OUR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT:

After seven decades of a "special relationship" in which criticism has generally been voiced privately, the US president's public chiding has been seen as a betrayal.

His call for Riyadh to "share" the Middle East with its bitter regional rival Tehran and end proxy wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen infuriated Saudi leaders, who feel encircled by clients of Shiite Iran.

His criticism of the kingdom for exporting its fundamentalist "Wahhabist" version of Islam to other Muslim countries struck at the very heart of the ruling family's legitimacy.

"I don't think any US president has ever been so outspoken about Saudi Arabia," said Toby Matthiesen, a Middle East specialist at St Antony's College, University of Oxford.

"This is really unprecedented," he added, calling Obama's views "embarrassing" for the kingdom.

Mohammed El Oifi, a specialist in Arab media at Sorbonne Nouvelle university in Paris, said that Obama's comments about "Wahhabism" attacked the very foundations of Saudi legitimacy.

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