There's a certain irony to the U.S. government and media campaign against Saudi Arabia, now that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has announced it plans to cut oil production by two billion barrels a day, likely driving up gas prices at the pump just before the midterm elections. Most of OPEC's member nations have had tense relations with the U.S. for decades, while Saudi Arabia has positioned itself as a strong U.S. ally all along.
Of OPEC's 13 member countries, five are in the Middle East and seven in Africa. Only one is in the Western Hemisphere: Venezuela. Since 2019, Venezuela has had no diplomatic relations with the U.S., a result of the failed coup in which the U.S. recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as president, rather than the actual president, Nicolás Maduro, who remains in power. Tensions between the two countries have steadily increased since 1999, when then-President Hugo Chávez (Maduro's predecessor and mentor) declared himself to be socialist and "anti-imperialist."
Three weeks before OPEC announced its decision to cut production, it celebrated its 62nd anniversary at a conference in Venezuela, where Maduro delivered the keynote address in the Republican Palace in Caracas. Maduro exchanged a warm handshake with OPEC's new secretary general, Haitham al-Ghais, who is from Kuwait — another U.S. ally that voted to support OPEC's production cut — which might not exist as an independent nation today if U.S. troops hadn't liberated it from Iraqi occupation during the first Gulf War of 1991.
Al-Ghais studied in the U.S., as did his predecessor as OPEC head, Mohammed Bakindo of Nigeria. So too did former OPEC Secretary General Abdallah Salem Al-Badri of Libya, another country that for decades was on bad terms with the U.S. during the lengthy rule of Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed in 2011 as the result of a brief U.S.-led military intervention. (A year later, Libya was the site of the infamous and controversial "Benghazi attack," in which four Americans died, including the U.S. ambassador.)
At least the U.S. military didn't stay in Libya for long. The same cannot be said for Iraq, another OPEC member, which was occupied by U.S. troops for eight years after the initial military invasion in 2003.
As for another prominent OPEC member nation, Iran, not much needs to be said. The two countries have had no diplomatic relations since 1980, when the Islamic Revolution toppled the shah, a U.S.-supported despot widely despised by his own people.
So that's the historical background. Now we get to Russia.
Last March, the UN General Assembly issued an overwhelming condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with 141 countries supporting the resolution, five opposed and 47 either abstaining or absent. The abstainers included five of the 13 OPEC nations — Algeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Iran and Iraq — while Venezuela was absent. (Ten other Arab and Muslim countries either voted no, abstained or were absent).
A total of 25 African countries either abstained or were absent (three of those the OPEC members mentioned above), by far the highest proportion of dissenters from any continent. Many representatives who spoke before the General Assembly vote mentioned the support of Russia (or at least the Soviet Union) for the African liberation movements that fought for independence against Western colonial powers during the 1960s and '70s.
In South Africa, which abstained from the UN vote on Ukraine, there has been heated public debate about the subject. The Nelson Mandela Foundation issued a remarkable statement at the time calling for a "cessation of hostilities" without specifically condemning the Russian invasion. It cited Mandela's 2003 speech "angrily" criticizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq "in defiance of the United Nations." The statement then asked, "Indeed, at what point is a country justified in invading another?"
One of the ironies of the public discourses swirling around the Ukraine invasion has been the outrage expressed by the United States, a country which for sometime has perfected the arts of invasion, occupation, and a contemptuous dismissal of international bodies. ... Over months and years now we've listened to Putin's representations of Russian and European history to justify Ukraine staying within that sphere [of influence]. Whatever we may think of this logic it informed the United States acting against Cuba in the 1960s and Grenada in the 1980s, who were within its perceived sphere of influence.
Current U.S. attacks on Saudi Arabia and the other OPEC members have connected the planned cut in oil production to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, considering the action as a de facto alliance with Russia.
But things aren't quite that simple, and OPEC's action didn't come out of the blue.
Recently the word "reckoning" has become popular in the U.S. in relation to the legacy of racism. For OPEC members and other Arab, African and Muslim countries, another sort of reckoning is at work here, for the long U.S. history of punishing countries that decline to obey American policy dictates. Another concept that may be relevant here is pride: Many of these countries are implying that they now expect the U.S. to treat them with respect when it comes to discussion of differences.
"We are concerned first and foremost with the interests of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," said Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman after the recent decision, adding that Saudi Arabia has "an interest in being part of the growth of the global economy."
For OPEC members and other Arab, African and Muslim countries, a form of reckoning is at work here, for the long U.S. history of punishing countries that decline to obey American policy dictates.
America's political leaders, on all sides, have begun talking about vengeance and punishment. "What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans," tweeted Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Rep Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., said he would introduce legislation that would require the Biden administration to remove U.S. troops and missile defense systems from both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Saudi government is surely aware that the U.S. hopes to drive down the price of Russian oil and gas in order to damage the Russian economy and bankrupt Vladimir Putin's war effort, and may well wonder what type of punishment the U.S. now has in mind for them. It was Donald Trump, an avowedly pro-Saudi president, who claimed at a 2019 rally in Mississippi that he had told King Salman: "King — we're protecting you — you might not be there for two weeks without us — you have to pay for your military."
Questions of reckoning were also on the minds of some African journalists during a webinar a few months ago with Molly Phee, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, who was trying to rally African support for the U.S. campaign against Russia. Molly Phee who was marching the Africans to follow the US on Russia. A journalist from Botswana asked: "Why should African countries support the position of the U.S. to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine when the U.S. supports the aggression in Israel against Palestinians?" (Phee responded that the situations were not parallel and the U.S. supported a two-state solution to the Palestinian question.)
Finally, the problem with historical U.S. punishment of countries that reject American policy prescriptions goes beyond the choice between military intervention and more peaceful solutions; it is also that the policies themselves sometimes change.
The Biden administration's attitude toward Saudi Arabia, for instance, has been conflicted all along. As a candidate, Joe Biden described the desert kingdom as a "pariah" state after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi; then he fist-bumped Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler; now he's eager to seek punitive measures for an oil-price maneuver that involved a dozen other countries.
There are also reports that the Biden administration is prepared to modulate its antagonistic relationship with "socialist" Venezuela, at least when it comes to restrictions on travel and trade. And after a near-freeze on any contact with Iran, the U.S. now appears close to negotiating a new version of the nuclear deal that was agreed to by Barack Obama and then dumped by Trump. OPEC nations can perhaps be forgiven for believing that whatever the U.S. policy may be today, it's likely to be different tomorrow.
