A Desert's Lion in Winter

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Great pic of Abdullah and Hosni. I should comment that it is of great interest to me that there seems to be a budding amity between Ehud and Abdullah.

April 9, 2007 issue - Saudi Arabia's king Abdullah often has the weary air of a simple man who's lived long enough to see it all, and in many ways he has. When he was born more than 80 years ago, his father had yet to found the nation Abdullah rules. No oil flowed from beneath the sands, and Israel didn't exist. And yet, senior Saudi princes tell NEWSWEEK, Abdullah is surprised and angered by the disastrous turmoil that now afflicts the region. He's grown disillusioned with Saudi Arabia's longtime ally, the United States. He is frustrated with the fecklessness of a divided Arab world.

As if by default, the old son of the desert is now trying to lead on virtually every sensitive issue from the peace process to Darfur. Bush administration officials have yet to decide whether Abdullah's new activism ultimately will support U.S. policy or undermine it, and some privately suggest they're baffled. Why would Abdullah tell the summit of Arab kings and presidents he convened in Riyadh last week that "in Iraq blood flows between brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation"? While the Saudis opposed the 2003 invasion, they've insisted the United States should stay and fix what it broke. But by distancing himself from Washington, Abdullah gains credibility in the vital fight against Tehran for Arab hearts and minds.

The Saudis see President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's incendiary rhetoric against Israel, his backing for Hizbullah and his support for Hamas as crass bids to win support not only among the region's Shiites but also among the Sunnis. At the same time, Tehran's race to become a nuclear power is a threat to Saudi Arabia's influence, if not its survival, and a provocation to George W. Bush. "Do you think those U.S. warships are out there on vacation?" Abdullah warned Ahmadinejad when they met recently, according to sources close to the royal family. Abdullah's sense of urgency about the Iranian threat goes back at least to September 2005, when "Iraq being presented to the Iranians on a silver platter" by U.S. policy, says Turki al-Faisal, then ambassador to Washington. His brother, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, met with Bush last May to press Saudi concerns. "We have two nightmares," Saud told the president, according to Turki. "One is that Iran will develop a nuclear bomb, and the other is that America will take military action to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb."

Newsweak