On Monday, CIA Director David Petraeus met with Abdullah at his palace in Jeddah (see above), and shortly afterwards I had a friendly chat with my buddy the King, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. The King opened his heavy heart to me, and it just so happens that the meeting with Petraeus involved more than mere niceties over coffee.
The King is distressed by the ongoing massacre of Sunni Muslims in Syria and wants Assad ousted from the presidential palace in Damascus posthaste.
However, more worrisome to Abdullah is the threat of a nuclear-armed Shia Iran fomenting unrest among the Desert Kingdom's Shiites, some 15% of the population, most of whom belong to the Twelver Baharna and live in the country's Eastern Province. Just one day prior to the King's session with Petraus, Saudi security forces killed three Shiite demonstrators in the town of Awamiyah following the arrest of their cleric, Sheikh Nemr al-Nemr.
As correctly surmised by Forrest Gump, "It must be hard being a king."
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