In the Mideast, the Enemy of My Enemy Can Still Be My Enemy - Bloomberg

In the Mideast, the Enemy of My Enemy Can Still Be My Enemy - Bloomberg:

In April 2008, Iran’s then-Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki flew to Riyadh to meet with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. It did not go well.

Mottaki was seeking better relations with his country’s chief regional rival. Instead he got a lecture from the king about Tehran’s interference in Palestinian affairs. But “these are Muslims,” Mottaki responded, according to U.S. diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks. “No, Arabs,” replied the king. “You as Persians have no business meddling in Arab affairs.” The king said Mottaki had one year to improve ties.

Abdullah didn’t wait that long to make his next move. Moments later he told a delegation of visiting U.S. officials that the Iranians couldn’t be trusted and implored them, in the words of a senior adviser, to “cut off the head of the snake” by attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and hitting it with economic sanctions, according to the same classified U.S. diplomatic summary of the meeting, which was published in 2012. President Obama did nothing of the sort. And the Saudi royals would have to wait almost a decade until they got a more amenable American president. Indeed, Abdullah wouldn’t live to see the shift.