When the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001 by 19 hijackers -- 15 of them from Saudi Arabia -- the kingdom switched into lobbying overdrive, determined to preserve a critical relationship.
After devoting well over USD 100 million to influencing Washington, the oil-rich state is facing a PR crisis it didn't see coming -- US lawmakers who once eagerly hobnobbed with Saudi princes, and institutions that were once only too happy to accept Riyadh's money, are looking to distance themselves.
The killing of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi -- a regular presence on the Washington think tank circuit who died after entering the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul -- has led to outrage at a level unseen in years against the kingdom.
Lawmakers have proposed once-unthinkable actions such as suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the largest buyer of US weapons, and expelling the kingdom's ambassador, although major repercussions look unlikely for now as President Donald Trump has called for preserving ties.
The Saudis had earlier looked confident of their lobbying might in Washington.
In March, the Senate narrowly defeated a proposal to end US support for the Saudi-led campaign against rebels in Yemen, which according to the United Nations has killed thousands of civilians.
Soon afterward, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a 33-year-old who had billed himself as a reformer, triumphantly visited the United States where he met figures ranging from Trump to talk show queen Oprah Winfrey.
"A lot of Americans don't really know much about Saudi Arabia. It's not a big destination for travel, for a lot of reasons, and it was easy for PR firms to fill that role," said Ben Freeman, director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy.
"I think what happened is that this case really brought it home," he said. "Jamal Khashoggi was living here and I think a lot of journalists took this personally in that one of their own was attacked."
He said he declined, "But I wondered: who said yes?"
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