The tall, stately Prince Saud was a fixture of Mideast diplomacy, representing the oil-rich Gulf powerhouse as it wielded its influence in crisis after crisis shaking the region — from Lebanon's civil war in the 1970s and 1980s, through multiple rounds of Arab-Israeli peace efforts, the 1990 Iraqi invasion of neighboring Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War, al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to the current day's tensions between the Arab Gulf bloc and Iran, Arab Spring uprisings, Syria's civil war and the spread of Islamic State group extremists.