# data[].attributes.body
There is little water in the Middle East, and that combined with a growing population and agricultural demands put Saudi Arabia in need of water.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Saudi Arabia's Water Supply Is Drying Up

# data[].attributes.headline
Women Arrested For Not Wearing the Traditional Cloak and Headdress.

# data[].attributes.subject
Women Arrested For Not Wearing the Traditional Cloak and Headdress.

# data[].attributes.body
Women are unable to wear regular clothing, being forced by law to cover up.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Young woman arrested in Saudi Arabia for wearing 'suggestive clothing'

# data[].attributes.body
A visual representation of the location of Saudi Arabia.

# data[].attributes.body
Mini APA on important aspects of 9/11.

# data[].attributes.body
President Bush was put in a tough position after the 9/11 attack, as he kept on defending Saudi Arabia.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Saudi Arabia is the wellspring of radical Islam, its primary source of sustenance and inspiration. Yet, since September 11, the Bush administration has consistently ducked the truth about Riyadh's role in nurturing terrorism -- and concealed the truth as well. Given the many business and personal ties binding the president, his family and his associates to the House of Saud, George W. Bush's see-no-evildoer attitude toward the Saudis is a vulnerability just begging to be exploited by the Democrats. And they need to do so if they hope to recapture the presidency next year.

Unfortunately, apart from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has been blasting the administration for months over its pusillanimous Saudi policy, the Democrats appear largely oblivious to the opportunity staring them in the eye. True, several Democratic presidential hopefuls, notably Howard Dean, have recently begun to include Saudi Arabia in their bill of particulars against Bush, but the criticism has been episodic and rather tepid.

The Democrats are instead pinning their hopes on the economy. They really seem to think it's 1992 redux, and that now, as then, rising unemployment will prove to be the Bush-beater and their ticket back to the White House. However, with the amount of stimulus in the pipeline, the economy may not be all that weak a year down the road. And even if it is, the Democrats will not be able to send this Bush packing merely by howling about the number of jobs lost on his watch.

September 11 changed American politics. Voters care about foreign policy in a way that they haven't in a long while. The Democrats had little to say about terrorism and national security during last year's midterm elections, and they paid dearly at the polls as a result. Karl Rove plainly intends to wrap the president's re-election bid in the black crape of 9-11, and unless the Democrats can convince the public that they can be trusted with homeland defense, they are almost surely headed for defeat. That's the bad news. The good news is that the Saudi issue gives them a chance to demonstrate their mettle -- at Bush's expense.

The incubatory role played by Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabite sect in fostering Islamic extremism is well documented. The desert kingdom leads the way in financing and inciting Muslim holy warriors the world over. How much of this is done with the complicity of the Saudi regime is unclear, but what is clear is that the royal family is a kleptocracy that has forestalled its own inevitable demise by redirecting domestic unrest outward. September 11 was a plot hatched by an exiled Saudi dissident, and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.

In the two years since 9-11, the Saudis have been an obstacle, not an ally, in the battle against Islamic terrorism. Sure, they've muzzled a few firebrand clerics and rounded up some lumpen Islamicists. But they've shown little inclination to stanch the flow of money from so-called charity organizations to al-Qaeda and other militant groups, and they've kept cooperation with the FBI and the CIA to a minimum.

The royal family's many American mouthpieces assure us that the May 12 suicide bombing in Riyadh was a watershed -- that the Saudis now understand how dangerous al-Qaeda is and will henceforth be tripping over themselves to help us. That hope is delusional and illogical. The royal family is interested only in self-preservation, and joining the fight against terrorism in any meaningful way would be an act of suicide.

John O'Neill, the sadly prescient FBI counterterrorism expert who perished in the World Trade Center attack, understood long before 9-11 that the problem of "Islamofacism" was chiefly a Saudi one. "All the answers," he said, "everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia." But that's only if you're willing to look, which Bush clearly is not. Indeed, he has protected the Saudis at every juncture.

The pattern was established within hours of the atrocities in New York and Washington, when Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador (long known as Bandar Bush because of his coziness with the first family), was permitted to spirit members of the bin Laden clan out of the United States before the FBI could properly interview them. Since then, the Department of Justice has impeded the lawsuit filed against the Saudi regime by the September 11 families; the White House blacked out the portions of a congressional report that detailed the Saudi role in 9-11, and everyone from the president on down has steadfastly insisted that the Saudis are paid-up members of the anti-terrorism posse.

