Saudi king urged US to ‘cut the head of the Iranian snake’

Wikileaks: leaked US documents show Saudi willingness to resisting, rolling back Iranian influence and subversion in Iraq.

Middle East Online, Nov 28, 2010

Nervous about Nuclear Iran PARIS – King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme, according to US documents leaked by WikiLeaks and published Sunday by daily newspapers. According to a leaked US cable, published by the New York Times, King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz made the call during an April 2008 meeting with US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and US General David Petraeus. “He told you to ‘cut off the head of the snake’,” Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, told the US embassy in Riyadh two days after the high-level talks, according to the State Department memo. “The King, Foreign Minister, Prince Muqrin, and Prince Nayif all agreed that the Kingdom needs to cooperate with the US on resisting and rolling back Iranian influence and subversion in Iraq,” the memo said. “The King was particularly adamant on this point, and it was echoed by the senior princes as well. Al-Jubeir recalled the King’s frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program.” Continues >>