Saudi Arabia's Enduring Relationship with The United States

President Roosevelt met with two future Saudi monarchs in 1943. Since then, U.S. presidents have had direct relationships with those Saudi kings and their successors.

Bruce Riedel, senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project and author of Kings and Presidents: Saudi Arabia and the United States since FDR  discusses the special, and often fraught, partnership between an absolute monarchy with a unique Islamic identity and the world's most powerful democracy, the new Saudi leadership and whether its modernization effort brings excessive volatility to the region.

The reason the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia has endured is because "despite the fact that we don’t have shared values, we often have shared interests," says Bruce Riedel, author of "Kings and Presidents."

— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) November 28, 2017