Doha, Qatar • U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has arrived in the Middle East for several days of diplomacy, and he's hoping to achieve something that's eluded top American diplomats for a generation.
That goal is sealing a new alliance between Saudi Arabia and Iraq that would shut the doors of the Arab world to neighboring Iran.
The United States already is trying to heal the rift between the Gulf Arab states and Qatar, and resolve civil wars in Yemen and Syria.
Tillerson is the Trump administration's point man on an even more ambitious and perhaps even less likely geopolitical gambit.
U.S. officials see a new Saudi-Iraqi alliance as key to countering Iran's growing influence across the region.
But history, religion and lots of politics are standing in Tillerson's way.
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