aid for democracy

"Saudi Arabia and Egypt do not receive massive foreign aid from the U.S. because they are bastions of freedom, justice, and democracy. These regimes are supported by leaders concerned primarily with gaining control over the regions' major oil reserves, an inconvenient fact quietly conceded in declassified government records and official policy statements. It is this obsession with the strategic power conferred by oil that we must consider if we are to understand overarching U.S. policy in the region."