President Barack Obama had decided to cut his visit to India short, specifically the planned visit to the famous Mughal mausoleum, Taj Mahal, to be able to stop in Saudi Arabia on the way back. The few hours spent there were shared between the tribute to the late sovereign and early trade with the new Saudi leadership: King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud and his half-brother Muqrin now Crowned Prince of the Kingdom, a former pilot of the Air Force formed in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Two former Republican Secretaries of State, James Baker and Condoleezza Rice, and three former national security advisers, Democratic and Republican, including the oldest, Brent Scowcroft, had been chosen and first served under Richard Nixon. The CIA director, John Brennan, elected officials in both parties and much of the current administration. The US delegation came to offer condolences to the Saudi royal family, five days after the death of King Abdullah, on January 23rd, was made to deliver a simple message of the strategic importance of Washington’s relationship with Riyadh, despite economic turbulence.
There’s a question of human rights to be posed here. The head-to-head with the new king lasted a little over an hour. The opportunity at an overview rather than a real discussion, according to the president’s entourage who asked, assured to have nothing noted in particular with regard to the health of the new sovereign and raised regularly inquiries. The same entourage assured that Obama had attracted the king’s attention to the issue of human rights, ensuring it was “important that people have platforms for expression and civil society to prosper “without explicitly mentioning the fate of the Saudi liberal blogger Raef Badawi, sentenced in May 2014 to flogging and ten years in prison for “insulting Islam.” 
This visit was particularly symbolic that the President of the United States has caused the frequent exasperation of the Saudi government in recent years. First for withdrawing support of the brutal Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, this temporarily strengthened the wave of the “Arab Spring,” to the great displeasure of Riyadh. Secondly, another caused for having shown the contrary pusillanimous face his Syrian counterpart two years later, when Obama had not set out to intervene against this threat in the Syrian civil war. If used by the loyalist army chemical weapons against the armed opposition.
Washington’s commitment to the fight against the Islamic state, from August 2014, has changed the situation. While one of the new king’s sons, a fighter pilot, participated in September in an air raid on Syria against jihadist positions coordinated with the US military, the commitment of the United States helped allay fears of a withdrawal from the Middle East, or more favorable adjustment to Iran, with which Washington has been negotiating for years on the issue of its controversial nuclear program.
Iran was one of the obsessions of Abdallah that ensured Simon Henderson, the Saudi monarchy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It is not clear what position Salman on this issue. In Riyadh, Obama also could come across the new generation princes that the redistribution of consecutive cards to the disappearance of Abdullah highlighted Mohammed bin Salman, another prince known for his ambition, became Minister Defense. Notably, as well a son of the former interior minister and former Vice-heir, Mohammed bin Nayef, succeeded his father in these two functions, opening up the second term access to the throne.
Charge of terrorism against Mohammed bin Nayef, who studied in the US at a private university in Portland, Oregon, is a long-standing partner of the US administration. He has already met twice head to head with Obama in the Oval Office of the White House since his appointment as head of the Interior Ministry in 2013.