Over at AMERICAblog, an interesting read regarding “the sudden resignation of Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.”
In just the past few weeks, the Saudis have made constant headlines. First with a highly inflammatory WaPo op-ed by a consultant to the ambassador, which indicated that the Kingdom was planning to intervene in Iraq on the side of the Sunnis and drastically increase oil production to lower world prices and put economic pressure on Iran. The consultant was subsequently fired and his writing disavowed by the Saudis. Aside from the fact that the Kingdom doesn’t have the military firepower to do much in Iraq (or especially against Iran) and my extreme skepticism about their ability to ramp up oil production to the levels needed to carry out such a plan, the fact that they’d even be talking about these things is significant. Then there was Vice President Cheney’s trip to Saudi, which supposedly involved a tongue-lashing and warnings about U.S. actions, and finally protests against rumors of a U.S. plan to support the Shia against the Sunnis in Iraq’s civil war.
Clearly U.S.-Saudi relations are at a difficult moment. Even with all that, however, it’s important to remember that all politics is local (despite the American urge to make everything about us), and from what I can glean, this fight appears to be basically an internal Saudi one. Bandar is said to be offended at how much everyone in D.C. liked Turki, and Bandar is trying to keep moving up in the Kingdom’s government, while Turki’s brother, Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal is in poor health, as is his wife. Add that to speculation of a shakeup in the Kingdom’s government, and the internal machinations may have overtaken Turki’s ability and/or willingness to do the job.
While it doesn’t seem to be a resignation in protest, at least not against the U.S., it certainly is another indicator of problems with U.S. foreign affairs and growing discontent within the region over Iraq and the future of U.S. policy.
I am afraid that we will find out soon enough what the real reason for his resignation was…
As AMERICAblog notes, however, the Saudi – US relationship does not seem to be as good as it was before Prince Turki al-Faisal became the Saudi ambassador to the U.S and it is also clear that there is a lot of internal debate going on in the Royal Family about how to deal with Iraq (and the U.S. of course).
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