{"id":18904,"date":"2013-11-05T14:17:21","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T21:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=18904"},"modified":"2013-11-05T14:17:21","modified_gmt":"2013-11-05T21:17:21","slug":"the-inevitability-of-the-us-saudi-rift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=18904","title":{"rendered":"The Inevitability of the US-Saudi Rift"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Inevitability of the US-Saudi Rift<\/strong>
\nBy Wayne Madsen – Strategic Culture Foundation<\/p>\n

TEHRAN (FNA)- A number of seasoned observers of Middle Eastern affairs agree that US-Saudi relations are at their lowest ebb since US President Franklin D. Roosevelt established America\u2019s \u201cspecial relationship\u201d with the Saudi monarchy on February 14, 1945, just a few months before FDR\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Subsequent to the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt met Saudi King Ibn Saud on board the USS Quincy on Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal in Egypt. Roosevelt and Saud inked the \u201cQuincy Agreement\u201d, by which the United States would provide Saudi Arabia with military equipment and training in return for the US establishing a military base at Dhahran in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia guaranteeing the United States a steady flow of Saudi oil. Except for the Arab oil embargo instituted against the West in the 1970s, the Quincy Agreement has survived six Saudi kings.<\/p>\n

However, the Quincy Agreement is in trouble. There are a number of reasons why US-Saudi relations have fractured. They include:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The decision by the Barack Obama administration to cancel a US military strike against Syria in return for a US-Russian concordat to oversee the removal from Syria and ultimate destruction of chemical weapons.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Obama administration\u2019s decision to engage Iran through direct diplomatic negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Increasing evidence by US intelligence of Saudi links to Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-linked terrorists operating around the world.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Reduced US dependency on Saudi oil as a result of increased US carbon fuel output from the fracking of shale reserves in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The closeness of the head of the Ri’asat Al-Istikhbarat Al-‘Ama, the Saudi General Intelligence Agency, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, to the Bush family and other leading Republicans, including former Vice President Dick Cheney.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Saudi concern that the US has turned its \u201cArab Spring\u201d resources against Saudi Arabia in a low-level manner through the \u201cCar Key Revolution\u201d, a widespread protest by Saudi women who broke Saudi law by driving cars.<\/p>\n

After the US supported the Arab Spring \u201cJasmine Revolution\u201d in Tunisia that toppled longtime Tunisian strongman President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali \u2013 who received refuge in Saudi Arabia — and the \u201cLotus Revolution\u201d that ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power, Riyadh grew increasingly concerned that the mass demonstrations against unpopular regimes would spread to \u201cthe Kingdom\u201d. In fact, Saudi forces quickly suppressed a few demonstrations in Saudi Arabia and sent in military forces to ruthlessly put down a pro-democracy uprising in neighboring Bahrain. The Saudis were never comfortable with the accession to power in Egyptian elections of the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly the presidency of Mohamed Morsi. The Saudis, therefore, instructed the pro-Saudi Nour Party in Egypt to support the military coup that toppled Morsi and replaced him with General Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi.<\/p>\n

Although Sisi has Nasserite sympathies, the Saudis view him much more favorably than they do the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi\u2019s establishing of closer relations with Iran was viewed as a threat to the Saudi regime and a breakdown of the established balance of power in the region. Obama\u2019s decision to curtail the supply of military weaponry to Egypt following the ouster of Morsi further inflamed relations between Riyadh and Washington. To make up for the cut-off in US assistance to Cairo, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates pledged $12 billion in aid to Cairo in July of this year. The Saudis also joined Israel in voicing opposition to the cut off of American military assistance to Cairo, evidence of the growing relationship between Saudi Arabia and the nation that Saudi King Faisal once referred to as the \u201cZionist regime\u201d as he presented beautifully-bound copies of the \u201cProtocols of the Elders of Zion\u201d to visiting dignitaries. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Inevitability of the US-Saudi Rift By Wayne Madsen – Strategic Culture Foundation TEHRAN (FNA)- A number of seasoned observers of Middle Eastern affairs agree that US-Saudi relations are at their lowest ebb since US President Franklin D. Roosevelt established America\u2019s \u201cspecial relationship\u201d with the Saudi monarchy on February 14, 1945, just a few months more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2734],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18905,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18904\/revisions\/18905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}