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Beyond Riyalpolitik

SAUDI King Abdullah’s visit to the UK comes at an eventful time for Middle East politics, and the new proactive Saudi position in safeguarding the region’s interests. With hosting the Hamas-Fatah Makkah peace dialogue in February and then Iran’s President Ahmadinejad in March figuring as initial key indicators, King Abdullah’s foreign policy imperatives apparently feature a pronounced shift in Saudi Arabia’s political equation.

The kingdom has clearly moved from traditional status-quo preservation to pronounced involvement in international, especially regional, affairs as the overall political dynamics of the Gulf undergo an unprecedented metamorphosis.

It is important to note that while the exchange will predominantly feature the usual – trade talks, education/health sector participation, improving diplomatic interaction, etc, present day compulsions dictate that war on terror related issues take centre stage as the two kingdoms sit down ahead of the west’s Israel-Palestine specific peace initiative in November. Therefore it is little surprise that King Abdullah has done some straight talking ahead of the visit, holding UK authorities responsible for not acting on advance information that could have foiled the London attacks, besides chiding the west for not taking his proposal for a UN clearing house for information on terrorism more seriously.

Until recently, the Saudi establishment saw little reason to budge out of its conventional mould, acting as the centre of dominant Muslim tradition in addition to wielding wider Riyalpolitik influence as world oil’s central banker. But under King Abdullah, the kingdom’s authority within the Muslim brethren and business relations with the west have justified a role of far greater responsibility. Riyadh is the new voice of reason as the Middle East’s principal players are found grudgingly sleepwalking into potential regional Armageddon.

With Iraq’s crisis constantly deepening, Iran still bearing with the assault on its uranium enrichment programme, Lebanon still the proxy battlefield for outside forces, Palestinians yet without intrinsic hope of a better future and Syrian-Israeli friction again on the rise, the Saudi factor’s frantic maneuvering in addressing the battered regional equilibrium is of fundamental importance.

Like Riyadh, other Gulf capitals should urgently tailor respective policies into a collective stance that can do a better job of protecting the region’s prime concerns.