Saudi_disad - Fellows

Kentucky Fellows 2008 Zavell and Steckler

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***Saudi Relations Disad*** ***Saudi Relations Disad***.....................................................................................................................................1 1nc: Uniqueness + Link..............................................................................................................................................3 1nc: Uniqueness + Link..............................................................................................................................................4 ***Impacts***............................................................................................................................................................5 Impact Module: Prolif.................................................................................................................................................6 Ext.: Internal Link: Alliance Collapse Causes Prolif..................................................................................................7 Saudi Prolif Dominoes...............................................................................................................................................8 A2: Deterrence............................................................................................................................................................9 Saudi Prolif Terrorism...........................................................................................................................................10 Relations Solves Terrorism.......................................................................................................................................11 Impact Module: Dollar Hege 1/2..............................................................................................................................12 Impact Module: Dollar Hege 2/2..............................................................................................................................13 Ext: Rels key to dollar hege......................................................................................................................................14 Impact Module: Peace Deal......................................................................................................................................15 Ext: Relations Key to Peace Deal.............................................................................................................................16 Relations key to US presence/Regional Stability.....................................................................................................17 Impact Module: China 1/2........................................................................................................................................18 Impact Module: China 2/2........................................................................................................................................19 Ext. Internal Link- China Fill In...............................................................................................................................20 ***Links***.............................................................................................................................................................21 Link: Energy Independence .....................................................................................................................................22 Link: Dependence.....................................................................................................................................................23 Link: Alternative energies.........................................................................................................................................24 Link: Dependency.....................................................................................................................................................25 Link: Oil....................................................................................................................................................................26 ***Uniqueness***....................................................................................................................................................27 Uniqueness: Rels On Brink/China Rising.................................................................................................................28 Uniqueness: Co-op Now...........................................................................................................................................29 Uniqueness: Alliance Diverging- Iraq......................................................................................................................30 ***Miscellaneous***...............................................................................................................................................31 No Backstopping.......................................................................................................................................................32 No Backstopping.......................................................................................................................................................33 Independency Snowballs..........................................................................................................................................34 Terror Good: Solves Oil Dependency ......................................................................................................................35 China is Realist.........................................................................................................................................................36 ***Aff Answer***....................................................................................................................................................37 Saudi Prolif Good.....................................................................................................................................................38 Saudi Prolif Good.....................................................................................................................................................39 No Saudi Prolif.........................................................................................................................................................40 A2: China Aggression...............................................................................................................................................41 No Link.....................................................................................................................................................................42 Relations Resilient....................................................................................................................................................43 Link Turn: US-Saudi Co-op......................................................................................................................................44 Low Prices Relations Link Turn...............................................................................................................................45 Page 1

Kentucky Fellows 2008 Zavell and Steckler

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Notes: This disad makes no sense vs affs that don’t clearly affect oil dependence. It links best vs affs that affect the transportation sector. If you want to read it vs other affs you have to read a link between the plan and oil use…cuz that’s all the Saudis care about. There are lots of impact scenarios—this is going to be impact turned most times by oil dependency bad..and those impacts are probably on the side of truth/bigger so you have to be nuanced.

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1nc: Uniqueness + Link A. Uniqueness: The US is the dominant purchaser of Saudi oil, but China is close behind and could pass if US demand falters. Richter June 8, 2008 (Paul; Los Angeles Times Staff Writer; “New forces fraying U.S.-Saudi oil ties”; http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-ussaudi8-2008jun08,0,169219.story) WASHINGTON — For decades, Saudi Arabia worked with its dominant customer, the United States, to keep world oil markets stable and advance common political goals. But the surging price of oil, which soared more than $10 a barrel Friday to a record-high $138.54, has made it plain that those days are over. New forces, including a weak dollar and an oil-thirsty Asia, have blunted the United States' leverage and helped sour the two countries' relationship. As gasoline prices have risen, the White House has unsuccessfully exhorted the Saudis to step up production, and Congress has threatened retaliation. But the situation now is a far cry from the days when the U.S. economy dominated the direction of the petroleum market. "That gave us leverage," said Greg Priddy, an oil analyst at the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk assessment firm. "There's certainly a perception that the power equation has changed." The weakening of the economic relationship comes when the vital U.S.-Saudi security relationship also has been fraying. In the 1980s, the U.S.-Saudi bond that kept oil prices low was credited with helping weaken the Soviet Union during the waning days of the Cold War. And it helped keep markets stable after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But the Saudi government has

The relationship is shaping up as a political issue for the fall campaign, certainly among congressional candidates and perhaps among presidential candidates. With a 20-million-barrel-per-day habit, the U.S. remains the world's largest oil customer, even though its daily consumption over the years has dropped from one-third of total daily production to one-fourth. But the U.S. can no longer guarantee on its own that producers will have the markets they need for their oil. Nor can the Saudis, alone, ramp up production in sufficient amounts to stabilize prices. China and other Asian nations now use about 17 million barrels a day. That's up more than 20% since 2003, and booming growth is expected to continue. With the shift in buying power, the Saudis are cultivating important Chinese customers, analysts say. Saudi Arabia recently contributed $50 million for Chinese earthquake relief, and King Abdullah has visited China. "The relationship is clearly developing rapidly," said Paul J. Saunders, who served in the State Department under President Bush and is executive director of the Nixon Center think tank. Saunders believes that China may be buying more Saudi oil than the United States in less than a decade. That sets up "a real possibility that China will have more leverage in dealing with Saudi Arabia than we do," he said. The Saudis helped the United States for years as "doves" within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on the issue of oil prices. They were willing to moderately increase production, fearing that high prices could cause the United States and others to seek alternate supplies or cut consumption, as happened in the 1980s in reaction to the oil price shocks of the 1970s. But attitudes have been shifting. Many believe the Saudis have grown more interested in conserving their supplies for later generations, and confident that if U.S. consumption drops, the economies of China, India and others will take up the slack. been dismayed by the consequences of the war in Iraq and by what it sees as a weak Bush administration commitment to the Palestinians.

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1nc: Uniqueness + Link B. Link: A shift to renewables would lead to loss of economic ties to Saudi Arabia, allowing china to move in Marshall January 8th, 2002 (Dr. Andrew W.; Director, Net Assessment “The Sino-Saudi Energy Rapprochement: Implications for US National Security” http://www.rice.edu/energy/publications/docs/SinoSaudiStudyFinal.pdf) Like the scenario depicted above, this too is unlikely, but it is by no means an impossible one. It is unlikely because the US government has no clear mechanism for discriminating among sources of supply, and decisions on supply are left entirely to the functioning of the market and the preferences of individual refiners. Thus, Saudi Arabia can, by itself, target whatever level of sales it wants to direct to the US market and, so long as Saudi Aramco prices its crude oil to displace other crude streams

One change in policy would involve a combination of supply and demand side policies that would result in a substantial reduction rather than a growth in the US appetite for crude oil imports. In the aftermath of September 11th, it is conceivable that the US would start to pursue policies that could substantially reduce the role of the oil in the transportation sector. Raising automobile efficiency standards could reasonably reduced imports by 1 million b/d or more within seven years. Enhanced R&D in fuel cell technology and hybrid vehicle technology, combined with a federal procurement program to assure that all US government owned vehicles were fueled by these nonconventional supplies could shave another 1 mb/d from imports within seven years. Under these circumstances, the US would not only cease to be the high growth market for foreign oil. Its market would actually shrink, making it significantly less attractive for any major supplier, including Saudi Arabia. A second route that could be taken toward entering the US market, it can maintain its market share. However, it is not impossible to imagine shifts in US policies. Two sorts of shifts are possible.

the same end is the adoption by the US of a discriminatory import policy. One proposal being vetted, for example, would involve a free trade area in oil for countries that allowed reciprocity in upstream investments. Those not allowing upstream investments in their oil sectors would, under the scheme, be required to store oil in the United States equivalent to 90 days or more of average imports. Such a policy would impact very few countries, among them Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Mexico. A policy shift in

There is little doubt that US action could make oil sales to the US considerably less attractive in the future than they have been in the past, and that this could impact Saudi policy and push the kingdom toward bilateral undertakings with China and potentially other oil importing countries. this direction would definitely be viewed as a hostile political act by the oil exporters affected by it. 46

C.

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***Impacts***

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Impact Module: Prolif Loss of relations with the US leads to Saudi prolif Feldman 2003 (Yana, Senior research analyst at FirstWatch International, “Country Profile 8: Saudi Arabia” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute; http://www.sipri.org/contents/expcon/cnsc1sau.html) The strategic situation of Saudi Arabia is such that the

Kingdom might consider a nuclear alliance with a friendly nuclear power or its own nuclear deterrent an attractive option. The Kingdom is situated between two powerful regional rivals – Israel and Iran. Israel is believed to possess nuclear weapons while it is strongly suspected that the Iranian nuclear programme has been developed to create the option to develop nuclear weapons.

