Obama Administration Grovels Before New Saudi King Salman

After lecturing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the need for religious tolerance, U.S. President Obama left India a day early to rush to Saudi Arabia to pay respects to deceased Saudi King Abdullah, with an extraordinary U.S. delegation of no fewer than 27 dignitaries.        

The Obama delegation arrived just after the new Saudi King Salman had refused to intervene to stop a scheduled beheading. Four public beheadings have already occurred under his brief reign.        

The high level of Saudi such power over the Obama Administration was laid bare in a Jan. 7, 2015 press conference by former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, U.S. Congressmen Walter Jones (D-NC), and Stephen Lynch (D-MA), with the 9/11 families. The congressmen demanded that the final chapter of the 2001 Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11 be declassified.  Former Sen. Graham (D-FL), Co-chair of that Inquiry, told press that the classified 28 pages reveal the Saudis as the funders of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.  Yet although Obama has twice promised the 9/11 victims’ families that he would declassify these 28 pages, he has never done so.        

The extraordinary delegation mustered to accompany Obama and the First Lady to Saudi Arabia spotlights the importance of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.  It included: Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who was scheduled to lead a retreat of Democratic congressional members now ongoing in Philadephia; Secretary of State John Kerry; CIA Director John Brennan; Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); and General Lloyd Austin, head of Central Command in the region.  The Guardian reported that:

“To emphasize the permanence of Washington’s links to the House of Saud, Obama’s delegation also pointedly included key officials from past Administrations, such as former Secretaries of State James Baker and Condolezzaa Rice, and former National Security Advisers Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger.”

This delegation shows that something is indeed rotten in Washington and Saudi Arabia.