The Saudis don't think they can count on us and are acting to defend their interests:
Saudi Arabia believes it is under existential threat with uprisings across the region threatening the status quo order and Qatar is helping to undermine it. And most dauntingly, Riyadh sees the United States reaching out to Iran for a deal that the Saudis fear will come at their expense. ...
From their perspective, Obama has scrapped most of America's past arrangements with the Saudi kingdom, arrangements first forged when President Roosevelt met with the founder of modern Saudi Arabia King Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud on Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake in 1944. The deal was that in exchange for holding the balance of power of the world's oil reservoir, the United States would protect the Saudis against all comers. Now Riyadh feels that it is on its own, and the Saudis are not in the mood for the empty promises that the Obama White House calls diplomacy. Instead, the Saudis are moving aggressively to confront adversaries, from GCC rivals like Qatar to Gulf revolutionaries like Iran.
This is what happens when you fail to lead. You can dress this up as "leading from behind," but that conceit relies on thinking we can get others to act in our interests when we will not.
In the real world, if they don't have the option of following our leadership for things that benefit us (and them a bit), those countries will simply act in their own interests, regardless of whether it is in our interest.
It's always better to have others inside the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent, pissing in. We'll see how the latter works.
