Submitted by BA (United States), Jan 29, 2009 at 20:41
The relations between US and Saudi Arabia were established in 1933. The primary goal for the relation is that the US shall provide security and protection to the Kingdom and Saudi provides energy. The Saudi helped the US in bringing the oil price down at least twice over the years, recently and, I believe in the 1980s. The two agencies worked together to weaken the USSR (as mentioned in this board by Ianus).
Oil in USSR dropped to below its production cost thus competing with US during the cold war was hard, if not impossible. There is cooperation between the CIA and it's Saudi counterpart over the years; however, relation was strained by the events of 911. It was believed after 911 that the Saudis may pose a threat to US national security and relations should adjust to the new reality.
The main threat is not the 15 students who crashed the planes but the ideology that they follow and admire which originated mainly in Saudi Arabia. US has always known that Saudis have more than one face and the Saudis convinced US that having multiple faces is good to our interests (Both US and Saudi Arabia).
Prince Turki knows that relations are not going to be the same as before as long as there are Wahhabis who in every Friday sermon's damn the infidels and lately mention them by name, i.e. Christians and Jews (al-Yahood wa annasara) or sometimes mention the countries by name such as Americans and the Israelis. This implies that Saudis either cannot control the religious police force "Taliban type militia" or were given the green light. In either case, the relations have to change regardless, but this won't be overnight and the "prince" knows that.
Turki is a very intelligent man. He was replaced by another prince, which I don't remember at this time, except he was not as smart as Turki. He was believed to die from heart problems in Beirut with a Lebanese call girl and on Viagra. The new head of Saudi intelligence is Migrin Ibn- Abdul-Aziz, uncle to Turki Al-Faisal.
In the long run, we probably are going to have relations with Iran and may get our source of oil from Iran and Iraq. We know that we are liked in Iran (70% of Iranian youths like US as opposed to 10-20% in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world).
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