As recently as 1991, Saudi Arabia may have depended on the nuclear umbrella of the United States to deter the possible use of chemical or biological weapons against targets in Saudi Arabia by Saddam Hussein. The continued deterioration of security ties with the United States might well provide an incentive to secure a viable nuclear alternative. Although Saudi Arabia appears to be a low proliferation threat at this stage, given their considerable level of wealth, links to nations that have known nuclear programmes, the possibility that Saudi Arabia would consider a nuclear weapons option for the future remains a concern for some analysts. Saudi prolif leads to fast regional prolif Center for Contemporary Conflict June 2004 (“Conference on WMD Proliferation in the Middle East: Directions and Policy Options in the New Century” http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/si/si_3_8/si_3_8_ruj01.pdf) James Russell from the Naval Postgraduate School presented an argument that the strategic problems facing Saudi Arabia are causing it to consider acquisition of nuclear capabilities in the context of upgrading and/or replacing its CSS-2 missiles bought from China in the late 1980s. Russell outlined a set of changing strategic circumstances, which are combining to bring the issue of nuclear and/or WMD proliferation into play in Riyadh. First, the U.S. relationship upon which Saudi Arabia’s security has been founded is in an uncertain state. Second, the region environment is becoming more threatening due to Iran’s nuclear aspirations and the prospect of a Shi’a-dominated state in Iraq. Third, internal politics in Saudi Arabia complicate and reduce the maneuver room available to the royal family in addressing its security conundrums. A decision by Saudi Arabia to go nuclear would cause a cascade of regional proliferation. Potential internal instability within the Kingdom also makes Saudi Arabia a particularly dangerous proliferation case. Rumors of Saudi involvement in Pakistan’s nuclear program, in addition to the existing relationship with China through the CSS-2 program are all suggestive of an interest in nuclear capabilities. Finally, U.S. policy options appear limited—the United Stated cannot push Saudi Arabia too far away or hold it too close. Discussions of the issue raised the question, “Are Saudi nuclear noises used as a means to ensure U.S. engagement? Proliferation results in nuclear shootout Utgoff ‘2 ( survival v. 44 no 2 summer, p. 90) Widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shootouts will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed toward a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear 'six-shooters' on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations.

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Ext.: Internal Link: Alliance Collapse Causes Prolif Collapse of US alliance causes Saudi Prolif Gal Luft and Anne Korin March 2004 (Commentary Magazine, Institute for Analysis of Global Security, http://www.iags.org/sinosaudi.htm) There are some particularly alarming scenarios to consider here. If the Saudis were to begin worrying seriously about a future American seizure of their oil fields, they might well seek ways to deter it. Given the weakness of their

a nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia may, at this juncture, seem farfetched, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. Saudi Arabia could break its military dependence on the U.S. either by entering into an alliance with some other existing nuclear power or by acquiring its own nuclear capability. In either case, China would play a crucial role. own military, one option would be to acquire nuclear weapons. Although talk of

Loss of alliance  Nukes Levi 03 (Michael, Science and Technology Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies @ Brookings, “Would the Saudis Go Nuclear?,”

http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/fellows/levi20030602.htm)

Why would Riyadh want nukes now? Because of a potentially dangerous confluence of events. The rapidly progressing nuclear program of traditional rival Iran has no doubt spooked the Saudi leadership. Last fall, dissidents revealed the existence of a covert Iranian uranium-enrichment program, forcing analysts to drastically revise down their estimates of how long it might take Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. Reacting to that development, Patrick Clawson,

"Saudi Arabia is the state most likely to proliferate in response to an Iranian nuclear threat" because, he argued, the Saudis fear a nuclear-armed Iran could have designs on Saudi Arabia, a Sunni monarchy that is home to a large number of oppressed Shia. After all, Tehran has for years allegedly supported Shia terrorist groups operating in Saudi Arabia and was deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recently wrote that

blamed by many analysts for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. Holding back the Saudi nuclear program, of course, has been the kingdom's relationship with the United States. Though America has never signed a formal treaty with Riyadh, since World War II the United States has made clear by its actions—most notably, by protecting Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf war—and by informal guarantees given to Saudi leaders by American officials that it will protect the monarchy from outside threats. Since the September 11 attacks, though, that relationship has grown increasingly frail. When a RAND analyst last summer told the Defense Policy Board, then chaired by Richard Perle, that Saudi Arabia was "the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" in the Middle East, he not only raised hackles in Riyadh, he reflected the opinion of many close to the Bush administration. R. James Woolsey, former CIA director and White House confidant, was even more emphatic in a speech last November, referring to "the barbarics [sic], the Saudi royal family." The recent decision by Washington to pull most of its

. This recent decline in U.S.-Saudi relations can hardly make the Saudi royal family feel secure. Suddenly removing the U.S. security blanket just as regional rivalries are intensifying could push the Saudis into the nuclear club. That's a scary prospect, particularly when you consider the possibility of Islamists overthrowing the monarchy. Instead, the United States should be careful to maintain Saudi Arabia's confidence even as the two nations inevitably drift apart. The United States might even extend an explicit security guarantee to the Saudis, the kind of formal treaty it gave forces out of Saudi Arabia, reducing its deployment from 5,000 to 400 personnel and moving its operations to Qatar, has added facts on the ground to the rhetorical barrage

Europe to keep it non-nuclear during the cold war-and the kind of formal arrangement Washington and Riyadh have never signed before. Such a formal deal could raise anti-American sentiment in the desert kingdom. But the alternative might be worse.

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Saudi Prolif Dominoes Saudi Prolif Snowballs McInnis 2005 (Kathleen J. coordinator of the Project on Nuclear Issues and a research associate at CSIS. “Extended Deterrence: The U.S. Credibility Gap in the Middle East” The Washington Quarterly 28.3 (2005) 169-186. Muse.)

If Saudi Arabia were to follow Iran’s proliferation route, that would again change the calculations of every other state in the region in a cumulative and potentially dangerous manner. Continuing with Egypt, and with other dominos such as Turkey and Syria poised to fall, the proliferation challenge in the Middle East is uniquely daunting. Perhaps most worrisome is that The emergence of a nuclear Iran would undoubtedly send shockwaves through the region that could result in a nuclear domino effect. Therein lies the crux of the problem:

the United States is left, at present, with few good options in the region to thwart this dangerous trajectory.

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A2: Deterrence Saudi nukes can’t be peaceful - Middle East politics are dangerous Rep. Markey ‘8 (Edward J, D-MA chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, “Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?,” Wall Street Journal/ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121305642257659301.html)

Saudi Arabia's interest in nuclear technology can only be explained by the dangerous politics of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, a champion and kingpin of the Sunni Arab world, is deeply threatened by the rise of Shiite-ruled Iran. The two countries watch each other warily over the waters of the Persian Gulf, buying arms and waging war by proxy in Lebanon and Iraq. An Iranian nuclear weapon would radically alter the region's balance of power, and could prove to be the match that lights the tinderbox. By signing this agreement with the U.S., Saudi Arabia is warning Iran that two can play the nuclear game. In 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "[Iran is] already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. No one can figure why they need nuclear, as well, to generate energy." Mr. Cheney got it right about Iran. But a potential Saudi nuclear program is just as suspicious. For a country with so much oil, gas and solar potential, importing expensive and dangerous nuclear power makes no economic sense.

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Saudi Prolif  Terrorism Saudi prolif causes Nuclear Terrorism Blank 2003 (Stephen, “Saudi Arabia's nuclear gambit” Asia Times http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EK07Ak01.html) the proliferation situation raises the possibility of several more crises in different regions of the world, all of which could occur in relatively simultaneous fashion and which would all involve the linked threats of either terrorists with access to nuclear weapons or states possessing those weapons which extend their protection and deterrence to those terrorists. Furthermore, there are still more considerations. If one looks at the history of Pakistan's nuclear Obviously, that kind of transformation of

program there immediately arises the issue of Pakistan's widely-reported assistance to North Korea, which at the same time is apparently proliferating missiles all over the Middle East. Adding

Saudi Arabia to this chain of proliferators only extends the process of secondary or tertiary proliferation by which new nuclear powers assist other nuclear "wannabes" to reach that state. Thus, the threat expressed by the US of being at the crossroads of radicalism and technology becomes that much more real Extinction Sid Ahmed 04 (Mohamed, Al-Ahram Political Analyst, Éxtinction!,” http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm) What would be the

consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This would lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.

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Relations Solves Terrorism US- Saudi Relations solves terrorism Anthony Cordesman. 2004. (“Ten Reasons for Reforging the US and Saudi Relationship” Saudi American Forum. [Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is Co-Director of the Center's Middle East Program. He is also a military analyst for ABC and a Professor of National Security Studies at Georgetown] http://www.saudi-american-forum.org/Newsletters2004/SAF_Item_Of_Interest_2004_02_01.htm)

Both the US and Saudi Arabia now face a common threat from terrorism, both in terms of internal and regional threats. Saudi Arabia may have been slow to recognize how serious this threat is, but since the terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia in May 2003, it has become clear that it is as real for Saudis as it is for Americans. It is also clear that dealing with terrorism requires close cooperation between the two countries, that Saudi Arabia needs US assistance in modernizing many aspects of its internal security operations, and that the US needs Saudi cooperation in reducing the flow of money to terrorists and their ability to manipulate Islamic causes. Furthermore, it is clear that political, social, and economic forces are at work where this cooperation will have to go on for years – if not decades – after Bin Laden and Al Qaida have ceased to be a threat.