Bush can spew all the frontier rhetoric he wishes, but in the case of the Saudis, his inaction speaks louder. Why he would rather undermine the war on terrorism than confront Riyadh is an interesting question, and it doesn't require a particularly active imagination to wonder if there is more here than just oil and a bad case of realpolitik.

The links between the House of Bush and the House of Saud are deep, overlapping and notoriously opaque: the Saudi investment in the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm whose rainmakers include George Bush Senior; the Saudi bankrolling of Poppy's presidential library; the lucrative contracts the Saudis doled out to Halliburton when Dick Cheney was at the company's helm. The main law firm retained by the Saudis to defend them against the 9-11 families is Baker Botts -- as in James Baker, the Bush family consigliere. And, of course, there's oil, the black glue connecting all these dots.

In short, the Bushies have profited mightily from a relationship with a foreign government that can be indirectly, perhaps even directly, implicated in the September 11 attacks and other terrorist incidents and that has been the driving force behind a worldwide jihad.

The administration's coddling of the Saudis presents the Democrats with an opening the size of Texas, and they need to seize it. Bush is never more inarticulate and unconvincing than when on the defensive, and no subject is going to set him on his heels faster, and keep him there longer, than the Saudi question.

It wouldn't take much for the Democrats to turn this issue into a political bonanza. Some sustained pot stirring by the presidential candidates and various party organs would arouse the interest of the press. Soon enough, all those media sleuths who so assiduously ransacked the lives of the Clintons would be shamed into finally giving the Bush-Saudi nexus the scrutiny it deserves, and in the flash of a news cycle, the president would have a problem. Who knows where it all might lead? There are still unanswered questions about the role Saudi money played in Bush Junior's oil ventures; ditto the Iran-Contra scandal, which never quite caught up with Bush Senior. The possibilities seem endless.

Playing the Saudi card would be a hardball move, setting the stage for a bruising campaign. But Bush is no stranger to brass-knuckle tactics (just ask John McCain), and Republicans have been sliming Democrats for decades on issues of national security. A little retribution is long overdue, and the Democratic faithful are clearly in a fighting mood; using the Saudis as a cudgel to bash Bush would be a very effective way of channeling all that rage.

Nor could anyone justly accuse the Democrats of demagoguery; the Saudi issue is legitimate. The administration appears to have two sets of rules in the war on terrorism: one for the Saudis and one for everyone else. It's fair to ask why (plenty of conservatives are), to plant that question in the minds of voters and to tell voters that things will be different with a Democrat in the White House.

Things need to be different. It is imperative that the United States end its dependence on Middle East oil and its dysfunctional relationship with the Saudi regime, a medieval theocracy headed for the proverbial dustbin, and rightly so. Robert Baer's new book, Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, meticulously details the odiousness of the royal family, and it is a mark of enduring shame that we ever crawled into bed with these characters.

Four more years of Bush will likely mean four more years of business as usual -- four more years of ignoring Saudi Arabia's links to terrorism and its egregious human-rights record. On the stump and on the airwaves, the Democrats should be hammering home this point, giving the Saudis the bashing they so richly deserve and promising the American public a long-overdue reckoning with Riyadh.

Vilifying the Saudis would not just be good politics and good policy; it would be good for the Democratic soul. In pledging to free the United States from this pathetic entanglement, the Democrats would, in a sense, be reclaiming Woodrow Wilson from the Republicans generally and the neocons specifically. It used to be that the Democrats were the ethical standard-bearers in American foreign policy, committed to ensuring that the United States conducted itself in a manner consistent with its founding principles. But they have ceded the high ground of late. Disinterest in global affairs among the party's rank-and-file, coupled with the economic emphasis of the Clinton years, has robbed the party of its traditional internationalist voice.

Excoriating Bush over his handling of relations with the Saudis and vowing to put abundant daylight between Washington and Riyadh would be a way of regaining that voice -- of making the Democrats once again synonymous with human-rights concerns and the quest for justice abroad. The Saudi issue is a winning one on every count for the Democrats, and they need to take advantage of it -- now.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
issue: webocracy: can the internet defeat bush?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Saudi Arabia is the wellspring of radical Islam, its primary source of sustenance and inspiration. Yet, since September 11, the Bush administration has consistently ducked the truth about Riyadh's role in nurturing terrorism -- and concealed the truth as well.

