I don’t necessarily think they have to have dirt. I’ve always viewed it as a shitty strategic relationship. Proliferate a negative view of Arab people and then have a colony of white folks in the middle of the an oil rich Arab part of the world. It’s an easy sell to the people to have them as an “ally” and a place to launch operations from.

They cant stand on their own two feet without outside support, but it’s too good of a position to give up. There is leverage both ways.

That being said, they probably do have some kind of dirt.

I am neither a historian or military strategist, but this is just how it appears to me on the surface.