In the wake of the Arab summit, Dina Ezzat talks to Amr Mousssa on the prospects of a Middle East peace and reflects on the growing role of Saudi diplomacy in the region The Riyadh factor Saudi Arabia is shifting gears, but is the region ready for a fast-tracked Riyadh leadership? It has become almost impossible not to find Saudi Arabia in any story reported on the Middle East for the regional or international press. Saudi Arabia has been increasing its volume, pace and depth of intervention in regional issues that it once dealt with only indirectly through regional or sub-regional forums like the Arab League or the three-way alliance that brought Riyadh, Damascus and Cairo together for the best part of the 1990s. Today, things are taking a completely different shape: Saudi Arabia is intervening in the Palestinian issue, Lebanese developments, the situation in Sudan and the crisis in Somalia. Saudi Arabia is also talking to Iran about its relations with the West and the rest of the Arab world and is talking with Iraqi factions about the chances of reconciliation and ending internal Shia-Sunni fighting. The Saudis are making proposals to upgrade the quality of Arab regional regime and are criticising the failure of Arabs to take destiny into their own hands. And now, as the newly-crowned leader for the Arab summit, Saudi Arabia seems set to make 2007 the year of Saudi diplomacy in the Middle East. "The regional order cannot continue the way it has been ... And we cannot blame the Arab League for the current situation since the league is only a reflection of our performance," Saudi Arabia's -- otherwise known as the Custodian of the Two Holy Shrines -- told Arab leaders during an inaugural speech before the Arab summit last week in Riyadh. The message that Abdullah hinted at came as no surprise to any Arab leader or other delegate who convened at the heavily-secured and extravagantly decorated Palace of Conferences in Riyadh. Arab diplomats who listened to Abdullah's down-to-earth and clearly confrontational -- "transparent" as Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faissal qualified it -- speech have been seeing a shift of dynamics across the Arab region for some while. "There is hardly a file that the Saudi are not involved in. They are talking to Palestinians about the future of their struggle for independence and they are listening from the Moroccans about their views on settling the Shara conflict. They are talking to the Iranians and Americans -- maybe even mediating. They have involved themselves in every crucial regional issue," commented one Cairo-based Arab diplomat. According to this and other Arab diplomats who attended the Riyadh summit, the picture was very clear. Saudi Arabia is now in the driving seat, even though it may not wish to get too much attention for it. "Look at who was talking to who during the summit. Everybody was talking to the Saudis and this is not just because they chaired the Arab summit. This is because these delegations that approach the Saudis know very well that Saudi Arabia can deliver," commented one diplomat who requested anonymity. He added that this is not just the approach of Arab delegations but is equally the attitude of foreign leaders who have been showing greater interest in communicating their views to Riyadh. "It is true that they will stop in Cairo or some other Arab capital but it is in Riyadh that they tend to think that business could be done," argued another Arab diplomat. Indeed, this week Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert singled the Saudi monarch from other Arab heads of state when he made statements asking for meetings with Arab leaders. After all, it was the Saudi King who proposed the Arab peace initiative that was adopted by the Arab summit in 2002. Today, has given his aides, especially chief of intelligence Bandar Bin Sultan, a green light to explore with all parties the chances of reviving this initiative and a clinically moribund Arab-Israeli peace process. "This is not just because the Americans have asked for help from Riyadh to move things forward," commented one Saudi source on condition of anonymity, "it is also because Saudi Arabia believes it in the interest of the stability of the region to see an end to the chronic Arab-Israeli struggle." According to this source, the Saudis were content for a while to provide moral and financial support to others to worry about the stability of the region but recently felt this stability increasingly challenged. "This king is different from previous kings. He is direct. He decided that he would interfere and he did," the source added. One indicator of the growing role of Saudi diplomacy was the Mecca Accord struck, in February, that gave rise to a Palestinian national unity government. The Mecca deal alerted Americans to a Saudi diplomacy that appears slowly to be parting ways with the US agenda in the Middle East. But it is not only in the US and Israel that eyebrows are being lifted. In Egypt, too, there was a certain sense of shock among the intelligencia that Saudi Arabia is now managing the situation in Egypt's immediate backyard "in the absence of Egyptian intervention". From official Cairo, the reaction was contained, but some Egyptian officials expressed a sense of unease over the Mecca deal, especially in view of the fact that the Egyptian security delegation based in Gaza for close on two years was not invited to take part, even as an observer, in the Mecca talks, or at the signing ceremony. Some were, and are still, sceptical that the Mecca Accord will hold, arguing that without clear support from the Egyptian security delegation in Gaza, Hamas and Fatah fighters are bound to clash again. But the score Saudi Arabia registered with the Mecca Accord was not a one-off. Only a few weeks before, Saudi Arabia -- who had asked Egypt last year to host the 2007 Arab summit in its capacity as the seat of the Arab League -- backtracked and asked to host the summit in Riyadh "in view of the complexity of the regional situation". A few weeks later, it was Saudi Arabia -- now described by the Western press as the strongest Arab Sunni regime -- who was intervening in the Lebanese crisis and trying to mend fences between the Sunni minority government and a Shia majority opposition. Indeed, last December hosted an unprecedented meeting with representatives of the Shia Lebanese resistance group Hizbullah. Prior to this, Riyadh was closely monitoring the efforts of Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa in mediating a settlement in Lebanon. And last week in Riyadh, it was with the Saudi monarch that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, who still carries considerable political weight in Lebanon, spent four hours attempting to mend fences, after having angered Arab leaders with statements indicating that some of them were "half men". At the end of the meeting, informed sources say, Bashar promised Abdullah that he would use his influence over the pro- Syria camp in Lebanon to show flexibility to reach a settlement on power sharing in the country. In the coming weeks, Saudi Arabia is also planning to host meetings on developments in Darfur, an issue discussed at length during a meeting hosted by the Saudi king on the fringe of the Riyadh summit with the presence of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and the chiefs of the UN, African Union and the Arab League. Saudi Arabia is also planning a meeting on Somalia. And as Saudi Foreign Minister Al-Faissal told the US weekly magazine Newsweek, Saudi Arabia is also trying to convince Tehran to meet the US half-way on a settlement of the Iranian nuclear standoff. Speaking to the Weekly, American diplomats based in the Middle East said it is the belief in Washington that the role of Riyadh is likely to increase rather than to decrease as some Arab capitals may wish to see. "There is a certain kind of sensitivity in some Arab capitals, but it is a fact that the Saudis are now assuming a bigger regional role than ever before." This is not necessarily something that the Americans mind, especially that the US is now looking for a force, preferably Sunni, to balance against Tehran. Indeed, in support of the Saudi role, sources say, Washington has lowered the volume of its criticism of Saudi Arabia's human rights and women's rights record. Meanwhile, there is a consensus among Arab and American officials that the real test for Saudi regional influence is the Iraq file. American diplomats say that while they would appreciate any Saudi diplomatic effort that could lead to a breakthrough on the Palestinian front, the Americans are soliciting Saudi influence on -- or rather to get out of -- Iraq. What the Americans have asked of Saudi Arabia, as the now-acknowledged Arab- Muslim lead state, is to contemplate ways to allow for Sunni-Shia reconciliation in Iraq to contain sectarian bloodshed there. The Saudis, American sources say, can do it, if anybody can. The rationale is simple: the Saudis have influence, moral and financial, over Sunni groups in Iraq if they have contacts with Iran that could influence Shia groups. If Saudi diplomacy passes the Iraq test it would indeed have earned the recognition of regional players as the new heart of regional leadership.
