Conceding
to terrorism? The rationality behind the U.S. withdrawal of troops in Saudi
Arabia in 2003
Philipe Moura*
Introduction
The
terrorist attacks of 9/11 came along with a list of demands from al-Qaeda to
the United States, which were clearly summarized on bin Laden’s open letter to
America.[i]
Among them was the request that the United States leave Saudi Arabia, bin
Laden’s home country, considered to host two of the holiest sites for Islam. In
2003, on a move that seemed to concede to al-Qaeda’s demand, the U.S. Defense
Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, announced a withdrawal of American troops and
aircrafts in Saudi Arabia. However, the U.S. did not compromise on the other
demands by the terrorist group. The present memo will focus on this issue, arguing
that this apparent concession was a rational move with low costs and high
benefits at the time, an analysis that is not valid for the other demands posed
by al-Qaeda.
Why was the apparent
concession to al-Qaeda rational?
Because leaders of democratic countries cannot
easily absorb heavy costs such as the loss of many lives, it seemed clear in
2003 that democracies were to be more responsive to terrorist attrition
strategies, like the one pursued by al-Qaeda against the United States.[ii] As
reported by most newspapers at that time, Rumsfeld tried to make it clear that
the U.S. had reached a common agreement with Saudi Defense Minister Prince
Sultan on what concerns the withdrawal, and that the Prince Sultan base would
remain wired and could be used the future. Then, at the same time the U.S. was
signaling for the terrorist organization that it was giving in in one of their
specific demands, it was making an effort not to look weak.
Scholars have argued that one of the most
efficient strategies for states to deal with attrition strategies is to concede
on inessential issues and stand by other more important issues.[iii] This
seems to be a balanced approach to the trade-off of responding to terrorism, by
which a too strong response would be more effective, but attract continued
retaliation.[iv]
The United States pursued a rather swift move in Saudi Arabia and stood by
other key issues in its agenda: while conceding on the request to withdrawal
from Saudi Arabia, the U.S. did not cut its support for Israel and, in fact,
started a war with Iraq without authorization of the United Nations Security
Council – a form of retaliation against al-Qaeda.
Withdrawing from Saudi Arabia was a concession
with low costs and many benefits, as the war in Iraq had dramatically changed
the scenario in the region. Firstly, prolonging the stay in the Prince Sultan
base was not in the interest of U.S. officials. The economic costs of
maintaining operational a large military base not involved in the war ongoing
were high (1), and this would be so due to the increasingly frayed relationship
between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia (2)[v],
and the fact that the alleged mission of that base, i.e. enforcing the no-fly
zone on southern Iraq, had been completed with the beginning of the war (3).
In addition to that, on March 1st,
2003, the Turkish Parliament had rejected the U.S. request to deploy as many as
80,000 troops from Turkey to northern Iraq. [vi]
As a consequence, the American strategy for the war had to find an alternative
way to position its troops in Iraq (4). Moving the aircrafts was easier, as
even before the joint announcement of the withdrawal they had already been
moved to the al-Udeid base in Qatar, where they started operation in spite of
Saudi restrictions (5).[vii],[viii]
But, on what concerns the troops, the U.S. did not have another country in the
Middle East to host the forces stationed in Saudi Arabia since 1991 until the
war started in Iraq (6). For those reasons, then, withdrawing from Saudi Arabia
was a strategic move with relatively low costs and with high benefits. The fact
that it also seemed a concession to one of al-Qaeda’s requests without the cost
of looking weak made the move even more beneficial.
This cost-benefit assessment is not true for
the other requests made by al-Qaeda in 2001, such as eliminating its support to
the secular regimes in other Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt and
Pakistan. The change of regime in Egypt in 2011-2012 did not come as an
American demand, and Pakistan remains [officially] an American partner on the
fight against terrorism. The U.S. interests in the Middle Eastern politics only
grew after 1991. Finally, the support for Israel also remained unchanged, as
the Jewish lobby in Washington and the support of the Christian Conservatives
both remained intact. Clearly, in those cases, the small benefit (trying to
reach a non-credible peace with al-Qaeda) and the high costs made concession in
those cases very unlikely.
Conclusions
Had the
United States understood the concession as a top priority, the withdrawal would
have happened much earlier despite the costs – not in May 2003, more than a
year and a half after 9/11. That being said, moving troops and aircrafts from
Saudi Arabia (into Iraq and Qatar, respectively) did not harm the American
interests. In fact, given that the strategic assessment of the situation in the
Middle East changed after the war in Iraq started, the withdrawal helped
advancing those interests because the costs of staying in the country were
higher than the many benefits of leaving it, thus ending the 12 years of
military operations in Saudi Arabia.
* MPIA Candidate, UC San Diego.
[i] As seen on The Guardian (2002). Available in:
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver>.
[ii] Kydd, Andrew; and Walter, Barbara (2006). The
Strategies of Terrorism. International Security, pp. 49-80. Available in: <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/international_security/v031/31.1kydd.html>.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] de Moura Pereira, A. P., Vilarinhos, B. T., Macedo,
N., Cheng, Q. (2012). The multiple faces of contemporary terrorism: complexity,
discourses and the case-example of Northwestern Pakistan. In: Sigora, J. A. S.,
Avellar, C. L. N., Ribeiro, C. A. C. Individual
Empowerment in the International System: Toward Development, Through
Freedom. AMUN, Pp. 198-241.
[v] Saudi Arabia had not allowed the Americans to
perform air strikes from the Prince Sultan base without the previous
authorization of the United Nations. Military cooperation between the two
countries started in 1991, when Saudi Arabia was used as the American launch
pad against Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.
[vi] Migdalovitz (2003) even suggests that this
rejection was due to “the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), an
inexperienced leadership”. Read more on: Migdalovitz, Carol (2003). Iraq:
Turkey, the Deployment of U.S. Forces, and Related Issues. Congressional
Research Service. Available in: <http://congressionalresearch.com/RL31794/document.php?study=Iraq+Turkey+the+Deployment+of+U.S.+Forces+and+Related+Issues>.
[vii] Rennie, David (2003). America to withdraw
troops from Saudi Arabia. The Telegraph. Available in: <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/1428786/America-to-withdraw-troops-from-Saudi-Arabia.html>.
[viii] One of the reasons why the U.S. built the base
in Qatar was precisely because they feared that Saudi Arabia would ban air
strikes in Iraq. Read more on: Schmitt, Eric (2003). U.S. to Withdraw All
Combat Forces From Saudi Arabia. The New York Times. Available in: <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/29/international/worldspecial/29CND-RUMS.html>.
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