Ever since the United States and Saudi Arabia fell into something of an alliance in the late 1970s, the world's most unlikely partnership has had lots of down moments. Another big one came this weekend, when Saudi intelligence chief Bandar Bin Sultan al-Saud told European diplomats that his country would step back from cooperating with the United States on Syria, according to the Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Bandar said that his country's recent decision to refuse a seat at the U.N. Security Council was meant as a show of public protest against the U.S. This very public Saudi jab at the U.S. is the latest in a series of increasingly frequent disputes between the longtime allies. They are probably not on the verge of breaking up, as observers have been predicting since 1990, when the kingdom was roiled by popular outrage against the alliance. But many of the mutual interests that have brought the two countries together seem to be falling apart.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/22/six-reasons-the-u-s-and-saudi-arabia-are-moving-apart/
Saudi Arabia warns U.S. that policy on Syria, Iran straining decades-old alliance
They're mad, but we haven't broken up yet," Miller said on "CBS This Morning."
"What we are seeing is a strong signal that they are uncomfortable with key aspects of a friendship that dates back to the Roosevelt Administration, that was always based on security for oil," said Miller.
"This is about more than the Saudis," he adds. "In Bahrain, where we have the key naval base, they have demanded that Washington recall our ambassador because of our criticism of their tactics to put down an ongoing rebellion has been interpreted as disloyalty.
In Turkey, we've been criticized by the president there and they recently purchased missiles from the Chinese" instead of getting them from the U.S.
"What we are seeing behind the scenes is that military, intelligence and law enforcement relationships are holding for now because we share the common enemy of al Qaeda," explained Miller. "But there is a real disdain for the State Department and President Obama and U.S. policy. The question is, as that disdain increases -- where Sunni-led nations see a U.S. seeking some diplomatic dialogue with Iran, the dominant Shiite power, will those other relationships hold up?"
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