"all those deals were done when we needed the sauidis for their bases."
Your argument is that the US government is no longer facilitating arms sales to Saudi Arabia? I'd be interested in some evidence.
This is from the US Congress report on arms trade from 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL33696.pdf
"For the period from 2002-2005, Saudi Arabia made $8.9 billion in
arms transfer agreements. Its major suppliers were the four major
West European suppliers collectively ($4.5 billion), and the United
States ($4.2 billion)"
When I go to the latest page showing potential US arms sales deals notified to Congress (http://www.dsca.osd.mil/pressreleases/36-b/36b_index.htm), I can see various ones concerning Saudi Arabia. Eg:
http://www.dsca.osd.mil/pressreleases/36-b/2006/Saudi%20Arabia_06-25.pdf
http://www.dsca.osd.mil/pressreleases/36-b/2006/Saudi%20Arabia_06-39.pdf
http://www.dsca.osd.mil/pressreleases/36-b/2006/Saudi%20Arabia_06-52.pdf
http://www.dsca.osd.mil/pressreleases/36-b/2006/Saudi%20Arabia_06-59.pdf
Interestingly all of them contain the same sentence:
"This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States (U.S.) by helping to improve the security of a friendly country that has been and continues to be an important force for political stability and economic process in the Middle East."
And the latest one was about three weeks ago. Maybe the change in US policy that you are speaking of has just occured in the last three weeks?
I've heard that SA's air forces are pretty good, and some (many?) of their pilots are top notch, but I've never had the impression their ground forces are exactly fearsome.
Am I wrongly informed?