Obama policies anger Saudis

Reuters:

Upset at President Barack Obama's policies on Iran and Syria, members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family are threatening a rift with the United States that could take the alliance between Washington and the kingdom to its lowest point in years.

Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief is vowing that the kingdom will make a "major shift" in relations with the United States to protest perceived American inaction over Syria's civil war as well as recent U.S. overtures to Iran, a source close to Saudi policy said on Tuesday.

Prince Bandar bin Sultan told European diplomats that the United States had failed to act effectively against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was growing closer to Tehran, and had failed to back Saudi support for Bahrain when it crushed an anti-government revolt in 2011, the source said.

"The shift away from the U.S. is a major one," the source close to Saudi policy said. "Saudi doesn't want to find itself any longer in a situation where it is dependent."

It was not immediately clear whether the reported statements by Prince Bandar, who was the Saudi ambassador to Washington for 22 years, had the full backing of King Abdullah.

The growing breach between the United States and Saudi Arabia was also on display in Washington, where another senior Saudi prince criticized Obama's Middle East policies, accusing him of "dithering" on Syria and Israeli-Palestinian peace.

In unusually blunt public remarks, Prince Turki al-Faisal called Obama's policies in Syria "lamentable" and ridiculed a U.S.-Russian deal to eliminate Assad's chemical weapons. He suggested it was a ruse to let Obama avoid military action in Syria.

"The current charade of international control over Bashar's chemical arsenal would be funny if it were not so blatantly perfidious. And designed not only to give Mr. Obama an opportunity to back down (from military strikes), but also to help Assad to butcher his people," said Prince Turki, a member of the Saudi royal family and former director of Saudi intelligence.
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Dithering is an apt description of Obama's Syria policy.  He has allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point where he has fewer options for effective action.  He made the same mistake with Iran during the Green Movement uprising against the religious bigots regime.   When it comes to actions against the Assad regime, Obama has utterly failed to build political support for such an operation and at this point is unlikely to be able to do so.

The problem for the Saudis is they have few alternatives.  The Europeans have no stomach for dealing with Syria either and the Russians are on the side of the Assad regime.  They have a better argument for opposing a deal with Iran than they do with another futile push for a deal between Israel and the Palestinians.  The problem is the Palestinians and the Saudis have done little to push them to make a deal.

If a conflict with Iran becomes necessary, the Saudis are going to need the help of Israel and the Palestinians contribute nothing in that regard.