The profound challenges to US-Saudi Arab relations engendered by the horrors of September 11th, 2001 have been amplified by the Bush Administration's policy on Iraq. Historically, this relationship has been highly effective founded on a mutual appreciation of strategic interdependencies and maintained by each country's political and business elites. But the shocks of 9/11 and the Iraqi invasion on, respectively, the US and Saudi populaces has interjected US and Saudi public opinion powerfully into the relationship's calculus. The uninformed and inaccurate picture painted of the Kingdom by the US media has produced fundamental misunderstandings, not the reverse, creating an environment of distrust. In the current context, when these two societies manifest such antipathy towards the other, there is the unwelcome and unnerving prospect that the shared strategic vision will prove insufficient to maintain the heretofore close and beneficial ties. If an emerging political aphasia, induced in no small part by US policy, does indeed trump the strategic understanding, then one of the key objectives of Usama bin Laden will have been achieved. In addition to potentially undermining US-Saudi ties, US policy towards the region is marked by a painful irony: unilateral acts coupled to democratic rhetoric underpin the widely held view in the Kingdom that the US will say one thing, and do another. That inconsistency resonates throughout the Gulf and it too can only aid and abet America's enemies.                                                                [more]

After months of escalating tension between the U.S. and the Arab world, the Bush administration is showing some sensitivity to the political realities on the ground. In announcing that almost all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia by August, it is advancing the political needs of the House of Saud and, in doing so, promoting American interests by pursuing stability in the Persian Gulf. In essence, Washington is acknowledging that some individuals in the upper echelons of the House of Saud have proved to be good politicians.                                                                  [more]

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Look Who's Talking...  The Saudi-US Relations Information Service web site features a discussion forum for you to post your ideas, opinions and questions.  To sign on and speak up Click Here.   Among the posts in current threads:

"...There are many detractors and many advocates of Saudi Arabia within the number of American 'stakeholders.' Ones are attacking the country, others are defending it. However, I believe the basic question to be asked by both, then acted upon accordingly, is the following: Is it in the interest of the US, and I mean the whole of the US and not a special interest group or any cabal with its own agenda, to improve the frayed relations with Saudi Arabia or to contribute to their further deterioration? And this regardless of the shortcomings of the Kingdom. What is to be gained from poisoning these relations, and who stands to benefit?..."

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