Al-Saud family fears the rise of the Brotherhood and their challenge to the legitimacy of their regime.

Islam Times: Perhaps the quiet race for Jordan is one of the signs of competition which broke out in the Middle East this year between Saudi Arabia and America, two countries which have been allies for a long time, among which a collision happened due to the people’s uprisings that swept across the region.

The paper quotes one U.S. official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, saying: "We have a lot of friction here since the Arab spring has agitated the relationship between the two countries with a kind of tension."

The U.S. administration headed by Barack Obama has supported the protests in general and urged regional governments to share power more widely for the aim of survival of its allies and mercenaries in rule, but Obama in his speech last month, calling on Arab regimes to reform, carefully avoided any reference to Saudi Arabia which does not allow any opposition within it.

AbduAllah Al-Askar, Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Saudi Shura Senate, said that the Obama administration no longer really listens to Saudi Arabian views regarding the underlying political issues, and this change does not mean the end of the alliance between Washington and Riyadh that has continued for 70 years which was built upon on the simple formula: Saudi Oil for the U.S. military protection. However it means more loss of Washington’s influence in the Middle East, especially in a time when their relationship with other countries such as Egypt and Turkey, for example, are facing new tensions.

According to one senior U.S. official, the Saudis are upset, frustrated, angry, and actually do not know what to do, although another official at the State Department insisted that the alliance between Riyadh and Washington still stands on the issues of security and energy, but there remains a tension between the two countries being clearer in Bahrain where Riyadh ignored the warnings of the U.S. and sent troops to suppress the people’s uprising.





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The Los Angeles Times draws attention to the story that last month the Saudis have given Jordan the opportunity to join the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council, a move that would give poor Jordan new investments, jobs and security ties, and to increase temptation the Saudis wrote a check of $ 400 million to help Amman, the first assistance for them in years.

The paper said that senior American diplomats went to the Royal Palace in Amman, Jordan, almost every week this spring to persuade King AbduAllah II that the democratic reform, even if only a facade, is the best way to calm the protests against his regime, but at the same time another ally is pushing on the the king wanting him to ignore the demands of the Americans.

The paper explains that Saudi Arabia urges Jordan to hold on to some kind of authoritarian traditions that kept the House of Saud safe over numerous decades along with the accumulation of Riyadh gifts at the gates of the Jordanian king in order for him to adopt their point of view.