News Release

January 18, 2002

U.S. should welcome Saudi calls for military withdrawal, says Cato analyst

Reports today indicate that the government of Saudi Arabia is growing uncomfortable with the U.S. military presence in its country and may soon call for a U.S. withdrawal. But Secretary of State Colin Powell said today the Bush administration has not discussed that possibility with Saudi Arabia. Ivan Eland, Cato Institute Director of Defense Policy Studies, had the following comments:

"If the Saudi government asks the United States to withdraw military forces from Saudi territory, the United States should regard the request as a godsend and eagerly comply. According to Saudi government officials, the American military presence in Saudi Arabia is very unpopular with the country's population and in other Arabic countries. In addition, the Saudi government is uncomfortable playing a role in the U.S. effort to contain Iraq, which it does not perceive as a threat. If Iraq's closest neighbor no longer perceives a threat from an Iraqi military decimated by the Gulf War, then why should the United States—a nation half a world away from the Persian Gulf?

"The U.S. national security community argues that U.S. military forces are needed to keep cheap oil flowing from the Persian Gulf. But the security community, for self-serving reasons, fails to talk to the economics profession about that need. Prior to the Gulf War, prominent economists from across the political spectrum noted that the United States did not need to go to war to protect the U.S. economy from high oil prices. They agreed that if Saddam Hussein had invaded Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Kuwait (the worst possible case), the oil price increases that Saddam could have garnered would have reduced the U.S. GDP by less than half of one percent.

"Oil makes up such a high percentage of the exports earnings of Iraq and the other Persian Gulf oil nations that they need to sell it more than the United States needs to buy it. The worst possible case is Saudi fundamentalist radicals torching the oil wells to undermine the Saudi government—a scenario made more likely by public resentment of the U.S. military presence. After all, that is Osama bin Laden's chief reason for waging a worldwide jihad against U.S. targets.

"Even if rational economic arguments are swept aside and securing Persian Gulf oil remains a goal, a military presence in Saudi Arabia is not needed to defend against an Iraqi military that is only 40 to 50 percent as potent as the force that was roundly trounced during the Gulf War. The Gulf War and the recent successful campaign in Afghanistan should lead to the conclusion that carrier-based airpower and heavy bombers based remotely at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean could probably stop an Iraqi armored offensive on the open desert."