Global Post: RIYADH — President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia was low-key, business-like and bereft of scenes that would indicate the country’s almost 70-year-old special relationship with Washington is back on an even keel.
Obama was not received at the airport by a senior prince. The president and King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz were not seen in unscripted moments such as the hand-in-hand walk that then-Crown Prince Abdullah once took with former US President George W. Bush.
And unlike Britain’s Prince Charles, who joined royals in the Saudi ceremonial sword danceduring a February visit to the kingdom, Obama’s less-than-24-hour stopover included no lighthearted tableau. The chilly external atmospherics apparently reflected the substance of Obama’s two-hour direct discussions with Abdullah, which featured divergent stances on the civil wars in Syria and Iraq, Egypt’s coup and diplomacy with Iran, according to one policy analyst familiar with Saudi government thinking. Meanwhile the US is moving toward energy independence, importing less petroleum from the region than it has in 20 years and shifting the two countries’ economic relationship.
Categories: Americas, Saudi Arabia, United States