Apropos 'Man who reshaped Saudi Arabia dies' carried by the newspaper as its main editorial on January 24, it has been argued, among other things, that "King Abdullah was not greatly impressed by the 'Arab Spring', his impression aptly vindicated by the rapid march of events in fellow Arab countries where that spring is now withering on the vine. King Abdullah could not escape the millenniums-long shadow of Arab-Ajam divide along the Gulf. Yes, he couldn't; because that was impossible for him. King Abdullah did not support Mohammad Morsi's elections but gave economic and political assistance to latter's successor General Sisi. He also extended support to the anti-Assad rebels in Syria for a different reason with a view to containing the growing influence of Tehran in the Arab world."
This does not sound to be a complete assessment of the late King's approach to various challenges and crises in North Africa and the Middle East. The 'Arab Spring' or popular uprisings received a fatal blow in Bahrain where the troops of the Arab Gulf Co-operation Council (AGCC) led by Saudi Arabia helped the Khalifas, the rulers of Bahrain, crush the uprising. Fearing the threat posed by the 'Arab Spring' Iran preferred to give only a calculated, measured and half-hearted response to the Saudi intervention, although both Tehran and Riyadh have been competing for influence in the region particularly since the removal of the Shah of Iran in the late 1970s. Bahrain, in other words, turned out to be a place of convergence of interests for both Saudi Arabia and Iran.