DENIAL IS A RIVER in Arabia, not Egypt. The proof of this axiom came Friday. In place of a serious assessment of the Saudi kingdom’s increasing loss of credibility, deeply aggravated by the bombings in Riyadh this week, the oleaginous Adel al-Jubeir once again held a press conference at the grim, fortress-like Saudi Embassy in Washington, to blame the woes of the desert oil sheiks on . . . American critics of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Al-Jubeir began, as always, with the claim that the United States and Saudi Arabia are joined together as targets of the terrorists. He recited the litany of measures taken by the royal authorities to suppress terrorism. According to him and his master, Saudi ambassador Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, banking practices have been reformed. People (never identified, as usual) have been arrested. Arms have been seized. Why, he asked plaintively, do some say we have done nothing? He denounced anonymous “U.S. government” officials who complained of Saudi laxity in dealing with terrorists.