they re extremely concerned with syria. they wanted president obama to do something to help the rebelst in syria.bels he decided not to.ded the pope is happy he didn t.py saudi arabia wants him to. he s all over thehe map on foren policy right now.n he doesn t know who he s going to say yes i should, no i shouldn t. bottom line is the middle east is getting very nervous with president obama s indecision on a lot of things. saudi arabia, i don t have to tell you, spends billions ofions dollars funding a very anti-west philosophy. is it shocking, though, that the president would have anwoul opportunity maybe to talk abouto radical islam and misses it? in a place like saudi arabia that so clearly promotes propaganda that s anti-west? i may take a slightly different viewpoint in i think the current king, despite alle the things that we all see every day, i think that he is at least more mild mannered and modern than in the past.
country. susan rice, national securityal advisor and also someone at theo state department did apparentlyt make a personal appeal on his behalf. the president didn not. so not only do you have religious freedom, but you haveu press freedom as well. two hot topics on our minds. the issue that was most important to barak obama in my opinion, is probably the reparation of the relationship when it comes to iran and syria because despite all of our differences, we do have a strong alliance with thee saudi. bob, you ve been very vocal e on this show about radical islam. you worked in the state department, so you know saudi arabia is very hostile towardsot christians. they have this no church polic. what do you think if you reu re advising president obama?advi how should he handle a meeting like this, even though he s tho hesitant to acknowledge radicale islam is a threat? every president, every modern president when they head off toy meet with the head of the saudis are alwaysys encourag
also more than other family members that he has to try to manage as they try to hold together their country. the most important thing to theo is stability. to him, i think to the kingdom. it is possible that barak obamas talked to him about radical islam and the concern about a terrorism, but did not bring upn a specific religious freedom in the kingdom because if you re af christian there, you have to pray in private or else you will be you could be arrested bydb the religious police, put in jail or worse. i think that in addition to the syria problem, the bigger one is actually on the minds of the saudis is iran.s but they see syria and what s happening there as part of a larger problem happening in iran. there was another issue that happened on this trip that i understand the white house weighed in strongly in favor of a jerusalem post reporter who was traveling with the president on his trip and the saudis denied him a visa and did not allow him to come into the
such as the kingdom s history of abuse against christians.of but according to seniorffic administration officials, thatug issue wasn t broughtht up. eric, is this really a big shocl that the president didn t bring it up? do you think back to his cairo speech when he had the opportunity to speak to theoppo muslim world about the atrocities against christians, against women, against gays, hea didn t do it then. why would he do it now? i can t imagine why he would do it now. again, we talked aboutading from i behind, this would bee ta taking a step forward andome addressing some of the things he probably should be, as dana points out, at least bringing up. a long t have to have conversation about it. i m not really sure what goes o. closed doors with the president. he comes out of the meeting with the pope. he says one thing, the pope says another. he has an opportunity to sitsays down and talk to saudi arabia. i don tt know. did he bow? did anyone know? saudi arabia is very concerned