Photo Gallery Not What it Seems
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, arriving at the G20 summit in Toronto on June 26. Arab interests in the Middle East are not wholly out of line with Jerusalem's or Washington's.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States recently said that a nuclear-armed Iran would be unacceptable to his nation. The remark raised eyebrows, because it aligned an Arab state with US and Israeli policy against Tehran. But the ambassador had simply expressed "the standard position of many Arab countries," according Middle East expert and journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who moderated the panel discussion.
Saudi Arabia has long been wary of its neighbor across the Persian Gulf. "Israel's agenda has its limits," Saudi cleric Mohsen al-Awaji told SPIEGEL, noting that Israel was interested mainly in self-defense. "But Iran's agenda is global."
