Patching differences

US President Barack Obama’s visit to Riyadh for talks with King Abdullah Ben Abdul Aziz last week was intended to repair the strained relations between the two traditional allies over Syria, Iran, Palestine and Iraq.

Whether it succeeded or not is another question.

Riyadh and Washington differ deeply on all these issues, and in particular on Syria and Iran.

The Saudi kingdom was taken aback when Obama reversed course all of a sudden and halted his promised military strike against Syria over its deployment of chemical weapons against its people last August in return for a deal with Russia to have Damascus surrender its chemical weapons.

Obama’s overtures to the Iranian leadership aimed to relax the regime of sanctions applied against Iran in return for a more forthcoming Iranian cooperation over its nuclear ambitions and stop its nuclear military programme.

Saudi Arabia continues to entertain doubts about Washington’s seriousness when it comes to forcing Israel to accept the 2002 Arab summit’s roadmap for a durable settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In Iraq, Riyadh is supporting the Sunnis against the regime of Shiite Nouri Al Maliki and wants the US to stop supporting Baghdad with advanced weapons and trade agreements.

On the eve of his trip to Saudi Arabia, Obama gave an interview to the US CBS TV station in which he tried to defend his policy to go soft on Syria. He admitted that after a decade of war (in Afghanistan and Iraq), the US is simply tired of military engagements.

The US president also explained why he cancelled his plan to strike at Syria at the last minute: “It is a false notion that somehow we were in a position, through a few selected strikes, to prevent the kind of hardships that we have seen in Syria.”

Obama, however, may not be aware of the concerns of US friends and allies in the region who believe he lost credibility by not exercising the will to deliver on his pledges.

The bottom line for Riyadh and other Arab nations in the area is that the US must not make promises or commitments lightly, as it has neither the will nor the intention of keeping them.

US allies can no longer depend on Washington to live up to its promises.