# data[].attributes.body
The major export of Saudi Arabia and the reason why the U.S. is dependent on them.

# data[].attributes.body
Obama has to deal with Saudi Arabia while tending to those at home.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
President Barack Obama has never had a great relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Now, he's the last man standing between the wealthy desert kingdom and billions of dollars in potential liabilities.

Story Continued Below

Obama has cast the Saudis as "so-called" allies; bemoaned the terrorist-inspiring version of Islam they practice; and even suggested the oil-rich Arab state learn to "share" the Middle East with rival Iran. The Saudis, meanwhile, consider Obama naive, sparring with him over the Iran nuclear deal and questioning his hands-off approach to Syria's bloody civil war.

Despite these differences, Obama has promised to veto a bill that Congress passed unanimously allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia over alleged links to the 2001 terrorist attacks.

That Obama and Riyadh find themselves on the same side against Congress underscores the bizarre evolution of U.S.-Saudi ties over the past eight years. An alliance once unquestioned in Washington now faces an extraordinary level of criticism, but the two countries still need each other enough that a breakup is simply not in the cards.

"This is clearly a relationship in transition," said Jon Alterman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Nobody really has a sense of what they're trying to transition it to."

Just how tricky is the relationship? Two more examples: Obama is supporting the Saudis in their fight against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen, even though U.S. officials worry the fight there is distracting from the more important battle against the Islamic State. Andmany of the same U.S. lawmakers happy to make it easier to sue the Saudis just this week green-lit a $1.15 billion arms sale to the country. "Does no one sense the irony?" asked Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, one of a handful of lawmakers who tried to block the weapons dealin the Senate.

The back and forth in Washington is "schizophrenic behavior" that has deeply frustrated leaders in the Middle East for years, said a former senior U.S. official deeply familiar with the Arab world.

Congress passed the lawsuit bill under intense pressure from families of victims and just ahead of the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The Saudis, through direct contacts as well as a powerful set of lobbyists, have tried hard to stop it, waging a major PR effort that included releasing a white paper detailing the kingdom's efforts to stop terrorists. The Saudis deny any government role in the attacks and note that the U.S. has never found proof of it, either. The Saudis also have warned they will sell off billions of dollars in U.S. assets to protect themselves against lawsuits.

Administration officials downplay the idea that Obama will veto the bill merely to protect Saudi Arabia. Normally, U.S. citizens aren't allowed to sue foreign governments under the concept of sovereign immunity. Obama's concern, officials say, thus goes well beyond the Saudis; he's worried that the bill erodes the sovereign immunity principle and could lead other countries to allow the U.S. to be sued over its actions abroad.

"To pass a piece of legislation that would open up our diplomats and our service members and even American businesses to potential lawsuits in courts all around the world is foolish," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a recent press briefing.

The perception in many quarters, however, is that Obama is coming to the aid of a country with much to hide. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, were Saudi nationals. And the recent declassification of roughly 30 pages from a 2002 congressional probe into the 9/11 attacks raised more questions about Saudi government ties to Islamist extremists.

"We are disappointed that the president is not standing with us," said Mindy Kleinberg, who lost her husband in the attacks and was meeting with lawmakers Thursday to push for a veto override. "We have been waiting a very long time for justice, and we feel that this bill will go a long way toward accountability."

Whatever his motivation, Obama's decision to veto the bill is unlikely to do much to ease Saudi suspicions.

The Saudis' wariness of Obama has its roots in his comments in 2002, well before he ran for president, referring to the monarchy in Riyadh as a so-called ally. It grew after Obama sided against Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak during the 2011 Arab Spring movements, leading Saudi royals to question whether America would have their backs in a domestic political crisis of their own.

It deepened in 2013, after Obama decided not to stage a military strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is despised by the Saudis, even after Assad apparently crossed Obama's "red line" by using chemical weapons. And it reached a new peak in 2015 after Obama struck a nuclear deal with Iran, a Shiite theocracy that Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia views as a growing threat in the Middle East.

