The Foreign Affairs Of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia joined the UN in 1945 and is a founding member of the Arab League, Gulf Cooperation Council, Muslim World League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (now the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation). It plays a prominent role in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and in 2005 joined the World Trade Organization. Saudi Arabia supports the intended formation of the Arab Customs Union in 2015 and an Arab common market by 2020, as announced at the 2009 Arab League summit. As a founding member of OPEC, its oil pricing policy has been generally to stabilize the world oil market and try to moderate sharp price movements so as to not jeopardise the Western the mid-1970s and 2002 Saudi Arabia expended over $70 billion in “overseas development aid”. However, there is evidence that the vast majority was, in fact, spent on propagating and extending the influence of Wahhabism at the expense of other forms of Islam. There has been an intense debate over whether Saudi aid and Wahhabism has fomented extremism in recipient countries. The two main allegations are that, by its nature, Wahhabism encourages intolerance and promotes terrorism. Relations with the United States became strained following 9/11. American politicians and media accused the Saudi government of supporting terrorism and tolerating a jihadist culture. Indeed, Osama bin Laden and fifteen out of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. According to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” Former CIA director James Woolsey described it as “the soil in which Al-Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are flourishing.” The Saudi government strenuously denies these claims or that it exports religious or cultural the Arab and Muslim worlds, Saudi Arabia is considered to be pro-Western and pro-American, and it is certainly a long-term ally of the United States. However, this and Saudi Arabia’s role in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, particularly the stationing of troops on Saudi soil from 1991, prompted the development of a hostile Islamist response internally. As a result, Saudi Arabia has, to some extent, distanced itself from the and, for example, refused to support or to participate in the invasion of Iraq in years have seen increasing alarm within the Saudi monarchy over the rise of Iran’s influence in the region, reflected in the reported private comments of King Abdullah urging the US to attack Iran and “cut off the head of the snake”. The tentative rapprochement between the US and Iran that began in secret in 2011 was said to be feared by the Saudis, and, during the run up to the widely welcomed deal on Iran’s nuclear programme that capped the first stage of USIranian dtente, Robert Jordan, who was ambassador to Riyadh from 2001 to 2003, said “[t]he Saudis’ worst nightmare would be the [Obama] administration striking a grand bargain with Iran.” A trip to Saudi by US President Barack Obama in 2014 included discussions of USIran relations, though these failed to resolve Riyadh’s Arabia has been seen as a moderating influence in the Arab-Israeli conflict, periodically putting forward a peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians and condemning Hezbollah. Following the Arab Spring Saudi Arabia offered asylum to deposed President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and King Abdullah telephoned President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt (prior to his deposition) to offer his support. In early 2014 relations with Qatar became strained over its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia’s belief that Qatar was interfering in its affairs. In August 2014 both countries appeared to be exploring ways of ending the rift