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Impact Module: Dollar Hege 1/2 Relations key to Petro Dollar and Global Economy Freeman, 9-17-04 (Chas, Middle East Policy Council President, Federal News Service, p. lexis) The second matter, and far more grave in many ways, is the demonstration of the end of the special relationship with Saudi Arabia; the end of the discounts and the end of the Saudi emphasis on primacy in the American market signals -- because there's another issue you didn't mention, which we will get into, and that is the part of this special relationship has been the defense of the dollar by the Saudis. Twice within OPEC, other members, Iran in particular, have moved to eliminate the dollar as the unit of account for the oil trade. Were this to occur in the current context of massive budget, balance of trade and balance of payments, deficits for the United States, the results could be absolutely devastating to the global economy and to our own. The reason the Saudis defended the dollar on the two previous occasions was not economic analysis but political affinity for the United States. Question if that affinity is no longer there, will they play that role? And this is a large issue with people like Paul Volcker, saying there is a very substantial danger within the next five years of some sort of dollar collapse, and this is not a minor, minor matter.

Petro Dollar key to Hege Looney 3/22/04, (Robert E, professor of National Security Affairs, and Associate Chairman of Instruction, Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. “From Petrodollars to Petroeuros: Are the Dollar's Days as an International Reserve Currency Drawing to an End?” Middle East Policy No. 1 Vol. 11, p. 26 http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/nov03/middleEast.asp

Nevertheless, the loss of key currency status and the loss of international creditor status have sometimes been associated, along with such non-economic factors as the loss of colonies and military power, in discussions of the historical decline of great powers. Causality may well flow from key currency status to power and prestige and in the opposite direction as well.[8] On a broader scale, Niall Ferguson[9] notes that one pillar of American dominance can be found in the way successive U.S. government sought to take advantage of the dollar's role as a key currency. Quoting several noted authorities, he notes that [the role of the dollar] enabled the United States to be "far less restrained…than all other states by normal fiscal and foreign exchange constraints when it came to funding whatever foreign or strategic policies it decided to implement." As Robert Gilpin notes, quoting Charles de Gaulle, such policies led to a 'hegemony of the dollar" that gave the U.S. "extravagant privileges." In David Calleo's words, the U.S. government had access to a "gold mine of paper" and could therefore collect a Political power and prestige. The benefits of "power and prestige" are nebulous.

subsidy form foreigners in the form of seignorage (the profits that flow to those who mint or print a depreciating currency). The web contains many more radical interactions of the dollar's role. Usually something along the

The world's interlinked economies no longer trade to capture a comparative advantage; they compete in exports to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts and to accumulate dollar reserves to sustain the exchange value of their domestic currencies…. This phenomenon is known as dollar hegemony, which is created by the geopolitically constructed peculiarity that critical commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil. The recycling of petro-dollars is the price the U.S. has extracted from oilproducing countries for U.S. tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973.[10] America's coercive power in the world is based as much on the dollar's status as the global reserve currency as on U.S. military muscle. Everyone needs oil, following lines: World trade is now a game in which the U.S. produces dollars and the rest of the world produces things that dollars can buy.

and to pay for it, they must have dollars. To secure dollars, they must sell their goods to the U.S., under terms acceptable to the people who rule America. The dollar is way overpriced, but it's the only world currency. Under the current dollars-only arrangement, U.S. money is in effect backed by the oil reserves of every other nation.[11] While it is tempting to dismiss passages of this sort as uninformed rants, they do contain some elements of truth. There are tangible benefits that accrue to the country whose currency is a reserve currency. The real question is: if this situation is so intolerable and unfair, why hasn't the world ganged up on the United States and changed the system? Why haven't countries like Libya and Iran required something like euros or gold dinars in payment for oil? After all, with the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 the International Monitary Fund's Standard Drawing Rights (unit of account) was certainly an available alternative to the dollar.[12]

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Impact Module: Dollar Hege 2/2 Hege Solves Nuclear War Khalizad, 95 (Zalmay, Analyst at the RAND, Washington Quarterly, Spring) Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally,

U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. Economic collapse leads to nuclear extinction Bearden 2000 (Thomas E., Retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and director of the Association of Distinguished American Scientists, CEO of CTEC Inc., Fellow Emeritus at the Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study, 6/24/2K, "The Unnecessary Energy Crisis: How to Solve It Quickly", http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisis-Bearden.htm )

History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China -- whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States -- attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.

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Ext: Rels key to dollar hege Relations key to petro dollar Islam 2003 (Faisal “When will we buy oil in euros?” The Observer http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2003/feb/23/oilandpetrol.theeuro) 'At various points in time since the early 1970s, oil producers have discussed this, especially in periods when the dollar has been weak. Opinions have tended to be wideranging, depending on the strategic and trade alliances certain members have with particular trade blocs,' said Yarjani. That was an elliptical reference to the overwhelming

Saudi Arabia, whose government is the staunchest ally of the US within Opec. 'The Saudis are holding the line on oil prices in Opec and should they, for example, go along with the rest of the Opec people in demanding that oil be priced in euros, that would deal a very heavy blow to the American economy,' Youssef Ibrahim, of the influential US Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN. Last year the former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia told a committee of the US Congress: 'One of the major things the Saudis have historically done, in part out of friendship with the United States, is to insist that oil continues to be priced in dollars. Therefore, the US Treasury can print money and buy oil, which is an advantage no other country has. With the emergence of other currencies and with strains in the relationship, I wonder whether there will not again be, as there have been in the past, people in Saudi Arabia who raise the question of why they should be so kind to the United States.' influence of

Relations key to petro dollar Chanin and Gause Winter 2003 (Clifford and Gregory; Middle East Policy “U.S.-SAUDI RELATIONS: BUMP IN THE ROAD OR END OF THE ROAD?” http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5400/is_200301/ai_n21341616/pg_6) The Saudis get little credit in American public opinion for their energy policies. First, they almost always take initiatives quietly. They did not publicize their increased production either after 9/11 or in the lead-up to the recent war. The markets took immediate notice, but there was very little recognition outside of specialist circles. Second, there is a widespread cynicism in the United States about Saudi oil policy, which is seen as serving Saudi interests. This may be so, but the question remains whether the Saudis define their interests in ways compatible with American interests. Generally, the Saudi government pursues policies that aim at stability in price and supply.

It would certainly have to sell oil, but would it have to sell as much? Would it carry the costs of maintaining excess production capacity, so as to be able to bring oil immediately to the market in times of supply disruption? Would it continue to denominate oil transactions in U.S. dollars, thus shielding the United States from the effects of dollar fluctuation on energy prices? All these issues would be on the table if relations broke down or if a new government took power in Saudi This emphasis corresponds with the stated policy goals of successive American administrations. A different government in Saudi Arabia might take a very different stance.

Arabia.

.

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Impact Module: Peace Deal Relations key to Middle East peace process Anthony Cordesman 2004. (“Ten Reasons for Reforging the US and Saudi Relationship” Saudi American Forum. [Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is Co-Director of the Center's Middle East Program. He is also a military analyst for ABC and a Professor of National Security Studies at Georgetown] http://www.saudi-american-forum.org/Newsletters2004/SAF_Item_Of_Interest_2004_02_01.htm)

Cooperation is needed to support the Arab-Israeli peace process. If there is ever to be an Arab-Israeli peace settlement, or if the current Israeli-Palestinian War is to be contained, both the US and Saudi Arabia need to work together as much as possible to push the peace process forward and reduce support for violent extremism on both sides. The US and Saudi Arabia will never share common objectives or perceptions until there is a just, secure, and lasting peace, but it is clear that the present level of Saudi support and cooperation is far better than indifference or hostility, or what would occur if political evolution was replaced with revolution.

Peace process breakdown causes war Jerome Slater March 1, 1999, professor of political science at SUNY at Buffalo. Tikkun There has been a kind of conspiracy of silence over the potential consequences of a breakdown of the peace process, perhaps because in the worst case they are nothing short of apocalyptic. But the risks are real. Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, Syria has nerve gas mounted on ballistic missiles aimed at Israeli cities, and it is only a matter of time before other Arab states or - far worse- fanatical terrorist groups obtain weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical, or biological. Here is the nightmare scenario: The intransigence of the Netanyahu government and its clear intention to continue to dominate the West Bank and deny the Palestinians true national citizenship and sovereignty lead to a resumption of sustained terrorism, this time with the tacit acquiescence or open support of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority and with the general support of the Palestinian population. Israel reacts with economic and military retaliation that creates widespread desperation among the Palestinians, and this results in the eclipse of Arafat by Hamas and other Palestinian extremists. The intifada resumes, this time not with stones but with guns and bombs. Israel responds with unprecedented repression, and the cycle of communal violence and counter violence continues to escalate until Israel decides to reoccupy the West Bank and perhaps

An inflamed Arab world greatly increases its support of the new intifada or, worse, moderate governments that try to stand clear are overthrown and replaced by extremists in Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. In these circumstances, even if a general war in the Middle East could somehow be averted, there is likely to be escalating international terrorism against Israel and its supporters - sooner or later including nuclear or other forms of mass terrorism. Gaza in order to crush the Palestinian movement - maybe even expelling large numbers of Palestinians into neighboring Arab states.