Still, Obama, cognizant of the need for the U.S. to maintain alliances with stable countries in the Middle East, has otherwise tried hard to allay Saudi concerns. He cut short a trip to India to rush to see the newly crowned Saudi king, Salman, in January 2015, after the previous monarch died. He also has pushed for new weapons and other security agreements with the Saudis, in part to assuage Saudi concerns about the Iran nuclear deal.

But earlier this year, in comments to the Atlantic magazine that infuriated the Saudis, Obama appeared to reverse decades of U.S. policy that tilted heavily toward Riyadh and against Tehran.

"The competition between the Saudis and the Iranians - which has helped to feed proxy wars and chaos in Syria and Iraq and Yemen - requires us to say to our friends as well as to the Iranians that they need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace," Obama said.

Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence, wrote in an extraordinary open letter soon afterward that Obama had "thrown us a curve ball" and criticizing the president for saying America's Gulf allies were "free riders" wholly dependent on the U.S. for their security.

And in April, weeks after the Atlantic piece was published, Saudi Arabia appeared to snub Obama when he visited Riyadh for a summit by sending a lower-level official to greet him at the airport and not broadcasting his arrival on state TV. The readouts from those meetings in Riyadh also suggested the president hadn't done much to assuage Saudi concerns, with the two sides saying they'd "discussed" and "exchanged views" more than agreeing on anything.

The president also hosted Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, when he visited Washington this summer on a trip aimed at improving the kingdom's image in Washington. Obama made sure to praise the prince's plan to transform the Saudi economy, dubbed Vision 2030. He also tried to reassure the Saudi royal that the U.S. will back the Saudis against interference by Iran, which remains an official enemy of the United States.

But some constants in the U.S.-Saudi relationship have turned into variables, meaning that even after Obama leaves office in just a few months, the alliance could prove rocky.

The low price of oil, for example, is forcing the kingdom to rethink its economy; the U.S. also relies more now on its own energy reserves, reducing America's addiction to Saudi oil. Some observers also point to cultural changes in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia - women, though still facing severe segregation, make up a growing share of the workforce; young people are more exposed than ever to the Internet and the outside world; and thousands of Saudis educated in the U.S. are now capitalizing on that experience in their country.

By all accounts, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia still maintain a strong security relationship, and U.S. officials privately say the Saudis are helpful partners in the fight against terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, which the Saudi monarchy views as a threat to its own rule. U.S. officials also say the Saudis have taken steps in recent years to silence the most radical of their Islamist preachers and change their school curricula to be more tolerant.

"The close cooperation on countering violent extremists like [the Islamic State], the continued Saudi preference for American arms, the important role that Saudi Arabia plays in international energy markets and the $70 billion dollars worth of annual trade between the two countries are enough to sustain this relationship for the foreseeable future," said Fahad Nazer, a former political analyst with the Saudi Embassy in Washington who now does similar work for JTG Inc.

In many ways, what Obama thinks about the Saudis matters less and less as his time in the Oval Office draws to an end. But while the Saudis will be happy to see him leave, there's great uncertainty in Riyadh about how the next president will deal with them.

Both Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump have voiced grave concerns about Saudi Arabia's track record of producing Islamic extremists; Clinton has said she supports the 9/11 lawsuit bill. But while Clinton would likely be a more predictable partner, the Saudis see Trump - who has called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States - as a wild card.

For now, however, the Saudis are nervously watching Congress to see exactly how unhappy lawmakers are with them.

Already, some members of Congress are hinting that they are not comfortable with the 9/11 legislation after all, and that they may consider voting to uphold Obama's veto. Their hesitation comes as a growing number of foreign countries and blocs, including the European Union, voice opposition to the bill. The original bill passed on voice vote in both Houses, making a veto override especially sensitive because members will have to go on the record. And with the presidential election looming, the politics are even more fraught than normal.

"Saudi Arabia has never been an especially popular actor in Washington - a powerful one, but not popular," the former senior U.S. official said. "And now, nobody in Congress wants to stick their neck out for the Saudis two-and-a-half months before the presidential election."

