Though past presidents, including Barack Obama, have allied themselves with the Saudis, Trump has taken it to another level with his unqualified support.
Some officials worried that it would be hard to tread the fine line between solidarity with America and unqualified support for all retaliatory actions.
Several other cabinet members have also let it be known that they are unhappy with Britain's unqualified support for America, notably the leader of the Commons, Robin Cook.Unease in the cabinet is mirrored by opinion polls, which have repeatedly shown large majorities against a pre-emptive strike.
Only two of them offered unqualified support, with most of them opting for a "teach the controversy" approach.
Labor had demanded "complementary" protections for Australian jobs as a condition of support, but Abbott ruled out negotiations with the opposition and sought unqualified support.
Most politicians no doubt sigh inside and think pretty much exactly this when they're embarrassed by a crank whose unqualified support (and with it, the support of other cranks, perhaps in crucial swing states) they feel they need.
And their infighting, both with words and weapons, has long robbed them of unqualified support from the United States, let alone the international community.
But in an interview with the BBC, Hawking, a cosmologist and theoretical physicist, offered his unqualified support to those who feel their life is no longer tolerable.
Over the past few months, and particularly since the collapse of the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, Mrs. Merkel has made it plain to the Israeli government that it cannot expect unqualified support from Berlin if it allows the conflict with Palestinians to drag on.
They deserve our unqualified support.
