May 4, 1987. This photo, via Saudi Press Agency, shows Saudi Arabian King Fahd having successfully gotten bitter rivals Moroccan King Hassan II and Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid into the same room to discuss their proxy war in Western Sahara. The room in question was actually one of several tents erected on the Morocco-Algeria border for the summit.
Saudi Press Agency has resurrected the photo in a retrospective on diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Algeria given the Crown Prince's visit there today -- under very different circumstances.
As this Washington Post story, contemporaneous with the 1987 summit, notes, this was an energetic period for Saudi diplomacy, as they also got Hafez al-Assad and Saddam Hussein the same room in Jordan -- all part of an effort to air the grievances before an Arab summit.
It would take a few more years before things somewhat de-escalated to a cold peace between Algeria and Morocco. But just over three years after that other below-the-radar meeting between Hafez al-Assad and Saddam Hussein, George HW Bush would be convincing al-Assad to join his coalition against Saddam Hussein. Luckily, no one was sufficiently dug in to previous positions to impede the necessary adjustment.
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