This article tagged under:

Missing out on the latest scoops? Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning - in your inbox.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Obama, in an awkward twist, becomes Saudi Arabia's defender

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
President Barack Obama has never had a great relationship with Saudi Arabia. Now, he's the last man standing between the wealthy desert kingdom and billions of dollars in potential liabilities. Story Continued Below Obama has cast the Saudis as "so-called" allies; bemoaned the terrorist-inspiring version of Islam they practice; and even suggested the oil-rich Arab state learn to "share" the Middle East with rival Iran.

# data[].attributes.body
President Trump wants to negotiate with Iran after the attack on Saudi Arabia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Image

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced Friday that the United States would deploy a modest number of troops to the Persian Gulf in response to attacks on Saudi oil facilities. Credit Credit Alex Wong/Getty Images

WASHINGTON - President Trump is sending a modest deployment of American troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with air and missile defense systems, in response to the attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which the administration blames on Iran.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper called the decision, which came on Friday during a White House meeting with top national security officials, "defensive in nature." Defense Department officials said the Pentagon would deploy additional antimissile batteries to Saudi Arabia and might also deploy additional warplanes. The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln may extend its stay in the region as well, the officials said.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the precise number of American troops headed to the region had not been determined, but that it would be a "moderate deployment" in the hundreds, not thousands.

Mr. Trump had been weighing whether to take direct military action against Iran in response to the attacks on Saudi Arabia, which rattled global energy markets and which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week called "an act of war."

At the White House on Friday, Mr. Trump boasted that he could order a retaliatory strike "in one minute," and boasted equally that his current restraint should be seen as a sign of strength and toughness.

Although the administration is not ruling out military strikes, senior officials indicated that, for now, the president was content to remain within the parameters of defense, not offense. Pressed by reporters about whether the administration was still considering so-called kinetic action, or military strikes, Mr. Esper said, "That's not where we are right now."

A senior United States official estimated that additional American forces sent to the region would number in the low hundreds. At the Pentagon, the president's decision was interpreted to be at the more restrained end of the spectrum of options, especially since American officials have expressed their increasing certainty in recent days that Iran was responsible for the attack.

Mr. Esper said Friday night that the Pentagon was now convinced that the attacks did not emanate in Yemen.

He also said that both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates asked for additional support from the United States this week.

The new deployment adds to the 2,000 troops the United States has deployed to the Middle East since June as a show of force following a series of Iranian provocations, including attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and the downing of an American surveillance drone off its coast. Roughly 500 of those troops have gone to Saudi Arabia.

Days after the American surveillance drone was shot down this summer, Mr. Trump approved a limited military strike on Iran - but on June 20 called off the operation at the last minute. Officials said that a covert cyberoperation was carried out instead.
[Sign up for the weekly At War newsletter to follow growing tensions between the United States and Iran.]
Earlier Friday, Mr. Trump announced a new round of sanctions against Iran's national bank, and the administration is said to be considering a range of additional actions, including more cyberattacks. And, at next week's United Nations General Assembly meeting, Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo are expected to press for a diplomatic front against Iran, although many nations - including close allies - hold the administration accountable for rising tensions in the Persian Gulf region following Mr. Trump's withdrawal from a nuclear deal with Iran.

In describing the new sanctions, Mr. Trump said the move constituted the "highest sanctions ever imposed on a country," but analysts called it unlikely to inflict substantially more damage to an Iranian economy already suffering from an American economic chokehold.

On the one hand, Mr. Trump volunteered that the United States boasts a "totally renovated" military that includes "new nuclear," adding, "The nuclear is at a level that it's never been at before." Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that he was not considering a nuclear strike on Iran, so it was unclear why he raised the subject of nuclear weapons again on Friday.

He also seemed to revel in his authority to launch a quick strike. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office alongside the visiting prime minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, he said, "I could do it right here in front of you and that would be it."

On the other hand, Mr. Trump complained that in 2016 he had been cast unfairly as a warmonger who was "going to blow everybody up." He said that "people are very surprised" and "thrilled" that he has not employed the military against Iran. Responding to complaints that he has shown weakness in recent months by not responding to Iranian aggression with force, Mr. Trump retorted, "Actually, in my opinion, it shows strength."

And while reiterating that it would be easy to deal Iran a crippling blow, he said, "I'm not looking to do that if I can."

