Saudi Arabia’s strange war: Appease Iran, rebuff Israel

Nearly 50 years ago, Jimmy Carter readied tactical nukes to stop Soviet forces from seizing revolutionary Iran and the Gulf’s oil crown. Gulf regimes have since hidden behind America’s shield, which liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in 1991. But as US interest in the region waned, some Gulf nations rushed to embrace muscular Israel to confront their shared enemy: Islamic Iran. Saudi-Israeli normalization once seemed all but inevitable, until Tehran unleashed a barrage of missiles on Saudi energy sites. Riyadh’s response? It cowered in silence and begged Iran for mercy.

Saudi Arabia’s reaction to Iran’s assault defied logic. Riyadh issued ritual denunciations of Tehran’s belligerence and once summoned the Iranian ambassador. Yet, it refused to sever diplomatic ties, the decisive step taken by its much smaller neighbor, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). On the morning after the April 8 ceasefire, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi placed calls to the foreign ministers of the five Gulf states Tehran had battered for more than five weeks: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE. Only the Saudis took the call.

Even as one of Iran’s primary victims, Riyadh positioned itself as a neutral arbiter. It expressed vague “concern over escalation” and urged “self-restraint” from all sides, as if Iran had not struck at least four Saudi energy installations, inflicting billions worth of damage.

Turki al-Faisal, King Salman’s nephew and former chief of intelligence and ambassador to Washington, wrote an article headlined “This Is How [Crown Prince] Muhammad Bin Salman Succeeded,” arguing that by not responding to Iran, Saudi Arabia foiled an Israeli conspiracy to destroy the region and emerge as the only power standing.

“If the Israeli plan had succeeded in igniting a war between us and Iran, the region would have been transformed into a state of total ruin and destruction… in a battle that was none of our concern whatsoever,” al-Faisal wrote. “Israel would have succeeded in imposing its will on the region and would have remained the sole actor in our entire surroundings.”

The hypocrisy is staggering. In December, Saudi Arabia deployed its air force to pound Emirati-backed Yemeni factions that dared challenge Riyadh’s monopoly on power. Yet when Iran launched its largest direct assault on Saudi soil since Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles rained on Riyadh in 1991, the kingdom chose paralysis.

Al-Faisal blamed “voices of journalists in our region and Western media” for trying to drag Riyadh into the inferno that would have cost it “the loss of thousands of lives of our sons and daughters” and “Saudi desalination plants.”

But the explanation collapses under scrutiny. Every Gulf state, including Iran itself, depends on vulnerable coastal desalination plants. Iran’s own dependence on desalination plants should have created a deterrent: any strike on Saudi water infrastructure could have been answered in kind. Yet, Riyadh chose fear instead of throwing its lot behind America and Israel and making continued war harder for Iran.

Saudi Arabia’s selective weakness is even more revealing in its treatment of Israel. Far from drawing Riyadh closer to the Jewish state against their common Iranian foe, the kingdom’s cravenness toward Tehran coincided with renewed hostility toward Jerusalem and anything connected to it. When Israel appointed a non-resident ambassador to Somaliland, an obscure diplomatic footnote, Riyadh erupted in outrage, lobbying a dozen Arab and Islamic nations to join a blistering joint condemnation. The message was unmistakable: weakness before Iran, aggression toward Israel.

Since 2015, under King Salman and his son Mohammed, aka MBS, the kingdom appeared to be steadily moving toward normalization with Israel. Even after the October 7 massacre and the ensuing Gaza war, Saudi officials insisted the conflict had not derailed the process, only postponed it. Normalization, they repeated, would resume swiftly once the fighting subsided. Then came the reversal.

Starting in summer 2025, Saudi media and pundits, all state-directed, flipped their script. Riyadh no longer demanded merely a “credible pathway” toward a Palestinian state; it now insisted on the creation of a fully sovereign Palestinian state before any peace talks. Normalization was pegged to an outcome that remains politically impossible.

By autumn 2025, Saudi hostility had broadened to include the UAE and the Abraham Accords. Riyadh’s feud with Abu Dhabi paused only during active hostilities with Iran, then roared back with fresh venom after the ceasefire. Riyadh has abandoned the pragmatic “Saudi First” doctrine that once subordinated ideological differences to economic gain. It now chases populist applause by waving the Palestinian flag.

The only coherent explanation is domestic failure. Saudi Arabia’s economy is stumbling. Budget deficit for the first quarter of 2026 hit a record $34 billion. Vision 2030 lies in ruins. Oil remains the lifeblood, and structural reforms have stalled.

Rather than emulate Dubai’s model of a nimble, knowledge-based economy and partner with Israel’s innovative sectors, Riyadh has chosen scapegoats. Blaming Israel and the UAE for sowing “chaos and discord” across the region offers a convenient distraction from homegrown shortcomings. It is a tired tactic, perfected by Nasser and Sisi in Egypt, Erdogan in Turkey, and Khamenei in Iran: beat your chest at external enemies to mask domestic weakness, but only enemies you know will not come after you, like Israel. Thugs like Islamic Iran? Be nice to them.

Saudi Arabia is hurtling in the wrong direction. Its leaders rarely welcome candid advice, often mistaking it for hostile propaganda. Yet they would do well to remember an Arabic proverb: “Your friend is the one who is honest with you, not the one who believes you.”

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a non-partisan organization focused on national security and foreign policy.