There is a complex history with why we ended up allied with the Saudis. I do not really know it. Indeed, I wither away on this topic very often because it seems that whatever led us up to this point was largely a mistake.
It's not complex. Great Britain originally set up the Saud family as the controllers of what was suddenly "Saudi" Arabia--yeah, the Brits did that.
That allowed US oil companies to be deeply embedded into the economics of the Saud family, which could basically treat the country like a family estate.
The binding tie between the two countries, however, was the deal signed with the Saudis by President Richard Nixon. By 1972, the US economy was actually in free-fall because the global economic supremacy that the US had held since WWII had been broken when Europe and Japan finally caught up in the late 60s after being devastated by the war.
Nixon had completely severed the US dollar from the gold standard and let it float against European currencies and the yen. However, to hedge his bet, Nixon signed a special agreement with the Saudis: They agreed to sell oil only for US dollars while the US agreed to provide them with special military protection. That was called the "petrodollar" agreement (Google: "nixon petrodollars").
That meant any nation wanting to purchase Saudi oil had to first buy US dollars, which propped up the value of US currency.
That is the real reason the US rushed into the Persian Gulf war--because it looked like Saddam Hussein intended to roll through Kuwait into Saudi Arabia.
It's the reason now why the US is the Saudi's proxy in the 1400-year-long Sunni-Shiite war. Saudi Arabia is the lead nation of the Sunnis (and the US is their proxy); Iran is the lead nation of the Shiites (and the Russians are their proxy).
Yet, you do not play the hand you want to have; you play the hand that you were dealt.
"You gotta know when to hold e'm
"Know when to fold 'em
"Know when to walk away
"Know when to run...."
With regard to oil dependence, the US is certainly now in a position to walk away from that poker table. A number of economists say we also don't need the Saudis propping up the value of US oil, although there probably isn't a president with the guts to test that theory. Not even Trump.
The bottom line is that this is an assassination/murder/killing/event, whatever you want to call it, that happened on foreign soil to a non-citizen who is a wealthy elite (or sub-elite) that had close connections and relationships with other Saudi elites. It's likely that he had a patron more powerful than himself that did this to him...
What can we really do, now?
Do we abandon an alliance with one of our only friends in the region -- oh, yes, they are bad guys, but what about the realpolitik behind all this? What about real life considerations?
At best, we can just contemplate backing up slowly from the Saudis. Anything else would be rash and unjustifiable.
"Slowly?" The Saudis were behind 9/11. Fifteen of those terrorists were Saudi citizens. All 19 were Sunnis. That was 17 years ago--why isn't that slow enough for your?
Any soldier who has been to Saudi Arabia will tell you that the US is selling its soul to Satan by remaining "friends" with Saudi Arabia. We are not simply ignoring their evil--they cause us to do evil as well.
As I've said before, the Saudis are behind all--
all--of the exported terrorism in the West. Not the Iranians, the Saudis.
All of the radical Islamic activity in the west--the Saudis are paying for it. All the radical Islamic doctrine in US and European prisons, in masjids in all the major cities--that all comes from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia fueled ISIS and continues to fuel the forces that will, at some point again, coalescence into some new kind of Sunni threat.
The only time the Saudis crack down on their own Frankenstein monster is when it directly threatens them
in Saudi Arabia. Otherwise, they keep fueling it to kill and destroy "infidels."
