Amid strained relations, Obama to visit Saudi Arabia!

-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL 

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But for the energy security issue, USA has almost ended the traditional political ties with Arab world which promotes crony capitalism as part of their weak Islamic faith by adding more and more wealth to the ruling elites.

USA, however, has strongly denied suggestions that Washington is looking to disengage itself from the Middle East, and insists it is not abandoning its longstanding Arab allies for the sake of a nuclear deal with Iran or  not attacking Syria as demanded by the Arab League bosses in Riyadh.

Washington was well aware that its Gulf allies, notably Saudi Arabia, were upset at being kept out of the loop on the discussions held with Iran in Oman before the nuclear deal was reached but, the officials said, the only way for those talks to succeed was to keep them a secret. 

The US had since held talks with its Arab allies to convince them that the US was not "abandoning the Gulf to Persian dominance", and told them the outcome of the Iran talks was "in your interests".

Like many other  powers, Saudi also is keen to be seen as a close ally of unilateral  boss USA and hence Riyadh has been pushing for regular visits of US leaders to  the kingdom.

In consideration of repeated requests from Saudi king, US President Barack Obama would visit Saudi Arabia in March for a meeting with the country's King Abdullah. The White House said the visit comes as the US tries to mend ties with its ally over Riyadh's dissatisfaction with Obama's Middle East policies, especially on Syria. Senior Saudi officials are also skeptical about the current round of US-backed nuclear talks with Iran.

Obama last visited Saudi Arabia in 2009, the first year of his presidency. The visit will come after a three-country European tour by Obama. Many officials at White House claim that Middle East affairs still took up well over half US Secretary of State John Kerry's time.

The country was angered last year after Obama declined to launch military strikes on Syria to punish the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces. The allegation turned out to be a false in order to some how implicate Assad in it and make him a dictator. .

Saudi Arabia has also expressed frustration the US has not done more to arm rebel groups battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Saudi ambassador to Britain Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz wrote in The New York Times last year that negotiations between Iran and Western powers over Iran's nuclear program were a "dangerous gamble".

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, while some Western countries, including the US, suspect the country has designs on nuclear weapons.

White House spokesman said that Obama would discuss security around the Middle East and Saudi Arabia's objections to US policy on Iran and Syria during the visit. "Whatever differences we may have do not alter the fact that this is a very important and close partnership," spokesman Carney told reporters.

In an unusually frank explanation of the challenges facing US policies in the Mideast region, the official gave a rundown of Washington's position on a number of key countries.

The USA says the key remains the removal of Assad, but admits the fact that everyone agrees the situation in Syria is getting worse. The USA said that Geneva on 22 January was meant to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad's government must genuinely represent the armed groups fighting inside Syria. 

Washington now seems keen to ending the conflict in Syria, the Switzerland trained delegates of Geneva II discuss on "how to conduct negotiations". But the situation had been made vastly more complicated in the last two weeks by the takeover of warehouses belonging to the Western-backed Free Syrian Army by fighters from a new Islamist rebel alliance, the Islamic Front. The challenge is to come up with a replacement for Assad that does not include al-Qaeda. It will take serious Russian pressure to make him go

Turning to Washington's decision not to attack Assad's forces following the deadly chemical weapon attack outside Damascus in August, the state department official said: "There was a misapprehension amongst our allies that if the US had carried out the missile strike then we would no longer be talking about Assad." But this was never going to be a regime-changing attack, the official explained, just a limited, punitive strike.

The Syrian opposition, acknowledged they could not understand why, if the Russians could persuade President Assad to abandon his chemical arsenal, they could not persuade him to leave power altogether.

USA admits that Saudi Arabia is not rogue state  and they are not going rogue either, Co-operation between Washington and Riyadh was so deep on so many issues, the White House official said, that "we do not see the Saudis going rogue", such as by acquiring nuclear weapons from Pakistan to protect themselves from Iran, as some reports have claimed. That assures USA of its continued dependence on USA for security. 

On Iran, the US official stressed that last month's agreement with world powers was "just an initial step to rolling back the key elements" of its nuclear program. "Sanctions relief is reversible. It is not about freezing the program - it is about making sure it is impossible for Iran to build a nuclear weapon."

The voicing and leaking of recent Saudi complaints about US policy were addressed at a recent meeting between Kerry and King Abdullah. The Saudi monarch was reassured by Kerry the secretary of state: "The kind of complaint you hear in public does not come from me."

Washington had no plans to end its controversial policy of carrying out strikes by unmanned drones on suspected al-Qaeda militants in Yemen. But it was also not intending to deploy US special forces on the ground in a combat role. Instead, they would continue their current training and mentoring of Yemeni troops.

It is unlikely that Obama would listen to the king's counsel on Iran and Syria. 

Many Americans would wonder if Saudi king could make US polices!