Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner

By Scott Horton

A few days ago, news spread of Saudi King Abdullah's rejection of a state dinner that President Bush had planned in his honor in the course of his visit on April 17. And now he takes a far more direct swipe:

In a speech Wednesday before a summit of the Arab League, Abdullah decried what he called the “illegitimate foreign occupation” of Iraq and called for a lifting of the “unjust embargo imposed on the people of Palestine” that has been led by the Bush Administration.

In an important piece called “The Redirection,” Sy Hersh examined the behind-the-scenes process by which U.S. policy towards Iraq was recrafted in the period following the November 2006 election. One of the most fascinating aspects of Hersh's article was its depiction of a struggle between two different factions of the Saudi royal family over a say in U.S. Iraq policy—these factions were portrayed as being led by then-Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and former Interior Minister Prince Turki Al-Faisal and the former Saudi ambassador in Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

These remarks look surprising to those used to seeing Saudi Arabia as an anchor ally for the United States in the region. In fact they reflect positions that the Saudis have long held. Moreover, the remarks were offered at a meeting of the Arab League, a forum at which Saudi leaders like to appear to be advocating jointly held Arab positions on issues involving the non-Arab world. But it's also clear that the king is distancing himself from the Bush administration in deference to critics within the royal family who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the first place and who are now increasingly concerned about the prospects for a U.S. strike on Iran.