"It is an understatement to say that our President didn't exactly turn out to be `Ibn Bush'"

From the Middle East Policy Survey: [Excerpts]

"...Other State Department officials are much more cautious. Admitting that the Gulf states find Iran a threat in general andthe Revolutionary Guards (who man the speedboats in the Gulf) asa "bunch of dangerous cowboys", still, at best they are, in oneveteran official's words, "rather schizophrenic" about what theywant from the US vis-a-vis Iran. "Sure they would like us to`cut off the dragon's head'", said one State Department officialrather colorfully. But this official also cautioned that theSaudis have seen what can go wrong when US armed forces go tobattle in their part of the world.

For the most important gulf state, Saudi Arabia, this is atime for recalculating its relationship with the US, sayAdministration insiders. "It is an understatement to say that our President didn't exactly turn out to be `Ibn Bush'", areference to his very different orientation from his father. But with time running out on the Administration, the Saudis, say USofficials, are groping towards a new, more "global" policy,albeit with the caveat that if things really start to fall apart,there is no substitute for the US....

One area where the US and Saudi Arabia seem to be in harmony is over the fate of the pro-western Lebanese government. Led by the son of the assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri,the so called March 14 alliance has been urged by both Washington and Riyadh to resist giving significant powers to rivals close the Syrian regime. A continuing stalemate in Lebanon has left that country without a President but US and Saudi policy makers seem content for the time being with the current impasse... Meanwhile, the United Nations is gearing up an international tribunal in the Hague to investigate the Hariri assassination. It is now expected to begin its work late next month. Money has been a problem, with only the US and Lebanon having transferred funds. Significant amounts have been pledged, however, by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates and these funds are thought more likely to be made available once proceedings begin...

The Syrians, considered by many to be behind not only the Hariri murder but a number of subsequent killings of Lebanese opponents, are said to be extremely concerned about the prospect of being put in the dock in the Hague. Recent efforts to relieve the pressure appear to have been rebuffed by both Saudi Arabia and the US... Administration officials say Saudi King Abdullah will not attend the next Arab League summit slated for March in Damascus. And the US intelligence community has concluded that the recent clamp down on Jihadists trying to make their way from Damascus to Iraq has more to do with Syrian domestic politics than helping the US. "They're not getting anything out of this from us," says one well-placed US official...

Equally important -- from an Arab perspective -- is the President's invariable bias towards Israel. A number of observers have commented on what one called his "over the top"remarks at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum...."