And these regional conflicts escalate to a global nuclear war Steinbach, ‘2 John Steinbach in March 2002 (Source: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation [http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2002/03/00_steinbach_israeliwmd.htm]

Meanwhile, the existence of an arsenal of mass destruction in such an unstable region in turn has serious implications for future arms control and disarmament negotiations, and even the threat of nuclear war. Seymour Hersh warns, "Should war break out in the Middle East again,... or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability."(41) and Ezar Weissman, Israel's current President said "The nuclear issue is gaining momentum (and the) next war will not be conventional."(42) Russia and before it the Soviet Union has long been a major (if not the major) target of Israeli nukes. It is widely reported that the principal purpose of Jonathan Pollard's spying for Israel was to furnish satellite images of Soviet targets and other super sensitive data relating to U.S. nuclear targeting strategy. (43) (Since launching its own satellite in 1988, Israel no longer needs

the unilateral possession of nuclear weapons by Israel is enormously destabilizing, and dramatically lowers the threshold for their actual use, if not for all out nuclear war. In the words of Mark Gaffney, "... if the familar pattern(Israel refining its weapons of mass destruction with U.S. complicity) is not reversed soon - for whatever reason - the deepening Middle East conflict could trigger a world conflagration." (44) U.S. spy secrets.) Israeli nukes aimed at the Russian heartland seriously complicate disarmament and arms control negotiations and, at the very least,

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Ext: Relations Key to Peace Deal Relations Key to Peace Deal Richter June 8, 2008 (Paul; Los Angeles Times Staff Writer; “New forces fraying U.S.-Saudi oil ties”; µhttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-ussaudi8-2008jun08,0,169219.story§) Even without the passage of punitive legislation this year, diplomatic efforts could suffer if the Saudis react badly to the American outcry, Saunders said. One that could be affected is Bush's insistence on a Mideast peace pact by the time he leaves office in January. "You couldn't have any real expectation of [a peace deal] if the Saudis are seriously alienated from the U.S.," Saunders said

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Relations key to US presence/Regional Stability Relations Key to regional stability Russel 2002 (James A. “Deconstructing the US-Saudi Partnership?” Strategic Insights Insights v. 1 i7, September, http://www.ccc.npa.navy.mil/si/sept02/middleEast2.asp) U.S. and Saudi air forces might in the future operate together using a coalition operations space within the combined air operations center at Prince Sultan Air Base. Perhaps officers from other Gulf Cooperation Council militaries could join together with Saudi and U.S. counterparts in this facility to coordinate joint and combined air defense efforts across the theater. If U.S.-Saudi operational cooperation can be established at PSAB, it could provide a model that could be replicated in other Gulf States, leading to activities that would promote mutual confidence and collective security. While regional military integration among friendly coalition partners may today seem a remote scenario, the scenario is at least plausible if Saudi Arabia and the United States lead the way. Regional security integration will surely never flourish without positive U.S.-Saudi bilateral relations. Conclusion Fundamentally altering the U.S.-Saudi bilateral relationship would have serious consequences for Saudi security and peace in the Middle East. It could potentially render the U.S.-trained and equipped Saudi military unable to defend the Kingdom and would deny the United States the opportunity to continue working with the dominant regional power to achieve collective defense and regional military integration. Any serious suggestions that the 50-year partnership needs to be fundamentally altered should carefully consider these costs. Read Steinbeck from other page

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Impact Module: China 1/2 Loss of US relations increases Saudi relations with China Luft, 2006 (Gal, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) a Washington based think tank focused on energy security, specializes in strategy, geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East and energy security. “Fueling the dragon: China's race into the oil market”, http://www.iags.org/china.htm)

A key component of China's strategy to guarantee access to Persian Gulf oil is the special relations it has cultivated with Saudi Arabia. The ties with Riyadh go back to the mid-1980s when China sold Saudi Arabia intermediate range ballistic missiles. Since then, the relations have grown closer. High-level visits of Chinese leaders to Saudi Arabia culminated in 1999 with President Jiang Zemin's state visit in which he pronounced a "strategic oil partnership" between the two countries. China has offered to sell the Saudis intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Saudis have so far preferred to turn down many of the proposals and limit their procurement from China in order to maintain their special relations with the U.S. But continuous deterioration in Saudi-American relations or, in the longer run, a regime change in the oil kingdom, could drive the Saudis to end their reliance on the U.S. as the sole guarantor of their regime's security and offer China an expanded role. War between the US and China Luft 2004 (Gal, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) a Washington based think tank focused on energy security, specializes in strategy, geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East and energy security, Los Angeles Times, “US, China Are on Collision Course Over Oil” http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/natres/oil/2004/0202collision.htm) Optimists claim that the world oil market will be able to accommodate China and that, instead of conflict, China's thirst could create mutual desire for stability in the Middle East and thus actually bring Beijing closer to the U.S. History shows the opposite: Superpowers

find it difficult to coexist while competing over scarce resources. The main bone of contention probably will revolve around China's relations with Saudi Arabia, home to a quarter of the world's oil. The Chinese have already supplied the Saudis with intermediate range ballistic missiles, and they played a major role 20 years ago in a Saudi financed Pakistani nuclear effort that may one day leave a nuclear weapon in the hands of a Taliban-type regime in Riyadh or Islamabad. Since 9/11, a deep tension in U.S.-Saudi relations has provided the Chinese with an opportunity to win the heart of the House of Saud. The Saudis hear the voices in the U.S. denouncing Saudi Arabia as a "kernel of evil" and proposing that the U.S. seize and occupy the kingdom's oil fields. The Saudis especially fear that if their citizens again perpetrate a terror attack in the U.S., there would be no alternative for the U.S. but to terminate its long-standing commitment to the monarchy - and perhaps even use military force against it. The

Saudis realize that to forestall such a scenario they can no longer rely solely on the U.S. to defend the regime and must diversify their security portfolio. In their search for a new patron, they might find China the most fitting and willing candidate. The risk of Beijing's emerging as a competitor for influence in the Middle East and a Saudi shift of allegiance are things Washington should consider as it defines its objectives and priorities in the 21st century. Without a comprehensive strategy designed to prevent China from becoming an oil consumer on a par with the U.S., a superpower collision is in the cards. The good news is that we are still in a position to halt China's slide into total dependency

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Impact Module: China 2/2 US becomes immersed in a war with china, flashpoints around the world also escalate to nuclear conflagration, culminating in extinction. Strait Times 2k (No one gains in war over Taiwan; June 25, lexis) The high-intensity scenario postulates a cross-strait war escalating into a

full-scale war between the US and China. If Washington were to conclude that splitting China would better serve its national interests, then a full-scale war becomes unavoidable. Conflict on such a scale would embroil other countries far and near and -- horror of horrors -- raise the possibility of a nuclear war. Beijing has already told the US and Japan privately that it considers any country providing bases and logistics support to any US forces attacking China as belligerent parties open to its retaliation. In the region, this means South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and, to a lesser extent, Singapore. If China were to retaliate, east Asia will be set on fire. And the conflagration may not end there as opportunistic powers elsewhere may try to overturn the existing world order. With the US distracted, Russia may seek to redefine Europe's political landscape. The balance of power in the Middle East may be similarly upset by the likes of Iraq. In south Asia, hostilities between India and Pakistan, each armed with its own nuclear arsenal, could enter a new and dangerous phase. Will a full-scale Sino-US war lead to a nuclear war? According to General Matthew Ridgeway, commander of the US Eighth Army which fought against the Chinese in the Korean War, the US had at the time thought of using nuclear weapons against China to save the US from military defeat. In his book The Korean War, a personal account of the military and political aspects of the conflict and its implications on future US foreign policy, Gen Ridgeway said that US was confronted with two choices in Korea -- truce or a broadened war, which could have led to the use of nuclear weapons. If the US had to resort to nuclear weaponry to defeat China long before the latter acquired a similar capability, there is little hope of winning a war against

Beijing also seems prepared to go for the nuclear option. A Chinese military officer disclosed recently that Beijing was considering a review of its "non first use" principle regarding nuclear weapons. Major-General Pan Zhangqiang, president China 50 years later, short of using nuclear weapons. The US estimates that China possesses about 20 nuclear warheads that can destroy major American cities.

of the military-funded Institute for Strategic Studies, told a gathering at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington that although the government still abided by that principle, there were strong

. He said military leaders considered the use of nuclear weapons mandatory if the country risked dismemberment as a result of foreign intervention. Gen Ridgeway said that should that come to pass, we would see the destruction of civilisation. There would be no victors in such a war. While the prospect of a nuclear Armaggedon over Taiwan might seem inconceivable, it cannot be ruled out entirely, for China puts sovereignty above everything else. pressures from the military to drop it

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Ext. Internal Link- China Fill In China has a comparative advantage over the united states for allying with Saudi Arabia Gal Luft and Anne Korin March 2004 (Commentary Magazine, Institute for Analysis of Global Security, http://www.iags.org/sinosaudi.htm) Even if Saudi Arabia does not pursue nuclear status, however, it has abundant reasons for looking east to China both for markets and for military assistance, just as China has abundant reasons for looking west to Saudi Arabia for continued access to Middle Eastern oil. And aside from these mutual interests, an alliance with China would hold other attraction for the Saudis. Unlike the U.S., the Chinese do not aspire to change the Arab way of life, or impose freedom and democracy on regimes that view such ideas with skepticism and fear. Indeed, Chinese attitudes toward the open societies of the West are markedly similar to those of the Arab despotisms themselves. The Chinese also have at their disposal immense reserves of manpower, which they can deploy to protect the oil resources of any new allies they acquire. Thousands of Chinese soldiers disguised as oil workers, for example, are used today to guard petroleum facilities in Sudan. With 11 million men reaching military age annually, China could easily replicate this elsewhere. Finally, while the U.S. is continually castigated by the Arabs for its closeness to Israel, China's ties with Jerusalem have never risen above the level of indifference.

