"Relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States are deteriorating and Sputnik's latest poll shows this," the analyst said.
The survey, released on Tuesday, revealed that 68 percent of Americans wanted the Obama administration to stop, completely or partially, backing Riyadh until the oil kingdom provides evidence that it is not sponsoring terrorist organizations.
This does not seem to bother US policymakers, because they don't want to sever ties with one of Washington's closest allies in the Middle East. Their agenda seems to be focused on bringing Riyadh back to the fold.
"US leadership is to an extent trying to scare Saudi rulers to make them more compliant and accommodating with regard to those major political projects that the US is carrying out around the world," Bezpalko noted.
Saudi Arabia's shady dealings with terrorism do not seem to be on this list. After all, US intelligence services have been aware of Riyadh sponsoring terrorists for a long time, he added.
Alex Beinstein, a Republican Candidate for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, called the oil kingdom "the true devil with respect to Islamic terror."
The Saudi "government itself was supporting Bin Laden until he was killed in 2011," he told Radio Sputnik, citing Seymour M. Hersh's reporting on the issue. "There are numerous intelligence reports that something like $700 million flowed out of the country in the year 2014 to groups like al-Qaeda, [al-Nusra Front and Daesh], etc."
Beinstein maintained that the US should add Saudi Arabia to the list of countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism. He also suggested that all assets and property that Saudi officials with links to terrorism have in the US should be frozen.
Finally, "we should reduce commercial ties between the two countries. It does not make sense for money to flow out of this county" so that the Saudis could use these funds to aid terrorists.
This surely looks like a correct course of action, but Washington will follow a different path. Bezpalko believes that the current cold spell will pass and the US relations with the US will revert back to normal.
