"In the end the relation is a protection racket"

I should point out that the last time any Saudi official (King Faisal in that case), thumbed his nose at Washington, he was shortly assassinated by a nephew-prince & long resident of the US. Faisal was (effectively) replaced by Prince Fahd (King Khaled was a figure who also died mysteriously in his sleep) ... 
'b' writes in the MoA 

"...Prince Bandar and his media shills suggest that the Saudis could go rogue over Syria where Bandar's project to get rid of Assad has failed despite him spending hundreds of millions of dollars to the mercenary Jihadists. But what else but paying more can Bandar actually do? The Saudi's military logistics are run by unreliable foreigners. The Saudi army has good equipment but is has zero expeditionary capability.The are also no other partners that could prop up the Saudi family regime. While Bandar suggests that France may be a candidate that country does no longer have the serious military capability to support such a colonial scheme. The Chinese may well be willing to sell arms to the Saudis but, as I wrote:

"... China will deliver but will be smart enough to not interfere in Gulf politics like U.S. is doing day by day."

Bandar will also know that the open U.S. attack on Syria, which he demands, will not come as the U.S. public and the U.S. congress are overwhelmingly against it. Washington has no interest in a longterm broken Syria that is run by Saudi supported Al Qaeda types.Saudi Arabia does not have the mean to seriously pressure the United States. It also does not have a strategic alternative to staying in the U.S. realm. In the end the relation is a protection racket. The Saudis pay the U.S. military industrial complex for not getting attacked by U.S. military forces. Throwing hissy fits in such position is senseless nonsense.The only thing that this Saudi strategy may achieve is a faster reconciliation of U.S. with Tehran. Should the U.S. sympathies move to the eastern side of the Persian Gulf Saudi Arabia could soon become the target of new animosities. ..."