THE TELEGRAPH: Just what has come over the Saudis? For as long as anyone can remember, the House of Saud has been a model of discretion and reticence in its dealings with the outside world. Whenever the royal family has found itself having to deal with some unpleasant local difficulty, such as Saddam threatening to overrun their oil fields, or Osama bin Laden plotting to murder the king, its time-honoured response has been to reach for the chequebook and buy its way out of trouble. No publicity, no fuss.
Well, that was then. Nowadays, if you look at any of the key issues affecting the region, whether it is Iraq, Iran or the stalemate over Israel/Palestine, you'll invariably find the Saudis spear-heading some bold initiative to find a solution.
Take the talks they hosted last month to persuade the rival Hamas and Fatah Palestinian factions to stop the bloody infighting that nearly brought Gaza to the brink of all-out war.
Had it not been for the personal intervention of King Abdullah, the rival Palestinian groups would still be trying to resolve their differences through violence. But after he managed to persuade Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, and Mahmoud Abbas, the veteran Fatah activist who is nominally the Palestinians' president, to get together in the Saudi holy city of Mecca, the two sides agreed to patch up their differences and form a government of national unity - albeit one that still declines to recognise the right of Israel to exist.
Even more daring was the Saudi initiative this week to try to talk some sense into the nuclear-obsessed Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Saudi Arabia's hardline Sunni regime has always been a source of friction for the Shia zealots who seized control of Iran during the 1979 revolution, so much so that Iran's Revolutionary Guards were blamed by the Saudis for training the al-Qa'eda terror group that blew up the Americans' military base in Dhahran in 1996, killing 19 people and wounding 500.
Yet the new-look Saudis have been able to ignore the bad blood and laid on a lavish welcome for Mr Ahmadinejad. And, if Saudi reports are to be believed, the summit achieved a tangible result, with the Iranian president, who normally makes impassioned speeches calling for Israel's destruction, actually supporting an Arab peace plan to end the Israel-Palestinian crisis (although there was, strangely, no mention of this historic volte face in the official Iranian media). Prince Bandar shows the House of Saud how to punch its weight by Con Coughlin
Mark Alexander
2 comments:
Should be interseting to watch "Dispatches" on Monday, when they will be looking at a close pal of the Saudi experience, Prince Charles.
Saudi as "peace broker" is more of Saudi's attempting to gain more influence over the world. As if we need more of THAT!
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