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Riyadh and Washington try to get it together

With King Abdullah back in the saddle throne since late February, after months abroad for medical treatment, it seems to me that Saudi diplomacy has gone into relative overdrive.  Their biggest move was troops into Bahrain, to free up the Bahraini security forces to beat up demonstrators, but now they appear to be taking an active role in arranging for the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh from his post, if not from the country. I imagine they’ve decided now he is more liability than asset, something most Yemenis seem to have concluded weeks ago.

The Americans are also in overdrive, with Defense Secretary Gates and National Security Adviser Donilon wearing out the flying carpet to Riyadh.  This is likely in part damage limitation–the Saudis aren’t happy to see the Americans plumping for transition in the democratic direction in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain.  It must be difficult to convince them that somehow we’ll manage to stop the process before it gets to the Kingdom, which has largely pacified its own population and cracks down hard when soft power fails to do the job.

But it looks as if there may be more on the agenda:  the Iranian challenge looms large for both Washington and Riyadh, and both have taken to implying that the Iranians are up to no good in Bahrain, though there is little evidence that the protests were fueled by Tehran.  This I suppose is where the Saudis would like the Americans to draw the line:  democracy is good, but not if it threatens to bring a Shia majority into power (as it did of course in Iraq, and the Saudis were not pleased).

This leaves Libya and Syria.  I see no real unhappiness coming from the Saudis about what is going on in Libya, and it is difficult to imagine that the United Arab Emirates would lend its air force to the cause if the Saudis were not prepared to go along.  Gaddafi is not a Saudi kind of guy, and of course there is no Shia threat there.  Syria is harder to read:  are the Saudis backing Bashar al Assad, who runs an Alawi (sort of Shia) regime, or not?  Riyadh and Damascus have in the past competed with him for influence in Lebanon.  Would the Saudis prefer a Sunni regime in Damascus?  Or does the preference for stability prevail?  So far, the latter.

Saudi influence is likely one of the reasons the Americans haven’t been as welcoming of the protesters in Syria as might have been expected.  Both Washington and Riyadh are worried about chaos in Syria, and how that might affect Iraq and Jordan.  This is odd, of course, since Damascus is allied with Tehran and Bashar al Assad has not hesitated to make trouble for the Americans in both Iraq and Lebanon.  I wonder if things started really coming apart in Damascus whether the Saudis would reconsider.

Now if you’ve got a headache from all this diplomatic mumbo jumbo, I’m not surprised.  But the world really is complicated, the Middle East more than most other regions.  And if something happens in Saudi Arabia to disrupt its giant oil production and exports, that $4 gasoline is going to start looking cheap.