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***Links***

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Link: Energy Independence Discussion of energy independence is perceived Henderson June 20, 2008 (Simon, Baker fellow and director of the Washington Institute, “Supplicants to Saudi Arabia: The Jeddah Energy Meeting” http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2906) Domestic energy policy is emerging again as a key debate in U.S. presidential elections. In the last two campaigns, rival candidates urged greater independence from oil exporters such as Saudi Arabia. This annoyed Riyadh and resulted in the cutback of expansion plans for oil production, leading, at least partly, to today's high prices. The Jeddah meeting itself is unlikely to break that vicious circle but it may be a starting point. Saudi Arabia remains a key to lowering oil prices, and if emphasis is placed on its pricing policies rather than simply its production levels, there might be a way forward.

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Link: Dependence Oil dependence guarentees we will maintain good relations Sutterfield 2007 (Lauren E. “United States Oil Dependency: An Overview of the Desperate Times that have Imprisoned Our Foreign Policy and the Desperate Measures that May Be Required “to Liberate it.” Baker Center Journal of Applied Public Policy. http://bakercenter.utk.edu/main/journal.php?vol=1&num=1) Our extensive relationship with Saudi Arabia will surely continue. If

current petroleum trends continue in the United States, the kingdom’s importance to U.S. energy demands will only increase. Thus, the U.S. must keep Saudi Arabia’s security at the top of our national security agenda. However, it is important that the United States move away from oil dependence to allow Washington greater freedom in designing policies— based on other objectives above and beyond oil procurement—toward Saudi Arabia. Until

a time when the United States is less reliant on Saudi Arabia for current and future energy needs, Washington must stress the importance of maintaining a strong relationship with Riyadh, protecting our interests, stabilizing the kingdom, and carefully diminishing criticism and resentment by the Saudi population.

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Link: Alternative energies Saudi Arabia dislikes shifts to alternative energies Graham-Harrison December 13, 2007 (Emma, “Saudi Says No Need to Cut Oil Use to Fight Warming”, http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/45986/story.htm) Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told UN-led climate talks that the world should focus on research to cut emissions while continuing to use its "huge reserves" of crude, gas and coal. Riyadh is traditionally wary of anything that might undermine demand for the vast reserves of oil that have transformed it from a small desert kingdom to a powerful international player, and is currently earning near-record prices for its crude. "The trend towards moving away from fossil fuel consumption as a means of addressing climate change does not represent a practical alternative to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly given the availability of technologies for energy efficiency and carbon capture and storage," Naimi said. Many governments and groups such as the International Energy Agency are heavily pushing energy efficiency as a way to start tackling emissions problems with existing technology. But no commercial-scale projects yet exist for carbon capture and storage, which is

Naimi also criticised fuel taxes that aim to curb consumption in some countries, saying they were part of a system that unfairly favoured coal and largely emissions-free nuclear energy "despite their more adverse pollution and impact on the climate". Naimi said the world should instead investigate "clean oil", including carbon capture and storage, although he did not explain how it might be possible to capture and then store emissions from the vehicles that consume a large portion of the world's oil. supposed to pump emissions from coal-fired power plants underground for long-term storage.

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Link: Dependency Oil dependence key to relations Sutterfield 2007 (Lauren E. “United States Oil Dependency: An Overview of the Desperate Times that have Imprisoned Our Foreign Policy and the Desperate Measures that May Be Required “to Liberate it.” Baker Center Journal of Applied Public Policy. http://bakercenter.utk.edu/main/journal.php?vol=1&num=1) Consistently, the kingdom discourages oil importing countries from creating and maintaining large oil reserves like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the United States. These reserves could weaken Saudi Arabia’s ability to affect prices and provides the importing country with some flexibility (Houthakker, 1981, p. 317). Saudi Arabia has close to 3 mbd spare capacity (Morse & Richard, 2002, p. 2). This quantity could sufficiently replace the oil exports of another major petroleum exporting country in the global market. This

spare capacity can benefit the United States by stabilizing the oil market in times of crisis, yet it can also be used against the United States. “Saudi spare capacity is the energy equivalent of nuclear weapons, a powerful deterrent against those who try to challenge Saudi leadership and Saudi goals. It is also the centerpiece of the U.S.-Saudi relationship” (Morse & Richard, 2002, p. 2). Saudi Arabia’s spare capacity makes oil importing countries like the United States reliant on Riyadh for energy security. Saudi Arabia will remain the most vital oil exporter not only in the Middle East but in the world due to its production capability, its spare capacity, and its immense proven reserves. As such, oil will continue to play a principal role in U.S. foreign policy making with Saudi Arabia. However, Washington must be careful not to incense the Saudi population by its military presence and supporting the often repressive House of Saud. It is more likely for the United States to assist in stabilizing the country rather than endeavoring to create reforms or revolution (Le Billion & El Khatib,2004,p.16). It is likely the United States will continue to push democratic and human rights issues behind our energy needs when dealing with Saudi Arabia. “It was an un- likely union—Bedouin Arabs and Texas oil men, a traditional Islamic autocracy allied with modern American capitalism. Yet it was one that was destined to endure”(Yergin, 1991, p. 428).

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Link: Oil Oil is key to the U.S.-Saudi strategic relationship Barnes et al ‘4 /Joe, Amy Jaffe, Edward L. Morse, “Special Energy Supplement: The New Geopolitics of Oil,” Saudi-US Relations Information Service, January 6/ http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter2004/saudi-relations-interest-01-06.html The centerpiece of the status quo is "the special relationship" with Saudi Arabia -- a strategic quid pro quo under which the United States would guarantee the security of Saudi Arabia in return for Riyadh's cooperation in keeping a reliable flow of moderately priced oil to international petroleum markets. The first pillar of the special relationship is the decisive role that Saudi Arabia plays in international oil markets. Riyadh is not only the world's largest exporter of oil, but possesses a quarter of global petroleum reserves and, significantly, excess capacity for use in an emergency. The second pillar is the ability and willingness of the United States to intervene militarily should Saudi Arabia be threatened. Washington did so, most notably when it rushed troops to Saudi Arabia when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The September 11 attacks, however, renewed the impetus to reassess the U.S.Saudi relationship. The fact that Osama bin Laden and 15 of 19 suicide bombers were Saudi nationals lent the long-standing neoconservative critique of Saudi Arabia great public salience. Since 9/11, neoconservative commentators have stepped up their attacks on Saudi Arabia, openly branding the kingdom an "enemy", and have included Riyadh in the list of Middle East capitals -- along with Tehran and Damascus -- where "regime change" would be desirable. Despite this firestorm of criticism, the formal U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia has not changed. Saudi Arabia has diligently -- albeit more quietly -- continued to raise its oil production in times of war and/or market emergency. Senior officials in both Riyadh and Washington also continue to downplay differences. Indeed, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has cultivated Saudi Arabia, even going so far as to suggest tacit U.S. approval of OPEC price bands and financially supporting the establishment of a secretariat for a new international energy forum in Riyadh.

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***Uniqueness***

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Uniqueness: Rels On Brink/China Rising US losing influence in Saudi, china filling in Newser Jun 8, 08 (“Oil Prices Threaten US-Saudi Relations” http://www.newser.com/story/29486.html) (Newser) – The weakening dollar and rising oil prices are marring more than just the American economy: It’s also eroding the long-standing friendly relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia, the Los Angeles Times reports. A bleak economic outlook has cost the US clout with its oil-producing ally. “There’s certainly a perception that the power equation has changed,” said an oil analyst. The oil-rich nation feels disillusioned by the US-led Iraq war and Washington’s perceived weak commitment to the Palestinians, and is ignoring American exhortations to increase oil production to keep prices lower. China is beginning to step in as a huge oil consumer and ally, and a “relationship is clearly developing rapidly,” noted another analyst, adding that Beijing may soon have greater leverage than Washington

