Case for Saudi Arms

Congress has made its political point about U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and now it is obliged to think hard about the consequences of its action. The point asserted in the House and Senate votes against President Reagan’s proposed weapons deal is that the Saudis have not been very helpful or trustworthy in support of American policies in the Middle East. Therefore, so Congress would have it, they are undeserving of gestures indicating U.S. support. This is a perhaps understandable view of things, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a wise one. The broader and more thoughtful view is that the United States ought to be doing what it reasonably can do to maintain and cultivate its influence in the Arab world. The Saudi arms package, symbolically and politically, offers one way to do that.

A lot of the complaints made in Congress about how Saudi policies diverge from those of the United States are true so far as they go, but what was lacking in the debate was any attempt to put the Saudi situation in context. What Congress didn’t recognize is that Saudi Arabia--like Jordan or Egypt or, indeed, Israel--is never going to put what it regards as its fundamental national interests secondary to its relations with the United States, no matter how much distress and disdain this may arouse in Congress.

The Saudis are not, as one example, going to break with the consensus on issues that the Arab world--often, to be sure, to its own disadvantage--insists on making tests of Islamic or Arab solidarity. By the same token, the Saudis, knowing better than anyone else how vulnerable they are to the threat of internal subversion, will go on paying protection money to Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization, whether the United States likes it or not.

The Saudis can survive without the U.S. missiles that they have asked for. For one thing, they already have plenty in their arsenals, including the shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missile that Reagan has now dropped from the arms package. For another, they can always shop elsewhere for what they want. Saudi security would not, then, suffer great harm if no new U.S. weapons were delivered. What would be harmed is the political relationship between the two countries, including--no small point for the future--the relations and influence that the U.S. military has with its Saudi counterparts.

Congress has tended to greatly exaggerate any risk to Israel that a new arms deal with the Saudis might present, just as it has grossly minimized the strategic importance to the United States of maintaining sound relations with the world’s foremost oil state. The chance to rectify this shortsightedness now rests with a few senators. A switch in their earlier votes, when the Senate returns from recess next month, would allow Reagan’s veto of the congressional resolutions of disapproval of the arms deal to be sustained. Those few votes are important to the future of U.S. interests in Saudi Arabia, and in the Middle East.