The attempt by the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, to enlist its support in the campaign to overthrow President Saddam Hussein of Iraq has been rejected by Saudi Arabia.
The US was "working actively" to bring down Saddam, Ms Albright said on Thursday at Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh, on a visit aimed at enlisting closer Saudi support.
The Saudi daily, Okaz, which reflects opinions of a government which rarely proclaims its line, stated flatly: "Saudi Arabia does not support any foreign party in changing the regime in Iraq because such a change should be carried out by the Iraqi people."
The rest of the Saudi press echoed Okaz. And al-Khaleej, the most influential daily in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), warned that US policy was "a surefire recipe for civil war in Iraq and crises in the entire region".
Instead of confrontation and subversion, the President of the UAE, Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan alNahyan, has called for reconciliation and the lifting of sanctions. This is the policy also adopted by the ailing King Hussein of Jordan.
The Gulf governments are particularly wary of US plans to overthrow the Iraqi government for two reasons. First, Washington's co-operation with Saudi Arabia in ousting the Soviet Union from Afghanistan led to an unending bloody civil war in that country and its takeover by the radical Islamist Taliban.
US-Saudi co-operation against Mr Saddam could produce a similar civil war in Iraq because Shia groupings with Iranian connections are the most likely to act. This could lead to the disintegration of Iraq and draw in neighbouring states, particularly Iran, where the conservatives could resume their efforts to export their "Islamic revolution" to the Gulf states.
Second, the campaign against the Soviet Union was mounted by an army of Islamist radicals recruited in many Muslim states. After the Afghan war, these holy warriors returned to their native countries determined to transform them into "Islamic states" modelled on the seventh-century citystate created by the Prophet Muhammad at Medina.
While the six-year insurgency by the Armed Islamic Groups (GIA) in Algeria is the most dramatic development of what can be called the "Afghan effect" or "Afghan syndrome", veterans of the Afghan war have been stirring up trouble in Saudi Arabia itself and in other Muslim countries.
The Saudi dissident, Mr Osama bin Laden, who has been accused by Washington of planning the bombings of the US embassies in Africa last year and other terrorist actions, is the world's most prominent "Afghan".