps ISIS and Al-Qaeda recruit fighters. Badawi criticized Wahhabism in the blog post that led to his sentence. It’s important to note that this does not mean Wahhabist beliefs are all inherently violent or terroristic. The actions of Saudi Arabia have ramifications outside of the pockets of US taxpayers as well. As the Times of India reported last October, the lack of cooperation on the part of Saudi Arabia has significantly threatened and slowed the prospects of a Syrian Civil War resolution. Any hope of a more peaceful Middle East requires Saudi Arabia to want peace and mean it. 

It’s important to be clear that this is not an indictment against all Middle Eastern countries or Muslims. It’s not even an indictment against all of Saudi Arabia’s policies; in fact, they just ratcheted up their investment in higher education significantly. But their human rights violations, funding of terrorists, and provocation in the Middle East must stop being ignored by the US—it must be curbed.

So what can we do? Fortunately, dropping oil prices and a decrease of oil imports into the US over the past year have led to less money for the Saudi government and less need for American foreign policy to pander to, rather than punish, Saudi Arabia. But this is not enough—we cannot simply hope their economy falters enough that they must reform. We must be firm with Saudi Arabia and not propagate double standards within Middle Eastern countries, or internationally, for that matter. If we are to criticize Iran for buying weapons and threatening Saudi Arabia, we must do the same when Saudi Arabia outwardly threatens Iran.

One US Representative, Hank Johnson (D-GA) brought his criticisms of Saudi Arabia to the floor in January, but it gained little traction. We must write to our representatives to encourage them to do the same—and block any more resolutions to provide arms to Saudi Arabia. The US government must take a global lead in standing up to Saudi Arabia. If we don’t take a stand, stories like Raif’s--and the untold tens of thousands of lives extinguished by our hand and by Saudi Arabia's hand--will be for naught.