The reconciliation between Syria and Saudi Arabia, which dates back to January 2009, came under strain at the start of 2011 as their joint initiative to shore up political stability in Lebanon collapsed. The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and the Saudi king, Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz al-Saud, launched their initiative in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, in July 2010. This followed the threat by Hizbullah, a Lebanese Shia military and political group allied to Iran and Syria, to bring down the Lebanese national unity government if it did not disassociate itself from the UN-mandated tribunal investigating the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister, in 2005. Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, made this threat after declaring that he understood that members of his organisation would be indicted for the crime. Over the subsequent months, the Lebanese and Arab media speculated that the initiative would entail a trade-off whereby Saudi Arabia would persuade its ally, the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri (son of Rafiq), to distance himself and the government from the tribunal and to attach no political importance to its findings, while Syria would persuade its allies in Lebanon to remain in the government. Mr Hariri also took steps to reassure Syria, stating in a newspaper interview that he had been hasty in blaming Syria for his father's assassination.

In late December and early January the diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue intensified. Prince Abdel-Aziz bin Abdullah, a son of the Saudi king, shuttled between Damascus, the Syrian capital, and New York (where King Abdullah was convalescing after spinal surgery), and Mr Hariri held a series of meetings with US officials-including the president, Barack Obama-the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, and King Abdullah's entourage. Shortly before Mr Hariri's meeting with Mr Obama on January 12th, Mr Nasrallah announced that he and the remainder of his "March 8th" bloc had decided to resign from the Lebanese government. This spelled the end of the Saudi-Syrian initiative. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, made this explicit in an interview with al-Arabiya, a UAE-based television channel, on January 18th, saying that King Abdullah had spoken "head to head" with Mr Assad about the need to foster stability in Lebanon, but when it became clear that a solution was not possible he had decided to "lift his hand" from the question. Prince Saud provided a bleak assessment of what was likely to happen in Lebanon, expressing his fear that the basis for inter-sectarian understanding had been fatally undermined. His remarks suggested strongly that Saudi Arabia was dissatisfied with Syria's contribution to the supposed joint initiative: in Saudi eyes Syria had been either unable or unwilling to put sufficient pressure on its Lebanese allies to make them offer the concessions needed for a compromise solution.