The Saudis effectively ended their strategic alliance with the US in the aftermath of the US-supported overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Since then the Saudis have strengthened their ties to China and Russia and from what I understand have refused to sign any new oil contracts with the Americans.
Now in this oped in the New York Times, the Saudis are hitching a ride on the Palestinian UN bid to justify their previous abandonment of America.
As my readers are well aware, I think that the US’s abandonment of Mubarak was one of the greatest strategic errors the US has ever committed. But of course, the Saudis can’t play the populist/leader of the Muslim world card by opposing the mob in Cairo. And so they never announced their breach with their US patron, which in their mind had lost all credibility as an ally when it ditched Mubarak. But the Palestinians and the war against the Jews is the great populist issue in the Muslim world. And so, aside from everything else, the PLO’s UN initiative gives the authoritarian likes of the Saudis a perfect excuse for publicly acknowledging their previous abandonment of the US.
Moreover, the increasingly anti-Jewish American Left will seize on the Saudi claim as proof that the US’s alliance with the Jewish state is undermining America’s standing in the Arab world.
Oh dear. Things are getting uglier and uglier.
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