US President Barack Obama has taken a leap into the unknown… and he does not know what the other side of the Rubicon looks like. Beginning with the surprise decision on the negotiated destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal, he has championed forward-looking policies toward long-time allies, especially Israel and in the Gulf, that share a common perspective, and that, in turn, have sparked united, outspoken complaint.

The strident opposition to Washington's “new look” shared by Israel and Saudi Arabia is real, and in some respects unprecedented. It would not be much of an exaggeration to suggest that each is rooting for failure of key elements of Washington's policies towards Syria and Iran.

Estranged from these traditional friends, Obama risks an uncertain reception from the new object of his attentions: Iran. US Secretary of State John Kerry's remarks after the just-completed round of talks in Geneva, however, suggest a convergence of Iranian-American sensibilities about the rapprochement that is all but absent in Washington’s discordant discussions about Iran with Saudi Arabia and Israel.

A similar dynamic is at play with Saudi Arabia on Syria. Where Washington now supports a diplomatic solution, Riyadh insists on victory and the destruction of President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Damascus. Truth be told, it would not shed a tear if the Maliki government in Baghdad — the bitter fruit of Washington's trillion dollar investment — became a follow-on casualty of the end of the Assads.