One of the talking points of the Israel lobby is that the Arab states care more about a nuclear Iran than they do the Israel/Palestine conflict. Roger Cohen puts the lie to that in a NYT piece on Obama aide Dennis Ross, the longtime peace processor, and Iran. Funny anecdote:
On April 29, in Dammam, in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, Ross sat down with King Abdullah. He talked to a skeptical monarch about the Obama administration’s engagement policy with Iran — and talked and talked and talked. When the king finally got to speak, according to one U.S. official fully briefed on the exchange, he began by telling Ross: “I am a man of action. Unlike you, I prefer not to talk a lot.” Then he posed several pointed questions about U.S. policy toward Iran: What is your goal? What will you do if this does not work? What will you do if the Chinese and the Russians are not with you? How will you deal with Iran’s nuclear program if there is not a united response? Ross, a little flustered, tried to explain that policy was still being fleshed out.
The exchange was a useful reminder that the Obama administration is going to have to work very hard, even with its allies, to present a united front to Iran. Saudi Arabia may be full of millennial Arab suspicion of the Persians, and Ross may have all sorts of ideas about how the Saudis could use their petropower to undermine the Iranians (including by selling more oil to China), but the fact is the Saudis have had normal relations with Iran since 1991 and will always be more comfortable making life difficult for a Jewish state than for a fellow Muslim nation.
Tony Karon has a great take on this piece.
