cnn | The Saudi-American alliance has never been in worse shape.
That is why on Friday
President Barack Obama will meet with Saudi King Abdullah, one of the
sons of King Abdul Aziz, in an attempt to patch things up.
What went wrong? In
recent months the normally hyper-discreet Saudis have gone on the record
about their dissatisfactions with the Obama administration.
In December, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, took the highly unusual step of publicly criticizing
the administration, "We've seen several red lines put forward by the
president, which went along and became pinkish as time grew, and
eventually ended up completely white...When that kind of assurance comes
from a leader of a country like the United States, we expect him to
stand by it."
It's inconceivable that
Prince Turki, whose brother is the Saudi foreign minister, would make
these public comments without approval from the highest levels of the
Saudi government.
Why are the Saudis going
public with their dissatisfaction with the Obama administration? The
laundry list of Saudi complaints most recently is that the United States
didn't make good on its "red line" threat to take action against the
Bashar al Assad regime in Syria following its use of chemical weapons
against its own population.
Syria is a close ally of
Saudi Arabia's archrival, Iran, and the Saudis are also growing
apprehensive that the United States will not take a firm line on Iran's
nuclear program -- which the Saudis see as an almost-existential threat
-- now that the U.S.-Iranian relations have recently thawed.
The Saudi were also
puzzled by the fact that the Obama administration seemed willing to let a
longtime U.S. ally, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, be thrown
overboard during the "Arab Spring" of early 2011. What did that say
about other longtime U.S. allies in the region?
(Interestingly, these list of gripes look quite similar to those of another powerful player in the Middle East -- Israel.)
