Saudi is warning Bush over Israel

HOUSTON Crown Prince Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia was expected to tell President George W. Bush in stark terms Thursday that the strategic relationship between their two countries would be threatened if Bush did not moderate his support for Israel's military policies, according to a person familiar with the Saudi's thinking.

The prince and Bush were meeting at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas. In a bleak assessment, this person said the consequences of such a rupture could ripple through oil markets and galvanize the Arab world to take similar actions in what would be a "strategic debacle for the United States."

He added that there was talk within the Saudi royal family and in Arab capitals of using the "oil weapon" against the United States and of demanding that the United States leave strategic military bases and storage facilities in the region. He also warned of a general drift by Arab leaders toward the radical politics that have been building in the Arab street. The Saudi message contained an undeniable level of brinkmanship intended to put pressure on Bush to take a much larger political gamble by imposing a U.S.-brokered peace settlement on Israelis and Palestinians. But the Saudi delegation also brought a strong sense of the alarm and crisis that have been heard in Riyadh and other Arab capitals in advance of the summit talks.

"It is a mistake to think that our people will not do what is necessary to survive," the person close to the crown prince said, "and if that means we move to the right of bin Laden, so be it; to the left of Gadhafi, so be it; or fly to Baghdad and embrace Saddam like a brother, so be it.

"It's damned lonely in our part of the world, and we can no longer defend our relationship to our people."