Your Rorschach Middle East story of the week

USA Today's Barbara Slavin reports on how Iran's perceived rise is causing some unusual movements Arab-Israeli relations: Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, are making some of their most public overtures ever to Israel and American Jews in an effort to undercut Iran's growing influence, contain violence in Iraq and Lebanon and push for a Palestinian solution. The high-profile gestures coincide with Saudi Arabia's lead role last week in brokering a deal for a coalition Palestinian government. Last month, Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's departing ambassador to the United States, attended a Washington reception sponsored by American Jewish organizations. The event honored a State Department diplomat appointed to combat anti-Semitism. The appearance of a Saudi diplomat is "unprecedented," said William Daroff, Washington office director for the United Jewish Communities, which organized the reception. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have stepped up contacts with Israel and pro-Israel Jewish groups in the USA. The outreach has the Bush administration's blessing: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said six Gulf states and Egypt, Jordan and Israel are a new alignment of moderates to oppose extremists backed by Iran and Syria. She has said an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal would weaken militants such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Contacts have intensified as part of a strategy meant to undercut extremists and build momentum for a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, said Jamal Kashoggi, an aide to Saudi Prince Turki. Judith Kipper, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said, "What really concerns pro-U.S. Arab states is that Iran is setting the political agenda in the region." Saudi and Gulf Arab contacts with Israelis and American Jews go back more than a decade but have never been so public. Slavin's story comes out the same day Anthony Shadid analyzes rising Sunni-Shia tensions in the Washington Post (though do check out this Abu Arrdvark post to see whether the Sunni-Shia divide has been exaggerated.) OK, time for your Rorschach test on international relations. What's the best way to interpret Slavin's story? A) An exaggeration of a meaningless PR offensive; B) The ultimate vindication of realism -- if the Saudis and Israelis choose to balance against a rising Iran, then perhaps the distribution of power is really the Most Important Thing in world politics; C) The ultimate refutation of realism. After all, many realists assert that Israel is far more powerful than Iran -- so why are the Saudis bandwagoning rather than balancing? D) Strong support for "The Israel Lobby" hypothesis -- the Saudis are cutting through the democratic rigamarole and negotiating with the cabal that runs U.S. foreign policy E) Evidence to reject "The Israel Lobby" argument -- if American support for Israel is ostensibly undercutting America's standing in the Middle East, why the reaching out to Jews and Israelis? F) Forget birth pangs, the new Middle East is here!! The Saudis are taking constructive steps to solve the Israeli/Palestinian crisis, the Arabian peninsula seems to be in synch with moderate Arab regimes to thwart the Shia crescent. G) Meet the new Middle East -- same as the old Middle East. I wonder if it bothers the administration that the Shia crescent states, as a group, can make a greater claim for democratic representativeness than the Sunni Middle East (admittedly, not a high threshhold). H) The U.S. has eliminated moral hazard in the Middle East. By getting bogged down in Iraq, the American appetite for further Middle East adventurism has waned considerably. This actually forces the states in the region to make their own accommodations.