Yeah, Blobists! Or Establishmentarians, or whatever you like to call yourselves these days! What is the deal with this hardnosiosity, or perhaps rhinosaurusism, that is coming to the fore with regard to Saudi Arabia?
I first noticed, and bewailed, this unfortunate “trend” last March, when I faulted Atlantic editor Jeff Goldberg for pushing the line that we had no choice but to make nice with Saudi Arabia, and oppressor in chief Mohammed Bin Salman, aka “MBS”, via a long, and long-winded, profile of the dude written by Graeme Wood. Opined Graeme
Since reality has handed us MBS, the question for America is how to influence him. This question is practical rather than moral: If your moralism drives him into a partnership with China, what good will it have been? A fundamental principle of Chinese foreign relations is butting out of other countries’ internal affairs and expecting the same from them. Certainly Beijing will not reprimand him for his treatment of dissidents.
In effect, both the Saudis and the Americans are now in the Ritz-Carlton [where MBS held a bunch of prisoners], forced to bargain with a jailer who promises us prosperity if we submit to his demands, and Mad Max if we do not. The predicament is familiar, because it is the same barrel over which every secular Arab autocrat has positioned America since the 1950s. Egypt, Iraq, and Syria all traded semitribal societies for modern ones, and they all became squalid dictatorships that justified themselves as bulwarks against chaos.
Well, Jeff’s and Graeme’s suspiciously quick embrace of “reality”, in the form of recognizing MBS as our “jailer”, who has the power to work his squalid will over us, whether we will it or no, sprawled haplessly as we are over a barrel (Graeme does have a way with words), has been followed all too soon by the embrace of the entire U.S. government, in the form of Joe Biden’s painful yet necessary “night in the barrel” (to vary the metaphor just a bit) during his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, from which he obtained nothing but humiliation, along with occasional praise from the interventionist press—unsentimental tough guys like Ben Hubbard of the New York Times and the editors of the Economist, who rightly make Daniel Larison gag.
But if “cold reality” requires that we, well, kiss Saudi Arabia’s ass, what should our attitude be towards Vladimir Putin’s Russia? According to this survey, Saudi Arabia’s natural resources (principally oil, of course) are worth, in total, about $34 trillion, compared to Russia’s $75 trillion (the U.S. is in between with $45 trillion). Furthermore, if Russia was feeling suicidal, they could blow us all to bits in a number of minutes, which Saudi Arabia could not. So why are we helping the Saudis with their massively unjust war in Yemen, while resisting Russia’s massively unjust invasion of Ukraine. What’s in it for us, huh? Where’s the bottom line on that one, Messrs. Nez Dur?
Which brings me, of course, to China. Why piss off the world’s most populous nation, the world’s second largest economy, with whom we had a total trade (exports and imports) of about $671 billion in 2021, and who could also blow us to Hell? Do we even know which side of the bread contains the butter?
I’m referring in particular, of course, to Nancy Pelosi’s ego-tripping trip to Taiwan—taken largely, I suspect, to convince AIPAC that the Democratic Party isn’t going all wobbly on Israel’s ass, and it seems to be working. The New York Times’s editorial page contained shout outs to Nancy from AIPAC mouthpieces Bret Stephens and New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez.1 The huffing and puffing that will flow from this exercise in octogenarian swagger will likely add another half a trillion to the defense budget—and that’s if we’re lucky—but to Nancy I’m sure it would be cheap at twice the price.
Still, I can’t help wondering: if we’re going to be “squalid”, shouldn’t we get top dollar for our degradation? Why sell ourselves cheap, when we can sell ourselves expensive?
1. I’m pleased and surprised to note that the Washington Post, usually an uncritical fan of American pugnacity, did not join the Times this time around regarding Nancy’s little stunt.
