US Patriot withdrawal a ‘tactic’ to get more money from Saudi Arabia: Analyst

The United States' decision to pull its Patriot missile systems from Saudi Arabia as part of broader curbs on its military support for the Arab kingdom is a “tactic” to further sponge off Riyadh, says a political analyst from Washington.

Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for [Persian] Gulf Affairs (IGA) in Washington, made the remarks during a Friday edition of Press TV’s The Debate program, while commenting on whether the decision could breed a fracture in US-Saudi ties or it could be the initial phase of a larger US drawdown in the region.

Citing unnamed US officials, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that four Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries and dozens of military personnel will be removed from Saudi oil facilities.

The officials said the US will also reduce its Navy presence in the Persian Gulf soon, adding that two jet fighter squadrons have already left the region.       

US pulling Patriot missiles from Saudi oil facilities: Report

The United States is pulling its Patriot missile systems from Saudi soil as part of broader curbs on its military support for the Arab kingdom, a report says.

Washington's decision to remove parts of its military equipment from Saudi Arabia was a “tactic” for getting more money from Riyadh to provide its protection, Ahmed told Press TV.

“We must remember that the United States has done this before during the Obama administration when they, on paper, stopped refueling Saudi bombing missions on Yemen that the Americans were providing directly, and after they settled with the Saudis, they sold them tankers and put private contractors to continue this… they basically moved from a leasing agreement to a purchasing agreement and what we see here on the paper is the same thing.”

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Mohammed Shafiq, the chief executive of Ramadhan Foundation from Manchester, was the other panelist invited to The Debate program, who stressed US President Donald Trump’s need to boost his chances of getting re-elected by resorting to his 2016 campaign pledge to curtail his country’s military involvement in endless wars.

“I think that Trump is starting to realize he needs to bank on his re-election in November as his main pledge in 2016 was to reduce foreign adventures in foreign policy and changed to a point where America is involved in endless wars and occupation and the Middle East is littered with examples of the American and British and other Western forces being involved in a list of wars, and the foreign policy which is about dictating and interfering in the affairs of the region. So, he welcomed [the idea] to reduce its battery of weapons because those weapons are there to kill innocent people,” Shafiq said.

“Prosperity in the Middle East can only be achieved by people working together, and when we actually see an end to endless wars and occupation and interference in the affairs of individual states, only then we’ll start to see a prosperous and peaceful Middle East.” 

Asked whether the patriot missiles’ withdrawal from Saudi Arabia would signal a fracture in the relationship between Washington and Riyadh, Shafiq rejected the idea and said, “If you look at this alliance which has been going for at least close to 100 years, there is a real sense that the United States military, the government, the institutions are very intertwined with the number of governments in the Middle East. The way forward is not to have the picture of wars as we have seen in Yemen and Syria, and we’ve seen in Iraq.”

The developments come over two weeks after Trump said his administration will review a proposal to block Saudi crude oil shipments to the US to try to save its struggling shale industry suffering from an unprecedented slump in demand and prices due to the novel coronavirus, and as fuel storage runs short.

Trump warned Saudis to cut oil production or lose US military support: Reuters

US President Donald Trump had warned Saudi Arabia earlier in April that he would end American military support for the kingdom if Riyadh did not cut oil production.

The US president also warned Saudi Arabia in mid-April that he would end American military support for the kingdom if Riyadh did not end its oil price war with Russia and cut production.

Trump told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call on April 2 that unless his country started cutting oil production, he would be unable to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw US troops from the Arab kingdom.

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