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U.S. Scrambles to Repair Damaged Saudi Ties

April 6, 2016 | http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-06/u-s-scrambles-to-repair-damaged-saudi-ties

By Josh Rogin

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will soon head to Saudi Arabia to discuss ways to increase cooperation in the war against the Islamic State. But there’s little indication he will be able to restore a vital relationship that's become riven with distrust in the last year, which would require him to reassure the Saudis on the very nature of the U.S. commitment to the kingdom and the region.
Carter is slated to meet on April 20 in Riyadh with Mohammed Bin Salman al Saud, the 30-year-old deputy crown prince and defense minister who is widely believed to be in contention to succeed his father, King Salman. Carter’s visit will come one day ahead of President Barack Obama’s stop there for a leaders’ summit between the U.S. and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a follow-on to their meeting at Camp David last May.
At a speech at Center for Security and International Studies in Washington on Tuesday, Carter said he wanted to ramp up the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. “We’ve got to get these guys beaten and as soon as possible,” he said. “We’re looking for opportunities to do more.”
This will be the fifth time Carter has met with Prince Mohammed since the latter became defense minister last year. But despite the number of personal interactions, according to U.S. officials and experts, the U.S.-Saudi relationship at the highest levels hasn’t improved since the Camp David summit, when the Saudi leaders no-so-privately expressed displeasure with the nuclear deal Western countries were striking with Iran.
Many of the arms deals that the U.S. promised the Gulf states at Camp David have been held up, such as sales of F-15 fighters to Qatar and F-18 fighters to Kuwait. With Saudi Arabia, differences over the way forward in Syria have become even starker and the personal relationships seem cooler than ever.http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-06/u-s-scrambles-to-repair-damaged-saudi-ties