U.S. President George W. Bush escorts Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to his private office on his ranch, April 25, 2005, in Crawford, Texas.
How low have America's fortune in the Middle East sunk? So low that we're staking our hopes for the region on ... Saudi Arabia. In the past month, Saudi King Abdullah has emerged as the most energetic dealmaker in the Middle East, brokering a tentative power-sharing agreement between rival Palestinian factions and mediating between the pro-Western government in Beirut and representatives of Hizballah, who want to topple it. Riyadh is also suppressing the price of oil, in what many observers see as a bid to undermine Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by starving his government of cash. And the Saudis have quietly...
