ABDALLAH'S TASK HAS JUST BEGUN: HELP FOR IRAQ AND SYRIA

The Saudi governmental establishment has known that it could not ignore any issue of concern to the Arab public. But Usama bin Laden and September 11 have given zest to that hypothesis. After all, that governmental establishment had allowed one of its politicians to hijack pan-arab issues, under the guise of Islam. Usama Bin Laden and the Islamists he headed had read the Saudi and Arab people better than many. They understood the centrality of the Palestinian agony to their very identity. And the suffering of the Iraqi people wasn't far behind. From now on, in the midst of the heaviest American direct intervention and expansion of its presence in the Arab world, any Arab government allied to the United States could ill afford to ignore the suffering of any part of the Arab people.

Thus, in Beirut, at the Arab summit conference, Saudi Arabia and Iraq made up. That has put an end to the cold war that had been waged by the two countries, and which could be seen in the press of each.
Hearing the message from its citizenry, the Kingdom had expressed its opposition to the use by the U.S. of the Prince Sultan Air Force base as a launch pad for an invasion of Iraq. In response, the United States has been shifting its resources to an air base in Qatar: Al Udeid. (SPC notes that Qatar would not have offered its base without a Saudi wink.)

The Israeli government continues to provide the Kingdom with yet more sources for strengthening its connection to its people. It has been reported recently that the Sharon government has opened a new project for settlement on the Golan Heights. This project would make available one thousand housing units in the eighteen settlements already present in the Golan. And so, soon, the Kingdom would have the opportunity to expand its list of sources of legitimacy, by minding the issue of Israel's expansion of its colonies on Syrian land.