American foreign policy is full of ...

American foreign policy is full of things we can’t see and things we don’t talk about. The drone war of the Obama years; the “extraordinary rendition” and “enhanced interrogation” of the George W. Bush years. Nixon and Kissinger’s secret bombing campaign in Cambodia. The overthrow of democratic governments we didn’t like: Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo in 1961, Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. Once you get started with this stuff it’s hard to stop, and pretty soon your friends are giving you that look, like they’re wondering at what point you’ll start talking about your stormy personal relationship with Richard Helms, or the microchips implanted in your dental work.

But even by those standards, the case of Saudi Arabia is special. We love Saudi Arabia so much! The Bush family loves Saudi Arabia; the Clinton family loves Saudi Arabia. You and I are frequently told that we love Saudi Arabia, even if we aren’t exactly sure why. We write mash notes in Saudi Arabia’s yearbook, in pink Magic Marker with lots of hearts: BE-HEDDING ALL THOSE PPL! U R SO SEXY!!! We have never overthrown a democratic government in Saudi Arabia. It would admittedly be difficult to do so, since Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that has never had a democratic government and never will. Our tax dollars and Saudi oil dollars flow back and forth between Washington and Riyadh in a bewildering matrix understood by no one, ending up along the way in the handbags of hookers in Vegas and the tip baskets of croupiers in Macau.

It’s kind of a crazy, stupid love. No, I mean that. It’s diagnosably insane and unbelievably stupid, verging on suicidal. Saudi Arabia is damn near the worst place in the world when it comes to all those human rights and civil liberties America supposedly cares about so deeply. (Actually, it seems like the worst place in the world in general, but that’s a broad and highly subjective claim.) Women are effectively the property of their fathers, husbands or brothers. Homosexuality does not officially exist, and is punishable by death. Internal dissidents and critics of the monarchy have been convicted on such charges as “breaking allegiance with the ruler” and “contact with foreign news organizations to exaggerate the news

Saudi Arabia was also an important piece on the Cold War chessboard. “Anyone who was willing to side with the United States against the Soviet Union was welcome,” al-Ahmed says, irrespective of how they handled their internal affairs. “In order to secure their own power, the Saudis found it useful to join the ‘regressive’ camp in the Arab world,” says al-Ahmed, in opposition the pan-Arab nationalism and modernism of leaders like Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, who tilted toward the Soviets.

As al-Ahmed sees it, Saudi money has become a constant ingredient in American politics over the last few decades. If half his stories about the devious mechanisms by which Saudi cash has entered American pockets are true, the Clinton story is the tip of the iceberg. “I’ve lived here long enough to know that the American political system runs on money,” he jokes. “As we say here in America, there is no free lunch. It isn’t that hard to figure out, and the Saudis figured out that they could buy decisions.”