Saudi-US relations hit rocky road

Caryle Murphy, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: May 15. 2008 12:09AM UAE / May 14. 2008 8:09PM GMT

RIYADH // One woman laughed sarcastically into the phone. Another rolled her eyes and said she would “need a book” to say it all.

Saudis are uncharacteristically blunt when asked about George W Bush, the US president, and what his two-term administration has brought to the Middle East. Most see an abysmal legacy: a dangerous mess in Iraq, a deepening Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a volatile tug-of-war between Washington and Tehran, most recently on display in the embattled boulevards of Beirut.

“We love and admire the United States, I can assure you, and I speak for many people on this matter,” said Saeed al Farha al Ghamdi, a retired government employee in Jeddah. “But, unfortunately their foreign policy is disastrous.”

Many government officials share these sentiments but in true Arab tradition, they will accord Mr Bush the utmost in hospitality when he arrives here on Friday for his second visit in four months – even though they are not sure why he is coming.

Bilateral ties between the two countries have rebounded from the nadir to which they sank after Sept 11 2001. And as long as oil and security are top priorities, the long-standing US-Saudi relationship will remain an important one to both.

Still, something in the relationship has fundamentally changed during the Bush years, diplomatic and Saudi analysts said. One long-time observer likened it to that of a married couple no longer in love but staying together for the sake of the children.

On the Saudi side, these observers said, there is a new lack of trust and confidence, as well as disillusionment with Washington’s refusal to heed Saudi advice. They adamantly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq and their pleas for the Bush administration to seriously tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has fallen on deaf ears.

“The strength of the bonds between the United States and Saudi Arabia are not what they used to be,” said one diplomat in Riyadh. “Somewhere, things have changed in this relationship. … I think there is not the same level of trust [and] there’s this feeling among the Saudi leadership that, as a direct result of US policies in the region, Saudi security has been decreasing.”

Awadh al Badi, a scholar at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, said that the US occupation of Iraq has been particularly devastating to Saudi perceptions of the United States as “an ideal and principled country”.

While the loss of confidence is more deeply felt by the Saudi public and political elite than by officials, it still effects foreign policy-making, Mr Badi said. The government no longer goes along silently with Washington’s policies, for example towards Iran.

“I think the Saudis learnt one thing: you should never put all your eggs in one basket,” Mr Badi said. “It’s not necessarily [true] that all that comes from the United States is good … that everything the United States wants from you is with a warm and good heart.”

On Iraq, Riyadh has turned aside Washington’s requests to be more supportive of Nouri al Maliki, the prime minister, by opening an embassy and cancelling Iraqi debts. The Sunni Muslim Saudis regard Iraq’s Shiite leader as too sectarian and they have declined his request to visit for a year now.

The Saudis are deeply concerned about civil war in Iraq and what they see as Tehran’s unchecked, spreading influence there. Having warned Washington about these likely consequences of its intervention, neither the country’s leadership nor its citizens are in a mood to help the United States out of its jam.

“You destroyed the country,” Mr Ghamdi said. “And whoever created the mess must clear it [up].”

On Iran, Saudi Arabia shares Washington’s goals of containing Tehran’s interventions in the Arab world and keeping it from developing nuclear weapons. But Riyadh believes that a hardline approach totally excluding dialogue could lead to an ill-advised military confrontation.

US “tactics are not acceptable”, said Osama al Kurdi, a member of the kingdom’s Consultative Council, an appointed body. “It would be a disaster to use military force with Iran.”

Not only would it deflate the region’s economic boom, and rattle the oil market, it would “definitely not improve the opinion of people of these countries vis-à-vis the United States”, said Mr Kurdi, who is on the council’s committee that fosters ties with North and South America.

When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Bush administration may have done itself a disfavour by making promises it has been unable to fulfil.

Prince Turki Al Faisal, a former Saudi ambassador to Washington and chairman of the King Faisal research centre, said King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz agreed to participate in last year’s Annapolis conference after high-level assurances by Washington.

“Follow-up was important,” Prince Turki said. “Hence comes the disappointment afterwards. We’re still marching in place where we’re supposed to have moved forward.”

The king also asked for a timetable for progress in the peace talks and “the president made that promise”, Prince Turki said. But “as an outside observer”, he said, “I can’t see where the president’s promise can be fulfilled in his remaining time” in office.

Prince Turki said he does not know why Mr Bush is visiting the kingdom this week. “Maybe he wants to assure the king” he is following up on Annapolis, he added. “But the facts on the ground belie that.”

Thuraya I Arrayed, a columnist for Al Watan newspaper, who said she would “need a book” to describe the failings of the Bush foreign policy, added: “He messed up everything and he doesn’t have any time to set it right now.”

For Hisham Kaaki, editor of Al Nadwah in Mecca, “our world is much worse than eight years ago”.

Not only are there more terrorists, he said, but “more people hate America” and “the American image is worse. I’m really sorry to say that.”

That is why, Mr Kaaki said, “people are very interested in the election campaign. You can’t believe how important this election is to the Saudi people. They are waiting for change in the way the American administration deals with world problems.”

cmurphy@thenational.ae