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A Special Relationship

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Posted: June 15th, 2016

By Ambassador Gary Grappo

Ambassador Gary Grappo served as Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad; U.S. Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman; and Charge d’Affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He’s currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Middle East Studies at the Korbel School for International Studies, University of Denver.

Despite a semblance of rocky ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, bilateral relations between the two countries remains vital to the U.S. and extremely vital to Saudi Arabia.

Throughout history, there have been various times in the U.S.-Saudi relationship where we’ve experienced inflection points. The first major inflection point was back in the late 1960s, when Egypt sent forces to Yemen and was encroaching on the Saudis. In response, the U.S sent Air Force aircraft as a demonstration of its willingness to defend Saudi Arabia. That was an inflection point in terms of the new security element of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.

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