Martin Indyk, former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and twice US Ambassador to Israel, has this piece which will appear in tomorrow’s ‘Outlook’ section of The Washington Post.

The article clearly states that Saudi Arabia has its own concerns and its own approaches to the variety of issues roiling the Middle East now. It is not—and actually never has been—a puppet of the US. When its interests coincided with American interests, the two countries have found that they could work together. On some of the current issues, the overlap of interests is limited.

The article makes rather too much of a supposed difference in policy between former Saudi Ambassador to the US, Pr. Bandar bin Sultan and the King, I believe. As Bandar is now King Abdullah’s National Security Advisor, he is simply not going to go far beyond the official policies outlined by the King and Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal. He can be replaced at the click of a pen. And while he is the son of Defense Minister Pr. Sultan and therefore a scion of the ‘Sudairi’ faction, he is not running the show. I sincerely doubt that he has been trying to run his own foreign policy.

In any event, this op-ed is certainly worth reading.

The Honeymoon’s Over for Bush and the Saudis
Martin Indyk

What has happened to the love affair between Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and President Bush? Two years ago, down on the Texas ranch, they were photographed walking hand in hand. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship: Bush dropped his demand for democratization in the puritanical kingdom, and Abdullah did his best to moderate oil prices. The dowry was a new U.S. arms deal for the Saudis. A second honeymoon was scheduled for this month, when Bush planned to host Abdullah for his first state visit.

…Abdullah agrees with Bandar that their main challenge is the Iranian/Shiite threat to Sunni dominance of the Arab world. But where Bandar wants to confront Iran’s Arab proxies, Abdullah seeks to wean them off their dependence on Tehran. That dictates engagement, however distasteful, with Hamas in Gaza and Assad in Damascus. It also requires distancing Saudi Arabia from Bush’s ill-fated Iraq adventure, which in Abdullah’s view is only strengthening a pro-Iranian Shiite government at Sunni Arab expense.

If Bush wants to rekindle the U.S.-Saudi love affair, he needs to deal with the Saudi leader we have, not the one we’d like.

That needn’t mean total despair on the Arab-Israeli front. Peace with Israel is essential to Abdullah’s anti-Iranian game plan because Tehran exploits the conflict to build its influence in the Arab world. But the Saudi king is not going to get into bed with Israel for a mere photo op. Abdullah will be ready to go to Washington — and, eventually, perhaps even to Jerusalem — when Bush, Rice and Olmert signal that they will accept his terms for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement.

His opening price is Bush’s accommodation of Hamas and Syria as players in the peace process, and he’ll settle in the end for Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan Heights and the West Bank. If Bush wants that second honeymoon with Abdullah, he is going to have to renegotiate the terms of endearment.