Saudi King Abdullah to Ahmadinejad: "Do you think those U.S. warships are out there on vacation?"

[sabra]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17888450/site/newsweek/

A Desert's Lion in Winter
How the Saudi king, disillusioned with Bush, is trying to save the Arabs.


<snip>

The Saudis see President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's incendiary rhetoric against Israel, his backing for Hizbullah and his support for Hamas as crass bids to win support not only among the region's Shiites but also among the Sunnis. At the same time, Tehran's race to become a nuclear power is a threat to Saudi Arabia's influence, if not its survival, and a provocation to George W. Bush. "Do you think those U.S. warships are out there on vacation?" Abdullah warned Ahmadinejad when they met recently, according to sources close to the royal family. Abdullah's sense of urgency about the Iranian threat goes back at least to September 2005, when "Iraq (was) being presented to the Iranians on a silver platter" by U.S. policy, says Turki al-Faisal, then ambassador to Washington. His brother, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, met with Bush last May to press Saudi concerns. "We have two nightmares," Saud told the president, according to Turki. "One is that Iran will develop a nuclear bomb, and the other is that America will take military action to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb."

Over the summer, however, U.S. officials started getting what seemed to be very different signals. Word spread that Saudi Arabia secretly supported a much more aggressive line against Tehran and its clients: that it would undermine Hamas; encourage Israel's efforts to take out Hizbullah; maybe even facilitate strikes on Iran's nuclear installations. But when Dick Cheney flew to Saudi Arabia last Thanksgiving weekend to meet directly with the king, Abdullah didn't support military action. Instead, his policy has been to talk to Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas—using money, diplomacy, even religion to defuse each regional flashpoint, push for peace and block Iran.

[NNN0LHI]

1. Nothing would make me happier than to see our Marines digging Abdullah out of a spider hole some day

Really.

Don

[Dhalgren]

2. I'd rather see Saudi freedom fighters doing it, but I get you sentiment...

[cali]

4. Really, you'd like to see U.S. forces

in Mecca and Medina. Sounds like a nightmare to me.

[Virginia Dare]

3. Saudis are playing the classic good cop/bad cop game...

this is all an elaborate puppet show, and the Saudis are pulling the strings.

[Tyler Durden]

5. Time to take a page from the Monroe Doctrine...

And get the HELL out of Dodge.

[Captain Hilts]

6. This from the guy who wrote a check to pay for Gulf War I. Duplicitous bastard. nt

[jwirr]

7. Yes, I think the reason that *ss and the Sauds have been so compatible

is because they are doing only what is good for themselves. Saudis are just beginning to realize that *ss and co. are out to control ALL of the ME not just the Iraqi. They also know better than to keep riding a dead horse. The Iraq war is lost.

I want us to get out - at least as a military force - and let them figure out who rules over there all by themselves. I have no interest in making oil men richer with the blood of young American soldiers. I would also like to tell Big Oil that if you go into the ME you are on your own: no military actions to save your butts when you anger the people to the point that they attack you.

[roamer65]

8. The Saudis warned us in 2003 not to go into Iraq.

I think Abdullah has been very tolerant of this fiasco all along. He needs to start making plans for our pullout of Iraq or the bombing of Iran. I think Saudi - US relations have come to a point of divergence and this is the fault of *, not Abdullah.

[NNN0LHI]

9. That is one version I have heard. The other is he was encouraging Bush to invade

Who to believe?

Abdullah and Bush both lie like rugs.

Don