Why pick sides in the Middle East's Cold War?

Saudi Arabia and Iran both do horrific things—why does the U.S. support one and vehemently hate the other?

As Biden is on the cusp of finalizing a mutual defence treaty with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in an effort to get the authoritarian Islamic petrostate to normalize relations with Israel—not a bastion of peace and egalitarianism, to put it lightly—one wonders if the United States is straying from its commitment to democracy, its “scared cause,” according to Biden.

This mutual defence deal would commit the U.S. to militarily defending Saudi Arabia, providing it with even fancier weapons, and helping it develop a civilian nuclear program. Though Saudi Arabia is already outlandishly wealthy, this extra tribute on the part of the American taxpayer will, the State Department hopes, encourage the kingdom to recognize Israel. The goals of this ploy: to legitimize Israel’s ongoing war crimes in Gaza¹ and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank; to shore up military support for Saudi Arabia in its proxy wars with Iran; and to antagonize Iran, the arch nemesis of Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the beltway foreign policy establishment.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller outlined three components of the larger deal: the U.S.’s commitment to defending Riyadh, Riyadh’s recognizing Israel, and a pathway to a two-state solution. Why can’t we just get the last two without the first? Arab states’ recognition of Israel has traditionally been the prize Israel would get if it finally offered the Palestinians a legitimate state² and stopped its colonization project in the West Bank. Why must the U.S. throw extra offerings at Saudi Arabia to get it to normalize with Israel when it could instead follow through on its commitment to a Palestinian state, which would likely get Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel anyway? Doing this is within the U.S.’s power: the country sends billions of dollars to Israel annually and covers up its most egregious crimes with diplomatic clout. All the U.S. needs to do is exercise the leverage it has and force Israel to cut a ceasefire deal and restart the peace process.

Of course the Biden Administration would rather pay off Saudi Arabia than put in the work of forcing Israel to grant Palestinians their right to self-determination. But this shortcut has other potential downsides (along with screwing over the Palestinians, yet again). By committing itself to defending a bloody authoritarian regime that meddles in other countries, the U.S. has raised the stakes that it will have to fight the Saudis’ war—that is, Saudi Arabia’s conflict with Iran, which could easily become an international and nuclear affair, considering Iran and Russia’s alliance. In that case, it’s the lives of young American service members that are on the line (and given the severity of a conflict with Iran and Russia, the lives of guys like me who had to sign up for the draft are also on the line). All this is not to mention the horror across the Middle East that would be wrought if Iran and Saudi Arabia came to blows.

So why do we hate Iran so much anyway?

It’s true, the Axis of Resistance, which is led and backed by Iran, really is horrible. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are antisemitic and are intent on destroying Israel, and they’re happy to target civilians to achieve their political aims.³ Iran is an authoritarian regime where an elite group of clerics led by the supreme leader get to vet all potential political candidates. Women, ethnic minorities, and political dissidents are severely repressed in Iran. But Saudi Arabia is also guilty of horrific crimes,⁴ many of them identical to those committed by the Islamic Republic. And the U.S. is quite chummy with the Saudis.

Ever since Iran’s 1979 revolution, which overthrew the U.S.-backed authoritarian regime led by the Shah, America and Iran have been bitter rivals. The U.S. supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, which Iraq started and lasted eight years. It ultimately ended in a stalemate and killed one to two million people. During the war, the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 civilians. The U.S. claims it was an accident because the crew of the Vincennes thought the passenger plane was a fighter jet. The U.S. has never formally apologized.⁵ Given the U.S.’s antagonistic and violent history regarding Iran, it’s no surprise the country hates America. The real surprise is that Americans lack the cognitive empathy to see the reasons behind Iran’s hatred and instead chalk it up to radical Islamism or just plain-old evil.

Viewing the enemy as “pure evil” is a perfect example of attribution error, a cognitive bias that makes us attribute our enemies’ actions to their nature rather than their circumstances. (It also makes us attribute our friends’ misdeeds to their circumstances rather than their nature.) Attribution error causes U.S. policy makers to misapprehend the causes of Iran’s actions, leading to poor policy. Viewing Iran as incorrigibly evil usually lends itself to containment (which seems to be what the U.S. is pursuing with its troops stationed across the region) and confrontation (which I fear the U.S. is getting ever close to by strengthening ties with the Saudis). Viewing Iran as bad but capable of moderation, given the right incentives, leads to a more compassionate and less dangerous foreign policy.

Attribution error has led the U.S. foreign policy establishment to not realize that they’ve backed an equally awful actor—Saudi Arabia—in a cold war that has contributed to a host of proxy conflicts (in Syria, Nigeria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya) and risks provoking a nuclear war.⁶

1. Which I think could plausibly be genocide. Aryeh Neier, the co-founder of Human Rights Watch, made a convincing case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza in the New York Review.

2. I am of the view that Israel has never genuinely done this. It would take another entire essay to make this case (which I very well might do in the future) but for now I’ll merely point out that the land swaps offered at Oslo nine-to-one (i.e., Israel was to annex a certain amount [it incidentally turned out to be nine percent] of the West Bank and the future Palestinian state was to annex one ninth of that amount from Israel proper). That doesn’t seem very fair to me.

3. Interestingly, being racist and targeting civilians are two things that the Israeli government does and isn’t really that secretive about.

4. Remember Jamal Khashoggi?

5. Though not in relations to Iran Air Flight 655, George H. W. Bush said on many occasions that he wouldn’t apologize for America: “I will never apologize for the United States—I don’t care what the facts are.”

6. The nuclear war would be more accurate. There will only be one; it will be terminal war.