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Uniqueness: Co-op Now The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are cooperating now but there is room for failure Bronson ‘6 /Rachel, former Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies, “Bronson: Saudis ‘Deeply Concerned’ Over Iran’s Nuclear Program,” Council on Foreign Relations, April 3/ http://www.cfr.org/publication/10328/bronson.html Well, they’ve changed a few times. Certainly after 9/11 there was the complete rupture in relations. It took the Saudis twenty months to fully acknowledge that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi and begin taking responsibility for it. They didn’t do so until after May of 2003 and November of 2003, when successive bombings attacked Saudis and the Saudi royal family. After that, Saudi Arabia got very, very serious about acknowledging and dealing with its homegrown terrorist problem. The United States also got better at dealing with the Saudis, and we simplified our approaches to the Saudis. We stopped sending over a new delegation every month. We started organizing better and appointing one particular person at the National Security Council to take the lead on U.S.-Saudi counterterrorism efforts. Saudi Arabia welcomed the FBI to work shoulder to shoulder more publicly inside the kingdom and there was a real turnaround in U.S.-Saudi relations at the highest of levels. And then, of course, you got the recent meeting in Crawford in April of 2005, between then-Crown Prince Abdullah and President Bush. That was an important turning point. So at the highest of levels things got better. I don’t think they’re ever going to be what they were, only because there’s no longer this overarching set of interests that we shared fighting the Soviet Union, but they have improved. The challenge is now at the popular level, where the publics are much more involved in the relationship. Neither the American nor Saudi public understands what the relationship is for, nor understands what we get from it, and is extremely angry about the treatment the other has received in the press. So there’s a long road to haul in terms of understanding this relationship in its strategic context. Coming back to the book, I spent a lot of time thinking about the subtitle, which is “America’s Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia,” and I didn’t use the word relationship, because often we think of this as a very personalized relationship; we don’t like them, they don’t like us. But we tend not to think of it in its strategic context, about partnerships and alliances; whether or not it serves the United States well and whether it serves Saudi [Arabia] well. I think overall Saudi Arabia’s been a difficult ally for the United States, but France has been a difficult ally for the United States too. In some ways, Saudi Arabia is the France of the Middle East, and we have real problems that we must continue to focus on—namely, to continue to watch and regulate the money, and insist that the Saudis continue to watch where the money goes and demand a high level of accountability. Are you basically optimistic for the next ten years or so? I am. I do think the relationship will be more difficult than in the past. I don’t think it’s going to be severed, and I don’t think we’re going to ever see the divorce that people were threatening a few years ago. We should expect it to be a bumpy road, though, because the overall strategic interests aren’t there the way they were during the Cold War. There are still important pockets of shared interests, and we talked about some of them, but there’s obviously not going to be this turn to “Oh, but we do agree on the Soviets,” the way that we did during the Cold War, and so we should expect it to be a rockier road, but I do expect the relationship to muddle through.

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Uniqueness: Alliance Diverging- Iraq Uniqueness: Alliance divergence- iraq Richter June 8, 2008 (Paul; Los Angeles Times Staff Writer; “New forces fraying U.S.-Saudi oil ties”; http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-ussaudi8-2008jun08,0,169219.story) By the end of 2007, it was also apparent that the Saudis no longer believed they could substantially affect prices by increasing production. Now, Saudi oil experts believe that the price run-up is due to such factors as investor

The weakening of the economic ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia comes when the Saudi government has increasingly sought to distance itself politically from Washington. Even as the United States has tried to forge a coalition of Persian Gulf states to counter Iran, Saudi officials have grown skeptical about a security alliance with Washington. Instead, leaders of the overwhelmingly Sunni Arab kingdom worry that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has weakened their security and fret about the Shiite Muslim domination of Iraq. Stephen Hadley, the national security advisor, recently acknowledged to reporters that the war has been a "stress" on the relationship. Meanwhile, the Saudis, making use of the added economic clout fueled by soaring oil prices, are trying to forge a new leadership role in the Muslim world. They have participated, if often invisibly, in efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to stabilize Lebanon. Ordinary Saudis like the idea of their nation's added wealth, as well as the idea that U.S. leaders are coming as supplicants. speculation, the weak dollar and limited output from such key producers as Iraq, Iran and Venezuela. "They see themselves as having lost control of the market," Priddy said.

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***Miscellaneous***

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No Backstopping No backstop possible—saudis don’t control market Roula Khalaf Jul 01, 2008 (“Saudi Arabia on its own cannot control the oil price” The Financial Times, http://www.zawya.com/printstory.cfm?storyid=FTNEWSPLUS_CB20080701_163&l=000000080701)

In spite of the offer of 200,000 extra barrels of oil and the promise of more in the future, the oil price has stubbornly crept up in the past week, hitting a new record above $143 a barrel. The outcome was partly bad luck: attacks in Nigeria wiped out the immediate impact of the kingdom's extra barrels, while Libya's threat to cut its production, though hardly credible, along with Iran-Israel tensions, later sent the price soaring. There was also a measure of bad PR management. The rise in output was revealed days earlier to Ban Ki Moon, secretary-general of the United Nations, who promptly announced it to the world.

Thus many delegates were left wondering why they had flown all the way to Jeddah. The meeting ended just as it had started, with the same disagreements between producers and consumers, and the same jitters in oil markets. Others were more charitable and agreed with the Saudis that a little more oil and the start of a dialogue were better than no action at all. Given the conflicting pressures on Saudi Arabia, it was unrealistic to expect a dramatic outcome in Jeddah. For

all the noise about what Saudi Arabia can and wants to do to stabilise the markets, its ability to move prices is constrained. In some ways the summit was characteristic of a kingdom that has become more ambitious but not adventurous, more willing to take a leadership role but not to gamble.

The Saudis genuinely share consuming nations' concern over the impact of a high oil price on world growth. A recession will undermine demand for their commodity and encourage development of alternative sources of energy. At the same time, they are convinced that prices are driven more by speculation than shortage of supply. And they are haunted by the prospect that a big output hike would trigger a collapse in prices. So their strategy has been to pump a little bit more oil and try to persuade the market that they stand ready, and indeed have the capability, to bring on more and meet future demand. But in this balancing game, the

Saudis cannot win. Some industry experts argue that Riyadh showed its irrelevance rather than its leadership in Jeddah. It failed to ease market anxiety or satisfy consumer nations, and it found itself more isolated than ever within Opec, the oil producers' cartel. Unless it was prepared to announce a bold move - pumping, for example, an extra 500,000 barrels of oil - it should not have held a summit.

they not raise production by 300,000b/d recently without any noticeable effect? Moreover, the more oil Saudi Arabia - the only major producer with spare capacity, puts But what if another 500,000 barrels had failed to stem the price rise? The Saudis would have appeared even more irrelevant. Did

on the market - the less can be rushed to the rescue in times of crisis. The kingdom is also caught between satisfying domestic public opinion and answering to another important audience in America. Having suffered the wrath of Americans for years after the attacks of September 11, the Saudis want to avoid another setback. But even absolute monarchies have to take their own domestic opinion into account, and what might appear to the west as a daring, responsible, step could be seen at home as a sign of weakness. Even among the elite in the Gulf, you hear voices these days complaining that the region has its own development priorities and cannot turn the oil tap on and off depending on the needs of others. Bashing Opec and Saudi Arabia, particularly during a US presidential election year, will probably pick up. But relying

on the kingdom alone to bring

prices down is no longer a realistic assumption.

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No Backstopping No Backstopping—Consensus of Saudi oil experts is they cant undercut the market Richter June 8, 2008 (Paul; Los Angeles Times Staff Writer; “New forces fraying U.S.-Saudi oil ties”; http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-ussaudi8-2008jun08,0,169219.story) By the end of 2007, it was also apparent that the Saudis no longer believed they could substantially affect prices by increasing production. Now, Saudi oil experts believe that the price run-up is due to such factors as investor speculation, the weak dollar and limited output from such key producers as Iraq, Iran and Venezuela. "They see themselves as having lost control of the market," Priddy said.

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Independency Snowballs Loss of Saudi oil relations snowballs, reduces overall middle east dependency Marshall January 8th, 2002 (Dr. Andrew W.; Director, Net Assessment “The Sino-Saudi Energy Rapprochement: Implications for US National Security” http://www.rice.edu/energy/publications/docs/SinoSaudiStudyFinal.pdf)

Should Saudi Arabia, for whatever reason, change its policy of being the number one supplier to the United States, US interests in the Middle East oil-producing world could change. Without special Saudi pricing, US companies would probably reduce their oil imports from the Middle East from their current level of about 25% to a level closer to 10-15%. Indeed, if US oil demand stagnates and if new supplies from West Africa grow at the top end of their projected level for the next decade, US dependence on Middle East oil could well fall to 5%, if Saudi Arabia decides to no longer protect its role as number one supplier to the US. Under these circumstances, the US public could turn away from support of the US role as protector of Middle East supply lanes. From an oil supply perspective, this would be unwise. Even if the US imported no oil from the Middle East, its economy would remain vulnerable to an oil supply disruption. Even if the US imported no oil from the Middle East, it would have an interest in making sure that other countries of concern to the US were not subject to political pressures from any Middle East producer.

