At the Arab League summit meeting which began today in Riyadh, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a close friend of the Bush family and one of United States' strongest ally in the Middle East, signalled his intention to distance himself from the White House on the Iraq war, while voicing criticism concerning the lack of progress related to current negotiations between US, Israeli and Palestinian representatives. According to a news report by New York Times correspondent covering the summit:
Saudi King Condemns U.S. Occupation of Iraq
By Hassan M. Fattah
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, March 28 — The king of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah, condemned the presence of American forces in Iraq as an "illegitimate foreign occupation" in a speech today, and said the withholding of aid to Palestinians should end.
The king’s speech, at the opening of the Arab League summit here, appeared to distance his country’s position from that of the United States. Saudi Arabia has been a powerful Arab ally to the United States in the Persian Gulf region.
Of the scope of King Abdullah's speech, the NYTimes article states:
The speech was wide-ranging, but in referring to the Palestinians and the conflict in Iraq he touched on two of the biggest issues in the Middle East. "In our dear Iraq, the blood is spilling between our brothers in light of an illegitimate foreign occupation," he said.
In a closely related story, Jim Hoagland in his Washington Post column today entitled "Bush's Royal Trouble: Why Is King Abdullah Saying No to Dinner?", speculates why the King Abdullah's upcoming state visit and dinner at White House, scheduled for April 17th, was abruptly cancelled. It seems, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Saudi Ambassador to the US - who had developed a personal friendship with George Bush - flew into DC last week to offer explanations, which still left White House officials stymied:
Abdullah's bowing out of the April 17 event is, in fact, one more warning sign that the Bush administration's downward spiral at home is undermining its ability to achieve its policy objectives abroad. Friends as well as foes see the need, or the chance, to distance themselves from the politically besieged Bush.
Official versions discount that possibility, of course. Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, flew to Washington last week to explain to Bush that April 17 posed a scheduling problem. " 'It is not convenient' was the way it was put," says one official.
But administration sources report that Bush and his senior advisers were not convinced by Bandar's vagueness -- especially since it followed Saudi decisions to seek common ground with Iran and the radicals of Hezbollah and Hamas instead of confronting them as part of Rice's proposed "realignment" of the Middle East into moderates and extremists.
In many ways this is a huge development, since it illustrates the political and diplomatic isolation that United States is now faced with in the Middle East. With Saudi Arabia signalling its lack of support for the Iraqi occupation, along with its forceful intervention into attempting to break the current deadlock over the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the adminstration options for a keeping its hegemonic neo-conservative policy intact in the Middle East is rapidly dwindling.
With its strongest Arab ally refusing to support the current US policy of indefinite occupation of its neighboring country, Saudi Arabia's move is a clear bellwether that the Bush administration will have to throw in the towel in the very near future. Along with the rapid legislative developments occurring on Capitol Hill that set deadlines for troop withdrawal by next year, the beginning of the end of the Iraq war is in sight.