Question: If the reason for the visit of 30-some “bipartisan” policy advisers was to shore up shaky relations, why would MO opt at this time to make such a controversial political statement? Seems like a stunt.
Consider the source here, but the point is valid...
The express reason for the visit was to pay respect to the royal family on the occasion of King Abdullah’s death, but Obama used the opportunity to declare—in a more palpable way than he has with any other ally of late—the primacy of this particular special relationship. This is the reason he brought along not only his own top advisers, but also tokens of bipartisanship (notably Sen. John McCain) and, more significant, key foreign-policy hands of the Bush presidencies (James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley), when Saudi ties were golden.
The longtime coziness between the oil kingdom and the leader of the free world has gone cold for some time and turned frigid in 2013, when Obama refrained from bombing Syria and undertook negotiations with Iran—the Saudis’ two main enemies. Those moves came in the wake of Obama’s abandonment of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, their main ally, during the Arab Spring protests of 2011.
At the low point, Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief and former longtime ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar Sultan al-Saud, publicly grumbled that the kingdom was losing trust in Obama’s judgment and might reassess the whole web of relations between the two powers.
From the article:
“The Saudis, as the region’s leading Sunni power, were also trying to draw America into their war against the Shiites, and Bandar was clearly peeved that Obama wouldn’t play along. The Saudis took his reticence as a personal slight; “
This is an incontrovertible proof that the one who took this decision is none other than the Iranian-born ValJar, the REAL POTUS.
But, FReepers knew this for years.