Saudi Arabia is reconciling with regimes it once tried to topple

admit , but that is precisely what the Saudi foreign minister did on February 18th at the Munich Security Conference, an annual security gabfest. The kingdom has sought to keep Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s blood-soaked dictator, a pariah. Asked about rumours that his country may change course, though, Prince Faisal bin Farhan hinted that Mr Assad’s isolation was nearing an end. “There is a consensus growing that the status quo is not workable,” he said.Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia has spent tens of billions of dollars working to overthrow two unfriendly regimes: , and that of , a Shia rebel group that controls much of Yemen. In the coming months it will probably admit that both efforts have failed. This is not because the Saudis have developed an affinity for their foes. Rather it is another sign of how the kingdom, like some of its Gulf neighbours, increasingly sees the rest of the Arab world as a tiresome nuisance.