So US President Barack Obama plans to hit the apology tour by coming to Saudi Arabia in March to have a confab with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. Syria and Iran will be on the list of topics and I don’t envy Obama so much when he gets an earful from the Saudis about his inaction in Syria and making Iran his new BFF.

Obama has plenty of fence mending to do with his complete disregard for the Syrian government’s crimes against humanity and its engagement with Iran, which has been sowing dissent in the Gulf region for decades. The US government’s abandonment of its traditional Middle East allies that have done nothing but pledge support to the US needs a thorough review.

We get it, though. The US has been the world’s policeman since the end of World War II: Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon (in the 1980s with disastrous results for the US military), Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq (again, with disastrous results), not to mention the countless skirmishes in between to keep rogue states in line.

But quitting the job cold turkey has its consequences and leaves countries that have been dependent on America’s military might for protection and security vulnerable with few options.

We get it that following Afghanistan and Iraq that the US has no appetite for putting more boots on the ground in the Middle East. Yet it’s alarming that recently discovered photographic evidence that the Assad regime has been routinely engaged in atrocities against the civilian population have gone unpunished, while at the same time Middle Eastern countries are watching Russia establish a strong foothold in the region. And if you think that Russia cares what happens to Assad, think again. Russia’s priority is the amount of influence it can wield and Assad just happens to be the tool for that influence.

But the United States is taking huge risks by abandoning the interests of Saudi Arabia by putting too much emphasis on its lessening reliance on Saudi oil and the fact that America is the top destination for investors, surpassing China in 2013.

America’s confidence in leaving Saudi Arabia to fend for itself, albeit ill advised, has some rationale. Last year, the US surpassed Saudi Arabia as the biggest oil producer as shale has led to the biggest oil boom in US history. However, it still falls behind Saudi Arabia and Russian in total crude oil production by about 3 million barrels per day.

Although America’s dependence on Saudi oil ebbs and flows in the world of geopolitics depending on its relationship with the oil-producing Iran, the thaw in US-Iran relations promises a lifting of sanctions and a renewed flow of Iranian oil to the West.

Consider these political changes with the overall declining reliance of Saudi oil (oil demand by the West has steadily declined or remained static since 1980). Today, it is believed that North and Central America are now producing or nearly producing an estimated three-quarter of its oil needs.

After an 82-year trouble-free relationship with Saudi Arabia for the US to tell the Gulf it’s time to go it alone is dangerous thinking — oil or no oil. An unchecked Iran, with its meddling in the Eastern Province, Bahrain, the UAE, Syria and Iraq is only the beginning of unchecked aggression against the Gulf countries.

We have witnessed the unbridled sectarian violence spread across the Middle East following the US withdrawal from Iraq, its pending withdrawal from Afghanistan now vulnerable to the Taleban, and the crisis after the fall of longtime US ally Hosni Mubarak.

If the US does not hold Iran accountable for its campaign of intimidation and unrest, then the Middle East will become bloody with sectarian wars from North Africa to the Levant and beyond. If the US thinks it feels the enmity of the region now for its failure to find a resolution to the Syrian, imagine what’s to come in the next decade.

There is something seductive to the United States about renewing its friendship with Iran after the humiliation of the 1979 hostage crisis. The need for closure on this sad chapter in American history is understandable, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of Saudi Arabia and its neighbors.