U.S. President George W. Bush heads to Saudi Arabia on Monday to encourage active support for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking by the Arab powerbroker and seek help in maintaining American pressure on Iran.
Bush will spend two nights in the Islamic kingdom, having already visited Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. He will go to Egypt before heading back to Washington on Wednesday.
His main message for Gulf Arab allies has been to support peace efforts and isolate Iran to contain its growing influence in the region, which is crucial to world crude oil supplies.
While Gulf Arabs want to curb their large Shi'ite neighbour, they also want to avoid another war on their doorstep.
Analysts say there are growing signs that America's Arab allies prefer to engage Iran, as Saudi Arabia did with its invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the haj. He was the first Iranian president to receive an official invitation to the annual Muslim pilgrimage.
The Bush administration said it had heard a different account of that invitation.
"We are told that Ahmadinejad, as he has done from time to time, invited himself," a senior administration official said.
"So if someone asks to come, the Saudis' view is, it's very difficult for them as the custodian of the two holy mosques, which is the whole point of the haj, for them to say no."
Bush has been sounding a warning about Iran as a threat in the region throughout this trip to the Middle East. In a speech in Abu Dhabi on Sunday he declared Iran a threat to world security and "the world's leading state sponsor of terror."
Before heading to the Gulf trade and tourism hub of Dubai, which has declared a national holiday due to the road closures imposed for his visit, Bush toured an exhibit on MASDAR, a planned renewable energy project in Abu Dhabi.
