Middle East & Africa | Saudi Arabia and America

Saudi Arabia's blinking yellow light

Prince Saud manages to tell George Bush yes and no and maybe

|cairo

THE essence of diplomacy is to signal left when you plan to turn right. But as pressure mounts in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, which crucially backed America in the 1991 Gulf war against Iraq, and again in Afghanistan, appears to be signalling two ways at once and going nowhere.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Saudi Arabia's blinking yellow light”

By George!

From the November 9th 2002 edition

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