House of Saud in Existential bid to preserve Middle East Monarchies – End Times for Kings and Tyrants!

U.S.-Saudi rivalry intensifies Existential
The quest for greater influence includes a tug of war over Jordan, just one example of the contest between the longtime allies split over the democracy uprisings sweeping the region.

Paul Richter and Neela Banerjee, Los Angeles Times
June 19, 2011

Reporting from Washington—
Senior U.S. diplomats have been dropping by the royal palace in Amman almost every week this spring to convince Jordanian King Abdullah II that democratic reform is the best way to quell the protests against his rule.

But another powerful ally also has been lobbying Abdullah — and wants him to ignore the Americans.

Saudi Arabia is urging the Hashemite kingdom to stick to the kind of autocratic traditions that have kept the House of Saud secure for centuries, and Riyadh has been piling up gifts at Abdullah’s door to sell its point of view.

The Saudis last month offered Jordan a coveted opportunity to join a wealthy regional bloc called the Gulf Cooperation Council, a move that would give the impoverished kingdom new investment, jobs and security ties. To sweeten the pot, the Saudis wrote a check for $400 million in aid to Amman two weeks ago, their first assistance in years.

The quiet contest for Jordan is one sign of the rivalry that has erupted across the Middle East this year between Saudi Arabia and the United States, longtime allies that have been put on a collision course by the popular uprisings that have swept the region.

“We do have a lot of friction there,” said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “The ‘Arab Spring’ has injected tension into the relationship.”

The Obama administration has generally supported the protests, and urged the region’s governments to share more power. But when President Obama demanded reform from Arab regimes in a major speech last month, he carefully avoided any mention of Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy that brooks little or no dissent.

Riyadh, which believes the U.S. is turning its back on loyal allies, is trying to step out of America’s shadow. It is embracing a foreign policy that often diverges from Washington’s — and sometimes seeks to undermine it. …more