In addition, after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Saudis stressed repeatedly that the first step toward ending the terrorism inspired by Osama bin Laden was to solve the Palestinian conflict, which inspires many in the Arab world to take up arms against the United States and its Arab allies.
Today, the message from the Saudis seemed clear. They coordinated an unprecedented Arab peace initiative toward Israel on the very day they also pushed through a surprise Kuwaiti-Iraqi reconciliation, suggesting that if the former problem could be solved, the Iraqi issue could, too.
"I think the Saudis are basically sending a message to the Americans to solve the Palestinian question and things will fall into place," said George Hawatmeh, the editor of the Jordanian daily Al Rai. "Take care of the Palestinian problem, the mother of all problems, and we will solve the rest in our own way. We will take care of Iraq."
This stance appeared unlikely to impress a Bush administration that sees an Iraq led by Saddam Hussein as a threat to regional and global stability. But Arab leaders are clearly determined to insist on the message already conveyed to Mr. Cheney: in light of escalating Israeli measures against the Palestinians, the very stability of their governments might not withstand another war in the region.
Attempts to reconcile Iraq and Kuwait at previous Arab summits failed — from the 1990 meeting immediately after the Iraqi invasion when a Kuwaiti sheik famously hurled plates at the Iraqi delegation to last year's summit in Amman, Jordan, when talks again collapsed. The annual gatherings of Arab heads of state were suspended throughout the 1990's because of the sour relations between Iraq and Kuwait. The Beirut meeting showed all the signs of following the usual pattern, with the Kuwaiti minister of state for foreign affairs summoning the press to his suite Monday to declare that Iraq was up to its old tricks.
But the existence of two major regional disputes — the Israeli-Palestinian turmoil and a looming conflict over Iraq — seems to have pushed through a compromise.
In order to avoid being attacked, the Iraqis were willing to be more flexible on Kuwaiti and other Arab demands. The other Arab states were eager to find a way to express their discontent over their perception that the United States is so little involved in the region that it could not even ensure the presence of Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, at the summit.
The Iraqis were openly gleeful that they had succeeded in getting what seems to amount, at least on paper, to an Arab shield. Their often dour ministers smiled broadly. "They consider any aggression against Iraq as an aggression on pan-Arab, national security," said Muhammad Sayed Sahhaf, the Iraqi minister of information. "It is very strong."
The main points of the Iraq-Kuwait entente were included in a separate document called The Beirut Declaration that also included the peace initiative toward Israel.
Iraq and Kuwait agreed to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the other, something Iraq has always refused to do in the past, viewing Kuwait as a lost province chopped off by colonial powers.