But he kept his options open. Speaking alongside Mr. Morrison at a news conference later in the day, Mr. Trump cautioned that he was not facing an imminent decision. "Plenty of time," he said.

The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Thursday that a military strike against Iran by the United States or Saudi Arabia would result in "an all-out war."

The latest sanctions affect the Central Bank of Iran and the National Development Fund of Iran, "the last remaining source of funds," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who joined Mr. Trump in the Oval Office. "This is very big," Mr. Mnuchin said.

Last year, the United States took the rare step to designate the head of the central bank, Valiollah Seif, as a global terrorist, and accused the bank of funneling money to Hezbollah.

In addition to sanctioning Mr. Seif last year, the Treasury Department reimposed sanctions related to purchases of American dollars by the Iranian government, which had been suspended as part the international nuclear accord.

The new sanctions to the central bank are an additional layer over what the United States has already levied, said Ryan Fayhee, a partner at Hughes Hubbard & Reed who heads the firm's sanctions, export controls and anti-money laundering practice. The impact of the new penalties on the development fund, Mr. Fayhee said, depends on how active or well-funded it is. If the fund has access to oil revenues, he said, the sanctions could have an impact. He said the extent of central bank interest and property in the United States is not known.

Tehran denies any role in the attacks, which hit two of the kingdom's most important oil facilities, and Mr. Trump has stopped short of assigning definitive blame.

On Thursday, Mr. Pompeo said the president wanted a peaceful route. And in a briefing for reporters ahead of next week's United Nations General Assembly, a senior administration official said the gathering would offer an opportunity for Trump officials to consult with a broad range of partners and allies.

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran may attend the international gathering, but has ruled out a potential meeting with Mr. Trump, who says that he wants to negotiate with the Iranians to resolve tensions over their nuclear program and foreign interventions throughout the Middle East.

Eric Schmitt, Alan Rappeport and Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump to Send Troops to Saudi Arabia and Emirates. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Trump Focuses on Defending Saudis, Not Striking Iran, for Now

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
WASHINGTON - President Trump is sending a modest deployment of American troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with air and missile defense systems, in response to the attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which the administration blames on Iran. Defense Secretary Mark T.

# data[].attributes.body
President Trump wants to send American Soldiers to Saudi Arabia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A security guard stands alert Sept. 20 in front of Aramco's oil-processing facility near Dammam, Saudi Arabia. (Amr Nabil/AP)

After the recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities, President Trump suggested that the defense relationship with Riyadh meant that the United States might come to its aid - and authorized a small U.S. troop deployment to the kingdom. Earlier this month, Trump tweeted that he was discussing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the possibility of a formal U.S.-Israel defense treaty.

Does it matter that neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia is a formal U.S. treaty ally? Yes. Here's why.

In its early years, America steered clear of alliances

Between the Revolutionary War and the early Cold War period, the United States made formal military alliances only when it believed America's survival required it, forming only two defense pacts in the fight for its independence from the British and during World War II.

After the Saudi oil attack, will the U.S. and Saudis start a war with Iran? Here are 3 things to know.

World War II prompted a radical change in the U.S. approach to its peacetime international relations. Postwar planners came to believe that the country could no longer depend on its favorable geography. Instead, the United States needed a strategy of forward defense to meet threats overseas - namely, the Soviet Union, China and North Korea.

Between 1948 and 1955, the formerly alliance-phobic Washington formed security guarantees with 23 countries in Europe and Asia, with the logic that these alliances could help Washington deter and defend against conflicts overseas. These included NATO, SEATO and pacts with Japan, South Korea, the Republic of China, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.

By the dawn of the 21st century, the United States had allied with 37 countries in all. Each of these guarantees relies on a mutual defense treaty: a formal pact that states that an attack against an ally will be treated as an attack on all or treated as a threat to the peace and security of all.

The exact treaty language varies somewhat across America's alliances, but the substantive promises are similar. In no case does Washington guarantee that it will respond militarily to the use of military force against an ally. Rather, by formalizing the defense relationship in a treaty, and reinforcing that alliance with other forms of defense coordination, a mutual defense treaty raises the possibility that allies and adversaries both believe that the United States will come to the (military) aid of its formal alliance partners. Strategists call this extended deterrence - the United States forestalling an attack on another country via assurances to a formal treaty ally.

