The US, Saudi and Iran Axis

Saudi Arabia’s recent refusals to increasing oil production in defiance of the Biden administration has caused an uproar in the US as it was seen as Saudi defiance of its security partner. In order to crystallise the political reality, it is essential to understand the broader regional picture. Saudi Arabia, in recent months, has fiddled with Russian alignment and furthermore, has refused to drill and pump more oil on the market causing energy prices to remain high. In return, the Kingdom’s defiance has created complications for the Biden administration further increasing the list of issues affecting domestic American public, with energy being one of them. If we examine the big oil corporations they too, have refused to drill sufficient proportions of oil and gas to cushion the soaring prices, undermining the Biden administration.

According to Oil Price, several days ago, President Biden threatened oil companies with windfall taxes and “other restrictions” if they don’t stop returning cash to shareholders and start investing this cash in more oil production. The industry, via the American Petroleum Institute, responded with yet another reiteration of the fact that the oil market is a global one, and producers don’t have complete control over prices because it is also a free market. Oil producers, big and small, did not react to the U.S. President’s latest attack on it. The industry simply continued what it has been doing since oil prices rebounded: returning cash to shareholders and planning its spending carefully.

The former is due to big oil being Republican sponsors and being against the Big Tech-Democrat sponsors- and the climate agenda. Big oil desires to either to influence the wave of climate change and renewables and if not possible, it prefers to neutralise it. So far, big oil has been successful as it has been able to swing its power via its political agents within the government- being the Republicans- and force Democrats to follow their policy line. In doing so, Big Tech has also come under fire for helping big oil produce more oil, a move that appears to go counter to the promises that tech companies had made about reducing emissions. All of this has hurt the Biden administration and the overall Democratic party and furthermore, their benefactors.

Returning to Saudi Arabia, it is in bed with America’s Republican party and also intends to hurt the Biden administration and help the Republicans win the mid-term elections because if the GOP wins, the Democrats would come under a serious threat where the Republicans would constantly be able to block almost every bill from being passed within the House. Besides, decades ago Aramco was owned by big oil and till this day Aramco employs 40,000 Americans ranging from executives, geologists, and advisors who have a history of being employed by big oil in the past! Henceforth, it is of no surprise to why Saudi Arabia is aligned with the conservative/big oil position rather than the democrats and their benefactors. Thus, Saudi Arabia is not moving away from being an American agent rather it is choosing to side with a different master from the same house! Furthermore, Saudi Arabia does not want its competitor Iran to become powerful under the Democrats.

This brings us to Iran and its current role in the crisis. Currently, Iran is going through domestic turmoil due to their brutal un-Islamic rule upon the Iranian people. The West in general has used this issue to twist the issue and attack Islam. Nevertheless, the Biden administration till yet, has not unequivocally denied the revival of the JCPOA and neither has Iran, which illustrates that both nations intend to pursue such a deal in the future. Highlighting the hypocrisy from both sides where both sides refuse to stick to their ideals and values.

Furthermore, in the last month Iran was able to provide several drones to Russia in the midst of the Ukraine war, America decided to apply sanctions on Iran in an attempt to restrict the drone supplies towards Russia. This raises suspicion to why would America not apply sanctions immediately but a month after when Iran has done providing enough drones to Russia? Once again, it illustrates that America is using Iran to project manage America’s plan towards Russia in Ukraine.

To crystallise this picture, we will have a look at the following events to see why Biden made such statements: Joe Biden recently mentioned, "Don't worry, we're going to free Iran," Biden told supporters in a campaign speech in California. then Saudi Arabia rushed to the US complaining about Iran posing a risk to the kingdom. Then, Iran did a missile launch to which the US labelled as “hostile and destabilising” to the region. Then American jets tried to scramble Iranian efforts in order to prevent an imminent attack on the kingdom. "We are concerned about the threat picture, and we remain in constant contact through military and intelligence channels with the Saudis," the US National Security Council said at the time. "We will not hesitate to act in the defence of our interests and partners in the region." To make matters even more interesting the Republican Senator Joni Ernest mentioned that, “While Iran prepares for an attack on our partners, leading Dems are advocating for removing key air and missile defence units, risking the lives of US citizens and our troops alike,” she said. She further added, “Saudi Arabia is a longstanding Gulf security partner and that has not changed. The Biden admin kneecapped US energy production and has blamed OPEC+ for high gas prices. The American people don’t buy it.”

To conclude, both political parties within America are using two different opposing powers in the region for their self-interests. On one side, the Republican and Big oil are using Saudi Arabia to reap profits and to politically undermine the opposition to be able to secure victory in the mid –term elections, which would hugely benefit them. On the other hand, the Democrats are using Iran to scare Saudi Arabia so it could rethink its current pro-republican polices and also be able to counter the Republican efforts so they could be able to maintain Democratic power in the house.

This is the nature of an ideology which is built upon the separation between the Creator and affairs of life. And the systems (Freedom, Capitalism and Democracy) that emanate from this false creed results in creating nothing but destruction, corruption and chaos. When foreign nations begin to emulate or even ally with such Secular Western nations even their nature of rule polluted and corrupt as we see with Iran and Saudi Arabia who are busy supporting the world pillar (America) of corruption and kufr for their personal interest, which helps neither their population nor in solving their problems in the long run.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Mohammed Mustafa