The dispute has been taken to the International Court of Justice but it is being seen in the Gulf as an ominous sign of Iranian assertiveness.Nor can the Saudis forget the violent history of Iranian participation in the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca, for which each side blames the other.According to the Interior Minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi authorities four years ago detected a group of would-be revolutionaries who, he said, had received weapons and explosives training in Iran. “All the Gulf Co-operation Council states have tried to establish excellent relationships with Iran.”Despite these protestations, the GCC is set on a collision course with Tehran over Iranian claims to three islands in the Gulf which are also claimed by the United Arab Emirates. It is clear that the focus of Saudi concern has shifted away from Saddam Hussein’s broken and bankrupt Iraq. In conversations with ministers, bankers, oil industry experts and political analysts one consistent new preoccupation emerged: the future of Iran, whose oil economy is in decay and whose revolutionary government is facing dissension and international isolation.”We have tried to improve our relations with Iran in spite of the fact that there are real problems,” said the minister. But he did not conceal the kingdom’s continuing worry about its unpredictable neighbours.

During a lengthy interview in his office at the foreign ministry Prince Saud sketched out the concerns the Saudi government harbours about its security and – by Saudi standards – gave an unusually frank public assessment of its priorities.”One thing we can safely say,” said Prince Saud, “is that the threats to security and stability in the Gulf do not come from outside but from within the region.” That is Saudi diplomatic code for the twin worries of Iraq and Iran.Like other ministers and senior members of the royal family, Prince Saud played down the impact of fundamentalist opposition at home. The first is whether it can keep its domestic political structure intact. The second is whether the vast quantity of arms it buys from the West can ever satisfy what one academic has aptly called its “ceaseless search for security”.Both issues are of concern to Britain. It is playing a low-key part in edging forward the Middle East peace negotiations that began with the Madrid conference and it is encouraging Israel and the Palestinians to solidify their deal.

“Our com m itment is there because we have a stake in the peace,” Prince Saud said, “even though quite honestly the Israelis are going against the spirit and the letter of the agreement.”
At the same time the Saudi monarchy continues to play the murky game of inter-Arab politics, armed with a slightly thinner cheque book and the unspoken but effective shield of American military support.Two critical questions confront Saudi Arabia. “Saudi Arabia is a Gulf country,” he observed, “but it is also a Red Sea country and a Middle Eastern country.” The kingdom is still reeling from the financial and social effects of the 1991 Gulf war. Many foreign ministers occasionally feel that they have to look in all directions at once but Prince Saud al-Faisal, the urbane, Western-educated Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, could be forgiven were he in a state of permanent distraction. The suit is brought on behalf of Peter Castano, a New Orleans lawyer who died of lung cancer last year after a lifetime of smoking, and two other smokers who say they could not quit despite hypnotism, acupuncture and the use of nicotine patches.. Recently, 17 of them won $4.25bn for the victims of silicone breast implants and took $1bn in fees.The suit is registered as Castano v The American Tobacco company, but seven of the largest American tobacco companies are named. Using thousands of pages of newly discovered tobacco company internal documents, the lawyers claim the companies “have known for decades on the basis of their own long-concealed research and testing that nicotine is addictive”.The lawyers are known as the “Equalisers”. They fund cases for disaster victims, and earn huge fees from increasingly higher awards.