A lot of people are interpreting rumors that the Saudi King threatened to back the Sunnis in Iraq as a break in the alliance. I don’t read it that way. The Saudis are terrified of a premature American pullout that would leave an emboldened Iran driving the Shiites in Iraq to even greater levels of violence and power. The Saudis know that American troops can pull back to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other regional countries but the fundamentalist advance will never cease. You may think the region is chaotic now but the Saudis know that it can get far worse.
Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution said Saudi Arabia has a reason to take sides.
“They’re terrified that Iraq is going to fall into civil war. They’re terrified that civil war will spill over into Saudi Arabia. But they’re also terrified that the Iranians, backing the various Shiite militias in Iraq, will come out the big winner in a civil war,” Pollack told CNN.
However, the king’s tough words to Cheney don’t mean Saudi support for the United States is wavering, said Richard Murphy, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
“This has nothing to do with the Saudi-American alliance,” Murphy said. “What it has to do with is the Saudi concern that we will quickly evacuate Iraq and that the Shia majority will take revenge actions against the Sunni.”
The Saudi demand is pretty simple. They just want us to finish the job we started.
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