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Terror Good: Solves Oil Dependency Terror key to solve dependency New Statesman, 6/7/2004, Vol. 133 Issue 4691, p6-6, 1p “Why al-Qaeda may save the world.” Ebsco The great strides in energy efficiency made by manufacturing industries have been offset by an increasingly profligate use of energy in the service industries and in private consumption: the growth of external lighting and even external heating; the boom in SUVs and 4x4s; the growth of long-distance commuting and out-of-town superstores; the explosion of short-break overseas holidays; the development of centralised food distribution that requires a carrot to travel halfway across the country before it can get to a shop a few miles from where it was grown, and a pig to cross international borders to become ham before returning to the country it started from. All this

is the

result of low oil prices, which encourage unnecessary energy consumption and discourage innovations in alternative energy. The corrupt rulers of major oil-producing countries have every reason to heed western entreaties to hold prices down. By doing so, they keep out new entrants to the energy market. As a former Opec secretary general once observed, the Stone Age did not end because people ran out of stones. It ended when people found something better. The same is true of oil which, despite some forecasts, is unlikely to save us all by running out. The world has two hopes. One is to engineer a soft landing from oil by gradually raising taxes and otherwise penalising its use. So Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, should resist, in his best Calvinist manner, the planned protests against fuel taxes which are being encouraged, with typical opportunism, by Michael Howard, the Tory leader. The second

terrorism in the Middle East. This can bring about a hard landing by knocking out the Saudi oil industry and, with it, 10 per cent of world oil production. The soft landing is infinitely preferable. But if governments cannot do the job, the world may yet have cause to be grateful to al-Qaeda. hope is

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China is Realist China is realist and views the U.S. as a threat to its international emergence Heller ‘3 /Eric Nathaniel, published international security author University of Illinois, “Power Projections of the People’s Republic of China: An Investigative Analysis of Defensive and Offensive Realism in Chinese Foreign Policy”/ https://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/bitstream/2142/34/1/HellerOP.pdf As these sentiments and desires are molded into a comprehensive, grand national strategy, the Chinese leadership seeks to assure that China will rise to great power status by shaping the conduct of the international system rather than responding to its conditions.4 As such the intention seems to be focused on forming the international conditions that provide the opportunity to increase the relative capabilities of the Chinese and in doing so work to prevent the United States from usurping China’s rise. To that end, China views military power as the primary guarantor of “comprehensive security,” while viewing and embracing multilateral diplomatic efforts as partial and conditional.5 This point seems to pose one explanation as to why China asserts that disputes concerning sovereignty issues ought to be set aside rather than settled in multilateral fora as there is much more to be obtained in terms of relative capabilities by keeping the sovereignty question undecided, especially out of the hands of the major powers and largest international decision-making bodies. Where it suits the PRC to do so, though, China’s government has integrated a policy of “partnership cultivation” to deflect and avoid controversy during its period of economic and military expansion. The Chinese leadership believes that if great powers are put in a position to press China on controversial issues, the benefits that China can potentially reap from the relationship such as trade and investment will be put into jeopardy. Rather it seems more beneficial to employ policies that make China attractive to great powers while at the same time remaining flexible by avoiding decisive alignments with particular states.6 As such, the Chinese are pursuing a setting that is most conducive to successful pursuit of Chinese national interests.

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***Aff Answer***

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Saudi Prolif Good Saudi prolif deters Iran nuclearization Lalwani ‘8 /Sameer, “Another Take on Saudi Arabia's Nuclear Agenda,” June 10/ http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/06/another_respons/ Finally, though its true that nuclear assistance might be playing with fire, there seems to be a very legitimate strategic calculus to assisting the Saudi government -- namely, signaling to Iran the cost of going nuclear. Right now Iran has conventional weapons superiority in the region but a drive to nuclear weapons that results in proliferation would eliminate their advantage through nuclear-provided strategic parity. If Iran actually believes that other states in the gulf region are ready and capable of also going nuclear, it might rethink its strategic calculations and turn back from weaponization. Certainly one must be wary of this spiraling into an arms race, but there is also a conceivable strategic logic to the moves being played by the US and Saudi Arabia. Saudi and the GCC have already indicated interest in this nuclear project but also in dissuading Iran from its nuclear ambitions and ultimately developing a regional security architecture for the Gulf states as Thomas Lippman has argued. If some sort of Saudi/GCC peaceful nuclear venture is inevitable, its better the US be involved in guiding it -- commanding greater influence and knowledge of capabilities -- rather than China or Russia stepping in to assume the role of nuclear patron.

Iranian proliferation leads to Israeli launch and nuclear war Commentary ‘98 /December p146/ Now, once again, the question has arisen of what forcible steps Israel might take in order to deny nuclear weapons to its enemies. This past September, Ephraim Sneh, a general in the Israeli army reserves and a leading member of the opposition Labor party, spoke publicly of the possibility that the IDF might be compelled to "deliver a conventional counterstrike or preemptive strike" against Iranian atomic facilities. This was not long after Teheran tested its Shahab-3 missile--to the yawns of the international community--and then displayed the missile in a military parade with banners draped from it reading, "Israel should be wiped from the map"--to still more yawns by the international community. Sneh was roundly criticized at home for his remarks, not because he was wrong but because, as

"unnecessary chatter" could heighten the likelihood of Israel's being targeted for attack. But whether or not Sneh should have spoken out, the option he referred to may be less viable than it once was. Both Uzi Landau, the chairman of the Knesset's foreign-affairs and security committee, explained,

Iran and Iraq have already taken measures--concealment, dispersion, hardening, surface-to-air defense--to ensure that the feat performed by Israel's air force in 1981, and for which it was universally condemned at the time, including by the United States, could not easily be repeated. If preemption is largely ruled out as an option, what then?

To reduce its vulnerability--enemy missiles can arrive within ten minutes from firing--Israel may well be compelled to adopt a "launch-on-warning" posture for both its conventional and nuclear forces. For the purpose of considering this eventuality, we may assume that Israel has indeed developed a secure retaliatory force of the kind Tucker saw as essential to stability. Even so, however, this would not offer much reassurance. Unlike its neighbors, and unlike the U.S., Israel is a tiny country, and in a nuclear environment it would not have the luxury of waiting to assess the damage from a first strike before deciding how to respond. Thus,

in any future crisis, at the first hint from satellite intelligence or some other means that a missile fusillade was being prepared from, say, Iran or Iraq, Israel, to protect its populace, would have to punch first. And it would have to strike not only at missile sites, some of which it might well miss, but at a broader range of targets--communications facilities, air bases, storage bunkers, and all other critical nodes--so as to paralyze the enemy and thus rule out the possibility of attack. These are the implications of launch-on-warning. Clearly, such a posture presents grave problems. Lacking secure second-strike forces of their own, and aware that Israel would no

Iran and Iraq would be under tremendous pressure to launch their missiles first--to "use them or lose them." In other words, what this scenario leads to is the prospect of both sides' moving to a permanent position of hair-trigger alert. It is a nightmarish prospect. The possibility that nuclear war might break out at any moment--by accident, miscalculation, or design--would inevitably place an intolerable strain on Israel's freedom of military movement, and take a no less heavy toll on civilian morale. doubt try to hit them preemptively,

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Saudi Prolif Good Saudi prolif is inevitable and secures Middle East instability by deterrence Blank ‘3 /Stephen, analyst of international security affairs, “Saudi Arabia's nuclear gambit,” Asia Times, November 7/ Another consideration is that a possible Saudi nuclear deterrent might also check Iran, with whom Pakistan has issues, especially over Afghanistan. Thus, a possible Riyadh-Islamabad axis would offer those two capitals, both of which continue to sponsor terrorism in Palestine and Kashmir respectively, a way to check India and its allies or partners, Iran and Israel. Although both governments have firmly denied these allegations of nuclear cooperation, the explosion of reports from different sources in the US and Europe, many allegedly based on sources with access to these governments, appears to have some basis in reality.

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No Saudi Prolif Saudi Arabia can’t and has no incentive to proliferate Lippman ‘8 /Thomas, former Middle East correspondent and a diplomatic and national security reporter for The Washington Post/ It is far from certain, however, that Saudi Arabia would wish to acquire its own nuclear arsenal or that it is capable of doing so. There are compelling reasons why Saudi Arabia would not undertake an effort to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, even in the unlikely event that Iran achieves a stockpile and uses this arsenal to threaten the Kingdom. Money is not an issue — if destitute North Korea can develop nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia surely has the resources to pursue such a program. In the fall of 2007, the Saudis reported a budget surplus of $77 billion, and with oil prices above $90 a barrel, Riyadh is flush with cash. But the acquisition or development of nuclear weapons would be provocative, destabilizing, controversial and extremely difficult for Saudi Arabia, and ultimately would likely weaken the kingdom rather than strengthen it. Such a course would be directly contrary to the Kingdom’s longstanding stated goal of making the entire Middle East a nuclear weapons free zone. According to Sultan bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, the Defense Minister and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, nuclear weapons by their nature contravene the tenets of Islam. Pursuing nuclear weapons would be a flagrant violation of Saudi Arabia’s commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and would surely cause a serious breach with the United States. Saudi Arabia lacks the industrial and technological base to develop such weapons on its own. An attempt to acquire nuclear weapons by purchasing them, perhaps from Pakistan, would launch Saudi Arabia on a dangerously inflammatory trajectory that could destabilize the entire region, which Saudi Arabia’s leaders know would not be in their country’s best interests. The Saudis always prefer stability to turmoil. Saudi Arabia and the NPT Saudi Arabia, like Iran, is a signatory to the NPT and participates in the safeguard regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency. It signed the treaty only under duress, but its reluctance was not based on a desire to develop nuclear wepons. The Kingdom’s position was that it would be happy to join the NPT system when Israel did so. But then in 1988 it was virtually forced to sign the NPT because of intense pressure from the United States.

