The Inevitability of the U.S. - Saudi Rift
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, attends a coffee ceremony
with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. (Photo: VOA)
But one thing that is certain about Bandar and his neocon allies in Washington and Israel. When backed up against the wall, they will strike like desert asps.
A number of seasoned observers of Middle Eastern affairs agree that U.S. - Saudi relations are at their lowest ebb since U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established America’s «special relationship» with the Saudi monarchy on February 14, 1945, just a few months before FDR’s death.
Subsequent to the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt met Saudi King Ibn Saud on board the USS Quincy on Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal in Egypt. Roosevelt and Saud inked the «Quincy Agreement», by which the United States would provide Saudi Arabia with military equipment and training in return for the U.S. establishing a military base at Dhahran in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia guaranteeing the United States a steady flow of Saudi oil. Except for the Arab oil embargo instituted against the West in the 1970s, the Quincy Agreement has survived six Saudi kings. However, the Quincy Agreement is in trouble.