As I assess in my forthcoming book, " Shields of the Republic," this alliance system has an impressive record: No U.S. treaty ally has ever been the victim of a major attack. It is hard to say for certain that this is because of extended deterrence, but it is plausible that alliances have played some causal role.

Declining to make a formal alliance also means something

Over the same period, Washington has also formed other defense partnerships that do not rely on mutual defense treaties with countries such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. With Taiwan, the United States abrogated a formal alliance in 1979 and replaced it with the Taiwan Relations Act. These partnerships may rely on arms sales, intelligence coordination and close political relationships, but by definition, they send weaker signals than treaty alliances. Where policymakers have chosen to codify alliances in treaties, they have, by definition, set this class of allies apart from other partnerships.

U.S. military confrontation with Iran would be unpopular. Here's why.

This distinction is reinforced by the fact that U.S. policymakers have also chosen not to form mutual defense treaties. Over the years, U.S. strategists have considered extending formal alliances to Israel and Saudi Arabia, and then decided against it. From 1961 to 1963, the Kennedy administration knew that Israel had begun a quest for nuclear weapons and seriously considered extending Israel a formal treaty guarantee to persuade it to give up its pursuit. Shortly before his assassination, John F. Kennedy and his top aides decided this was too dangerous: They worried that Israel would drag the United States into a war with Egypt, which Washington did not really count as an adversary at the time.

Without considering a full mutual defense treaty, the Obama administration also sought to elevate the status of its partnership with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states, acknowledging that a formal alliance would be too fraught.

It's the partnerships, not the formal alliances, that tend to entangle the United States

How U.S. policymakers choose allies may help to explain why Washington's pacts have been successful. Despite the common scholarly criticism that allies are " reckless drivers," America's treaty allies do not tend to pull it into unwanted wars.

This is probably because policymakers are so choosy. Where they have worried that new allies might ensnare it in conflict, they have crafted their alliance promises to limit that prospect and have used the alliance itself to manage risk. When the United States has followed other countries into wars or crises, these have generally been security partners and not formal allies - perhaps because the less formal relationship sends murkier signals, making it harder to deter adversaries and restrain partners.

The U.S. has been cautious with its formal alliance offers lately

With the exception of its post-Cold War NATO enlargement process, the United States has not extended a new formal alliance since 1955. It is a somewhat unlikely move - alliance treaties require two-thirds ratification by the U.S. Senate, and political polarization makes formal treaties ever-harder to achieve.

There is overwhelming bipartisan support for Israel in Congress, however. Although the president's tweet may have been a ploy to assist Netanyahu ahead of a tough Israeli election, it's difficult to count out the prospect that he could be serious - and that Congress might support him.

Saudi Arabia's chances of a formal alliance are less promising, as the Senate remains suspicious of Riyadh's role in the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The UAE is weakening its partnership with the Saudis in Yemen. Here's why that matters.

An alliance with Israel might not necessarily induce the same caution we have seen from existing U.S. treaty allies. The country has become increasingly nationalist and more inclined to court escalation. Simply bringing Israel into a formal alliance would not necessarily give Washington sufficient control over its defense decisions.

Historically, the Senate has given new alliance treaties serious scrutiny, but once a treaty is ratified, the president retains near-unilateral authority in alliance management. If Trump's interest in a mutual defense treaty with Israel lasts, Congress may well decide to evaluate its risks.

For Saudi Arabia, the troop deployment is a reminder that the United States can become entangled by partners - even well short of a security guarantee.

Don't miss anything! Sign up to get TMC's smart analysis in your inbox, three days a week.

Mira Rapp-Hooper is Stephen A. Schwarzman Senior Fellow for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her first book, Shields of the Republic: Triumph and Peril in America's Alliances is forthcoming with Harvard University Press.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Analysis | Trump will send troops to Saudi Arabia. Here's why it matters that there's no formal defense alliance.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After the recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities, President Trump suggested that the defense relationship with Riyadh meant that the United States might come to its aid - and authorized a small U.S. troop deployment to the kingdom. Earlier this month, Trump tweeted that he was discussing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the possibility of a formal U.S.-Israel defense treaty.

# data[].attributes.body
Theses are the resources for our 9/11 unit.