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A2: China Aggression China is pursuing a peaceful entrance into the international order Heller ‘3 /Eric Nathaniel, published international security author University of Illinois, “Power Projections of the People’s Republic of China: An Investigative Analysis of Defensive and Offensive Realism in Chinese Foreign Policy”/ https://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/bitstream/2142/34/1/HellerOP.pdf However, realists also argue that a competitor will strive to emulate the policies and general characteristics of the state to which they aspire in order to be viewed as similar and non-threatening by the hegemon and international community.8 To support this argument is China’s bid for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the drive for admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Neither policy would seem to improve the security of China drastically; however, being a member of the WTO and hosting the Olympic Games bring economic implications and prestige—signs of a powerful nation on the rise. No longer would the PRC be viewed as a rogue power, engaged in diplomatic tiffs over Taiwan and a downed US Navy plane, but as a mainstream country capable of rivaling what is at times viewed as a heavy-handed United States. Great powers are rewarded if they appear both strong and potentially dangerous because states ally with the strongest and most threatening powers. No US-China conflict in the Middle East Luft and Korin ‘4 /Gal, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, and Anne, director of policy and strategic planning at IAGS, “The Sino-Saudi Connection,” Commentary Magazine, March/ http://www.iags.org/sinosaudi.htm Of course, many other factors must be weighed in the balance. The Chinese may well find fishing in Middle Eastern waters to be a risky business, entailing high costs in relations with other powers, and in particular with the U.S. Already there are signs of growing disquiet in Washington over China's role in the Middle East. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a group created by Congress to monitor relations between the two countries, issued a warning in 2002 over China's provision of "technology and components for weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems" to such Middle Eastern states as Iran, Syria, Libya, and Sudan. This was characterized as "an increasing threat to U.S. security interests." Significantly, the report took special notice of China's growing dependence on imported oil, calling it a "key driver" impelling relations with "terrorist-

China could find itself gaining in one region only to lose in another. The Chinese economy may be heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil, but it is also heavily dependent on trade with the U.S. The shelves of Wal-Mart alone account for 10 percent of China's exports to the U.S. and 1 percent of China's GDP. Whether and under what circumstances the U.S. would ever choose to exercise its leverage is another matter. Right now, any collision over Middle Eastern oil is more a potential than an actual threat. Besides, if predicting the future is risky at all times, the present moment makes the exercise almost foolhardy. That the Middle East is in an exceptionally volatile condition goes without saying. And as for China, its astonishing economic growth may yet turn out to be a bubble; if it pops, so will its high rates of energy consumption. Then, too, even if stellar economic growth continues, the Chinese may find attractive alternatives to oil: the country is extremely rich in coal and natural gas, and, since it has not yet invested heavily in an expensive petroleum infrastructure, it could develop ways to harness fuels produced from coal and biomass (both of which it has in abundance) and thus overcome its dependence on imported oil altogether. sponsoring governments" in the region. If such concerns continue to mount,

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No Link No Link- Saudis wouldn’t care about the plan Freeman ‘4 /Chas, U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, “Defining Interests and a Changing Relationship,” October 29/ http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter2004/saudi-relations-interest-10-29.html One of the reasons that they tried to keep prices at a moderate level was to discourage research and development of alternative energy sources. I think that they are much less concerned about that now. They are fairly confident that there is not much alternative to their oil reserves as the key component of future global oil supplies. Amb. Freeman: This was something that the Saudis traditionally didn't want to see happen.

US-Saudi relations are not contingent on oil Clifford Chanin, 2004 (US-Saudi conference organizer, U.S.-SAUDI RELATIONS: A ROCKY ROAD, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5400/is_200412/ai_n21361856/print?tag=artBody;col1) Participants agreed that the agenda for U.S.-Saudi relations had been taken out of the hands of the elites who had managed it for so long. It was now in the public domain. Media in both countries were focused on the disagreements between the two countries. In this light, U.S.-Saudi relations have to some degree become globalized, shaped as much by global trends as by a narrow conception of bilateral interests. With global issues highlighting differences in fundamental values between the two countries, the U.S.-Saudi agenda can no longer be confined to the traditional terms of Saudi oil for American security that guided the relationship for so long. On issues of religious freedom, women's rights and democracy, American critiques of Saudi Arabia reflect the influence of global (and domestic) policy debates. Likewise, on issues of Palestinian rights and Muslim identity, the Saudi critique of American policy reflects the concerns of a large, global constituency. In both cases, such important differences have little to do with oil prices or military equipment sales. And yet, these issues have reduced support for a relationship that still touches on interests essential for both countries.

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Relations Resilient Concern over Iran will sustain relations Bronson ‘6 /Rachel, former Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies, “Bronson: Saudis ‘Deeply Concerned’ Over Iran’s Nuclear Program,” Council on Foreign Relations, April 3/ http://www.cfr.org/publication/10328/bronson.html The important thing to remember with the U.S.-Saudi relationship and one of the key points in my book is that, while oil is very important, the relationship is also supported by two other very important pillars: Saudi Arabia’s strategic location—where it actually physically sits on the map—has been very important going back to World War II and remains that way in the present. The fact is that it borders on Iraq and is across the Persian Gulf from Iran, and is quite close to Israel. In addition, Saudi Arabia’s religiosity has been very important in the region. For example, in terms of its strategic location in the contemporary period, Saudi Arabia is extremely concerned over the possibility of Iran’s nuclear proliferation, and about its seeming relentless bid to acquire a successful nuclear program. So it shares a U.S. concern? On Iran it most certainly does. One of the things we’ve seen from the Saudis is a call for a nuclear-free Arabian gulf. In the past they’ve talked about a nuclear-free Middle East with clear reference to the Israelis. Now they’re very focused on their immediate neighbor to the east and their immediate efforts are to try to ensure a nuclear-free Arabian or Persian gulf.

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Link Turn: US-Saudi Co-op The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are cooperating on alternative energy DOE ‘8 /January 19, “Secretary Bodman Travels to Saudi Arabia to Discuss Global Energy Investments”/ http://www.doe.gov/news/5858.htm U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman today continued his six-nation visit to the Middle East and Europe with a two-day stop in Saudi Arabia where he met with Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Ibrahim Al-Naimi to discuss joint energy cooperation. Secretary Bodman also toured the King Abdul-Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and will tour the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology during his visit. “The United States and Saudi Arabia enjoy a relationship of global importance and I am pleased to return to discuss opportunities to increase energy investments, further our scientific innovation through research and development, and deploy cleaner, more efficient technologies on a global scale,” Secretary Bodman said. “Together we must work to keep markets well-supplied to meet rapidly growing demand and foster a favorable investment climate to develop and expand energy resources.”

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Low Prices Relations Link Turn Insert Plan Lowers Oil Prices Low oil prices key to US-Saudi relations The Daily Telegraph, 5/16/2008 (Day of truth for US-Saudi axis Bush's warm relationship with King Abdullah is starting to cool down, as he seeks Riyadh's help over oil prices. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports, lexis) WHEN President George W Bush went to see Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in January to plead for higher oil output, he was politely rebuffed. The rematch today is likely to be a great deal more strained. If the Saudis deny help once again, they risk incalculable damage to their strategic alliance with Washington. The price of crude has rocketed by over $30 a barrel since that last fruitless meeting, briefly touching the once unthinkable level of $127. Goldman Sachs fears a "super-spike'' to $200 a barrel this year. Asked what he would tell King Abdullah this time, Mr Bush said caustically: "The price is even higher.'' Indeed, it is, especially the political price. The USSaudi tango has been on thin ice ever since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Sixteen of the hijackers were Saudi nationals. The Bush family has cleaved closely to the Saudi monarchy, but strong factions in Washington see Riyadh's Wahabi monarchy is part of the Middle East problem - not the solution. Saudi Arabia's one saving grace - in the eyes of US critics - is that it has over the years been willing to cap extreme surges in the price of oil, deploying its power as the world's swing producer. This time, Riyadh is giving no ground. Oil minister Ali alNaimi insists that there is plenty of oil about, blaming the latest rise on "the internal logic of the financial markets'', meaning hedge funds and speculators. Low oil prices are the lynch pin of US-Saudi relations Bronson 2006 (Rachel Bronson, Former Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies, Thicker than Oil: America's Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia, p. 2-3) Few relationships are as vital, under as much pressure, and as poorly understood as that between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The 865,000-squaremile kingdom, equivalent in area to more than one-fifth of the United States, sits astride one-quarter of the world's proven oil reserves and neighbors two of America's foreign policy hot spots, Iraq and Iran, and one of its closest friends, Israel. Every devout Muslim turns toward its holy city, Mecca, five times a day to pray.

Traditionally the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia has been characterized as a basic bargain of "oil for security." For its part, since the mid-1970s, Saudi Arabia has ensured the free flow of oil at reasonable prices. The kingdom's ability to put oil on the market quickly during times of crisis is the most obvious benefit the United States gains from good relations. Immediately after September 11, for example, Saudi Arabia increased oil shipments to the United States in order to keep prices stable. It also augmented oil production just before Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced, a time when political strife in Venezuela and Nigeria threatened to elevate oil prices dramatically. In return for this, the United States extends to Saudi Arabia's leadership a security umbrella, including a commitment to its territorial integrity. Since 1950 the United States has explicitly vowed to help defend the kingdom against external threats—including, over the years, the Soviet Union, Yemen, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. Since the fall of the shah of Iran in 1979, this commitment has evolved into implicit support for the Saudi regime against internal challenges, including today's al-Qaeda.

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