Over the past decade successive U.S. administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have been disastrously short-sighted and self-defeating in their dealings with the Saudis. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's failure to assuage Saudi concerns about the then-collapsing global oil price in 1998-9 drove Riyadh into Iran's arms for a highly successful production-limiting agreement that restored the global clout of OPEC.
So far, current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has echoed Albright's incompetence in dealing with the desert kingdom. But Annapolis will be doomed unless she wakes up fast.
Saudi King Abdullah has made very clear over the past month of his willingness to play a far larger and more positive role in the peace process. The king's unprecedented meeting with Pope Benedict XVI declared to the world his determination to try and avert the suicidal nightmare of a war of civilizations between the Christian and Muslim worlds, and of his readiness to run major risks with Arab public opinion in order to do so.
The king's leadership at the latest OPEC summit in Riyadh was also a model of courageous and constructive statesmanship. He stood up to the Iranians and the Venezuelans in asserting that the revived economic power of the global oil cartel should be used moderately and wisely. All this signals Saudi willingness as well as capability to play a major constructive role at Annapolis.
The Saudi position on the greatest danger facing the Middle East today - the continuing stand-off between the United States and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program - is also clear-cut, practical and constructive. It is that Washington should take an active lead in containing Iran and discouraging it from any reckless actions, but that the U.S. should also take pains to defuse tensions, enter into a constructive dialog, and make clear it is moving away from the risk of stumbling into a catastrophic war with the Islamic republic.
The stated goal of the U.S. and Israel is to revive the credibility of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to make the West Bank a successful and attractive society for Palestinians in contrast to what Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, is doing in Gaza. After years of ignoring Abbas' warnings and seeking to undermine him at every turn, such a policy should be welcomed as better late than never. But it cannot hope to succeed without very substantial Saudi financial support.
Bush and Rice therefore can only gain from embracing King Abdullah as a major partner and player in the peace process: They should be under no illusion that they can advance it without him.