White House: Obama 'Cleared the Air' with Saudi Arabia by Nicole Gaouette, Kevin Liptak, Michelle Kosinski and Nic Robertson, CNN
The White House moved to tamp down suggestions that ties with Saudi Arabia are fraying, with administration officials saying that President Barack Obama "really cleared the air" with King Salman at a meeting Wednesday.
Yet even as White House officials stressed that the leaders made progress, a prominent member of the Saudi royal family told CNN "a recalibration" of the U.S.-Saudi relationship was needed amid regional upheaval, dropping oil prices and ongoing strains between the two longtime allies.
Obama landed in Riyadh earlier Wednesday for a summit with Gulf leaders and spent two-and-a-half hours meeting with the 80-year-old monarch on issues that have recently strained the alliance, including the conflict in Yemen, the role of Iran, Lebanon's instability and the fight against ISIS, U.S. officials said.
Statements after the meeting made clear that deep differences remain on several of these points, with the two sides agreeing to disagree and a U.S. official characterizing the encounter as the start of a discussion rather than a venue for solutions.
But the two leaders glossed over some of the thorniest matters, including a Saudi threat to dump U.S. assets if Obama signs into law a bill that could make the kingdom liable for damages stemming from the September 11 terror attacks…
Comments
Obama has a 700 person NSC and thousands working in the US IC yet neither he or them seem to fully “see and understand” the three geo political goals of Putin’s non linear warfare he is using to support his political war with the US………and it is the first true "grey war" of the 21st century and it is being driven as such by Putin......
1. damage and discredit EU
2. damage and discredit NATO
3. completely disconnect the US for Europe and ME
I have been saying this here at SWJ since Crimea started and I will keep repeating it over and over here as that is the geo political strategy of Putin and he is well on his way WITH Obama’s help and guidance…….something I never thought I would see a sitting US President do....."legacy is far more important to Obama than a foreign policy protecting the US"............
I am not the only one “seeing and understanding”……
Former US SecState, M. Albright argues that Putin wants to split the EU & drive out NATO:
http://goo.gl/WAO744
AND we wonder whether he "cleaned the air or not".....he did not..... he simply added to the massive confusion of what exactly his lack of a foreign policy "means" and or does not "mean"...to those affected by this "lack".....namely the entire ME and Europe......
Just more Obama WH smoke and mirrors as nothing was cleared up.....and immediately after their talks the HNC pulled out of Geneva....and the HNC listens to KSA.....not to Kerry which blamed them for getting bombed in the coming days.
Kerry has never used the same language in condemning the bombers......