Wednesday, January 09, 2013

US-Saudi relations: based on human rights and democracy, of coruse

""The US does more trade—overwhelmingly in oil and weapons—with Saudi Arabia than any other country in the Middle East, including Israel, and depends on close Saudi cooperation in its counterterrorism efforts in Yemen." "When I met the current US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James B. Smith, in Riyadh last May, he couldn't have been clearer about the US–Saudi relationship: the three pillars, he said, are oil security, stability, and counterterrorism; pressure on human rights and political change were unproductive.""