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Revisiting Obama's Riyadh Meeting

[Foreign Policy] Laura Rozen - Two sources, one a former U.S. official who recently traveled to Riyadh and one a current official, say President Obama's meeting with Saudi King Abdullah last month did not go well from Obama's perspective. What's more, the former official says that Dennis Ross has told associates that part of what prompted Obama to bring him on as his special assistant and NSC senior director for the "Central Region" last month was the president's feeling that the preparation for the trip was insufficient. The White House vigorously disputes all of that, some of which was previously reported by the New York Times. Sources say Obama was hoping to persuade the king to be ready to show reciprocal gestures to Israel, which Washington has been pushing to halt settlements with the goal of advancing regional peace and the creation of a Palestinian state. "The more time goes by, the more the Saudi meeting was a watershed event," said the former U.S. official. Another official said last month that the 85-year-old Saudi monarch had launched a tirade during Obama's long meeting in Riyadh, and that other Saudi officials had later apologized to the U.S. president for the king's behavior. The official seemed to imply that the tirade was related to Israel, and that the king may be showing his age. "I can't imagine Obama pressing the Israelis on settlements without expecting the Arabs to do something," University of Vermont Saudi and Persian Gulf expert F. Gregory Gause told Foreign Policy, while saying he had no specific knowledge about the meeting. "He is pushing the Israelis, but he wants to show that in pushing them, it's also bringing the Arabs closer" to peace with Israel. "He wants the Saudis to make some gesture to make it easier for the Israelis to stop settlements." "And my reading of the Saudis," Gause continued, "is they are not interested."
2009-07-22 06:00:00
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