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The Saudis must surely be disturbed at how quickly their star has fallen among Americans. What a difference a day makes, in this case, 9/11/2001.

For much of the last two decades, they had a privileged position in American foreign policy, a partner so close as to be almost an extention of our own government.

US companies have had for many years a privileged position in the Kingdom, as the Saudis gave them preferential treatment on major industrial projects. US manufactures were imported by the billions of dollars worth, US workers likewise imported to manage their oil work and their economy.

Their military was US trained and US equipped. Their elite US educated. Their relationship with our CIA was almost incestuous, as Saudi money paid for off-books operations throughout the cold war.

Budget shortfalls could always be made up by selling the Saudis another weapons system, and indeed there are tons of weapons buried in the desert, waiting for the day that we, the US, might need them to defend US/Saudi interests. Throughout the eighties it would have been difficult to imagine that US and Saudi interests wouldn't always be identical.

Even the clinker, US support for Israel, the Saudis overlooked as one of those quirks that close friends overlook in one another.

Our earliest, most dramatic triumph together, was the expulsion of the Soviets from Afghanistan.

In the nineties, the relationship grew more ambitious, as the collapse of the Soviet Union opened up more opportunities. Again, our interests seemed at first parallel. We were trying to expand our interests in Central Asia, to woo them away from Moscow. One obvious way was to encourage an Islamic revival, as a way to drive the final nail into the Communist coffin.

We more than cooperated with the Saudis, they took effective control of our foreign policy, with our blessing. They paid for Islamic training for Central Asians, and also began fomenting insurgencies in every Soviet Muslim state. We, with the Saudis and the Turks, backed the Chechens against the Russians. We backed the Uighars against the Chinese.

At their behest we intervened in Somalia, and Bosnia, and Kosovo.

So, it took us a while to realize that the game had changed. The movement we created with the Saudis became an unruly monster and took on a will of its own. In addition to attacking Russian interests, they began to attack us as well.

We spent the latter part of the nineties both in denial, and trying to appease the monster we helped to create. The Saudis are also in denial, believing they can control it, knowing that one day it will turn on them as well.

But 9/11 broke the spell. The Saudis were slow to realize this, and hung on too long to the monster they created, and their marriage with the US has been irrevocably damaged. Divorce has been filed, and I would say that barring some dramatic reconciliation, they and their personal belongings will soon be littering the curb