President Obama presides over a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, September 30, 2013. (Getty Images)
Given the tense state of U.S.-Saudi relations, Washington was always going to have a daunting road ahead of it in repairing frayed ties with its once stalwart Arab ally. The White House’s official announcement on Monday that President Obama would be traveling to the Gulf kingdom in March came in the aftermath of reports that John Kerry had challenged the administration’s Syria policy in a closed door meeting with lawmakers, in an awkward and visible reminder of the major challenges that remain in rehabilitating Washington’s standing among the Saudis.
Though the Secretary of State’s spokesperson was quick to walk back the remarks, the report nonetheless highlights, yet again, the incoherence of the administration’s Syria policy — at a highly inconvenient time. With Obama preparing to assuage Saudi concerns over Washington’s Middle East policy, the appearance of fractures within the administration will not help his case and will only validate the position of skeptics in Riyadh. (And with the first round of Geneva talks spluttering to an end last week with no sign of progress, the sense of validation among these skeptics is no doubt already strong enough).
Along with its forceful backing of a nuclear deal with Iran, the American response to the Syria crisis is one of Riyadh’s major points of contention with the Obama administration. Obama is unlikely to change course on either issue so the March visit will mostly be geared towards soothing Saudi Arabia’s sense of betrayal, which extends further back than the start of nuclear negotiations with Iran to the beginning of the Arab Spring when Washington turned its back on Egyptian leader (and longtime Saudi ally) Hosni Mubarak. The sense of distrust was later exacerbated with American inaction against the Syrian regime and finally reached a breaking point after Washington declined to pursue a military option in the wake of a chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus in August.
This sense of deep mistrust towards the Obama administration has manifested itself in an uncharacteristically aggressive diplomatic and political engagement by the Saudis- most notably their rejection of a highly coveted seat on the United Nations Security Council and their vocal lobbying for a Gulf regional union. Riyadh’s continued support for Egypt’s military-led government following the ouster of Mohammed Morsi in July has been another avenue through which it has indirectly expressed its divergence with Washington and its announcement of another $4 billion aid package for Cairo last week shows that it is only doubling down on its backing.
With his top diplomat seemingly making the Saudis’ point for them, Obama will not be heading into his visit with the upper hand and any hope that the leader could make some headway on patching up the strained alliance looks increasingly misplaced.
