I find it very funny - they are thinking about buying some arms from Russia - people here go ape and apocalyptic - America sold the Saudis BILLIONS of arms over decades - Do as I say not as I do mentality I guess. Shame on us for selling the Saudis anything of value.
I could care less about the Saudis buying Russian hardware. But what I've never understood is the reason we gave them access to top-notch American stuff like the F-15 and M-1. And, like I said, I have no idea why they would have needed AWACS technology.
Yeah, we buy oil from them, but we can sell them second-hand stuff like the F-4 or F-16 and M-60. More than enough to handle the junk Saddam had in 1990 and two years ago.
It was monumentally stupid of the governments of the time (starting with the Peanut Farmer, Jimmy Carter) to do so. I'll go on record before the arming-Egypt experiment goes horribly wrong and say that was also a monumental mistake.