WASHINGTON – Democrats may be positioning themselves to the right of the president on a key issue in the war on terror: America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.

As President Bush yesterday met at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, his rival in the 2004 campaign for the White House, Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, delivered a stinging floor speech criticizing Mr. Bush for deepening America’s dependence on Saudi oil.

“America is growing more – not less – dependent on foreign oil,” Mr. Kerry said. “And our dependence on foreign oil is shortchanging our goals in the war on terror.” On Friday, Senator Schumer, a Democrat of New York, wrote a letter urging Mr. Bush to enforce sanctions on the House of Saud required under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

Mr. Schumer also pressed the president to push Mr. Abdullah on subduing a November 2004 fatwa by leading Saudi imams that called on Muslims to take up arms against the occupiers in Iraq. “Not only does the active propagation of extremism against American soldiers threaten the lives of our men and women in uniform, it directly undermines our efforts in Iraq and the war on terror,” Mr. Schumer wrote.

In the meeting yesterday, White House officials stressed that Mr. Bush spoke with the crown prince mainly about the rising price of oil. “When you increase the capacity by a significant amount, which they are talking about, that can’t help but have a positive downward effect on prices,” national security adviser Steve Hadley said.

The Saudis have said that they cannot increase oil production too steeply because America lacks the infrastructure to refine such large quantities of petroleum. But some critics have accused Riyadh of trying to institutionalize high prices through the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“This is an important relationship … [my] personal relationship with the crown prince is important,” Mr. Bush told reporters yesterday in an impromptu session with the press that excluded Abdullah. Foreign leaders often appear with Mr. Bush for joint press conferences during visits to Crawford or the White House.

While the crown prince offered no assessment of the meeting, the body language between the two leaders suggested closeness. The Associated Press yesterday reported that the president “gave Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler a warm embrace and a kiss on both cheeks in welcome. Bush kept a firm, guiding grip on his guest’s hand as they walked up the path, past a field of bluebonnets that the president took care to point out, to a new office building on a corner of the sprawling ranch.”

Since last year’s campaign season, leading democrats – Messrs. Kerry and Schumer in particular – have criticized the White House’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last July, Mr. Kerry said, “I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation – not the Saudi royal family.”

Mr. Schumer has been blunter, taking a leading role in pressuring the White House to implement the International Religious Freedom Act and sponsoring legislation and resolutions that would penalize the kingdom for its support for radical Islam.

Senator Biden, a Democrat from Delaware who was rumored to be Mr. Kerry’s top choice for secretary of state, told the New Republic in its October 25 issue that he would favor a radical restructuring of America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. “Am I going to invade your country? Hell no. Are we going to depose you? Hell no. But let me tell you: Are we going to supply the physical security for your continued existence? I don’t know,” he said.

The tough talk today by Democrats starkly contrasts with the stance of the Clinton administration, which often tried to include the Saudis as a partner in the Oslo negotiations between Israeli leaders and Yasser Arafat.

In the past, Mr. Bush has urged the Saudis to reform their political system, which only this year allowed elections for half the seats on municipal councils and limited the voters to men. In March, the Saudi crown prince spoke with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and pressured him to withdraw his country’s troops from Lebanon, a task that was completed last week.

The Bush administration has also established high-level joint task forces with the Saudis to track the flow of private charity donations to international terrorist organizations. While those efforts have decreased some funding for al Qaeda, the Saudis are rumored to continue to fund anti-Israel terrorist groups such as Hamas.

“Even if oil miraculously drops to $30 a barrel, over the next 25 years, the U.S. will send over 3 trillion American dollars out of the country, much of it to regimes that don’t share our values,” Mr. Kerry said yesterday. “In the past, Hamas received almost half of its funding from Saudi Arabia. We know al Qaeda has relied on prominent Saudis for financing. And Saudi Arabia sponsors clerics who promote the ideology of terror.”