Despite his rhetoric,and his administration’s perceived shift toward Iran, Obama has not fundamentally changed the US status quo toward Saudi ArabiaWhen President Barack Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for a assembly of Gulf leaders, and he was greeted at the airport by the governor of Riyadh,instead of the Saudi king. Unlike his previous visits, Obama’s arrival was not broadcast on Saudi state television with its normal pomp and circumstance. It was one sign of how livid Saudi leaders are at Obama and his administration – the decades-long Saudi-US alliance has rarely been more tense.
Saudi rulers believe that Obama has shifted US foreign policy to be more friendly toward Iran, and especially after his administration expended considerable political capital to reach a nuclear deal with Tehran final summer. Obama also reduced direct US involvement in the Middle East,resisting calls to intervene military in Syria and to send more US troops to Iraq. And Saudi leaders were particularly upset after Obama suggested in an interview with The Atlantic magazine that they should figure out ways to “share the neighborhood” with Iran.
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Source: theguardian.com