International attention has recently been diverted from the civil war in Syria and the global struggle against the Islamic State by the escalation in the confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The recent actions by Saudi Arabia in the international arena – including an energy policy that is in sync with the drop in oil prices, the war in Yemen, declaration of the establishment of a coalition of Muslim countries to fight the Islamic State, hints of measures in the nuclear realm, and the attempt to create a Sunni Arab coalition...
For years, the Saudi royal house was able to cope with considerable internal and external challenges, thanks to its ability to achieve a consensus among senior princes and to moderate internal tension with the help of oil revenues. The accumulation of the challenges during a period of regional upheaval and historical internal changes, however, is liable to nurture processes that will eventually change the kingdom. There is no way of predicting when, if at all, the turning point will come. Therefore, decision makers in Israel should...
The drop in oil prices of 55 percent over the past year stems from a classic supply and demand imbalance. The singular aspect of the current slump in the oil market is its occurrence at the height of the Middle East upheavals. This convergence of factors is problematic for the Gulf monarchies, and even more so for the nations economically connected to them. The high oil prices and foreign currency reserves from the outbreak of the unrest until 2014 helped the regimes in the Gulf maintain their citizens’ high standard of living. The...
The nuclear agreement reached by the major powers with Iran is not good news for Saudi Arabia, because the agreement means that Iran, Riyadh’s main ideological and geo-strategic rival, has received international recognition as a nuclear threshold state. Saudi Arabia regards this highly significant development as evidence of Iran’s growing power. In addition to the “technical” significance of the agreement, the kingdom fears that the deal is an opening to an Iranian-American rapprochement at the expense of its own relations with the...
The coming years will likely see a test of relations between the US and the Gulf states. Nonetheless, it is doubtful whether the conciliatory declarations of the recent summit and the sale of advanced weapons will be enough to put the relations back on track and alleviate the monarchies’ anxiety about what they view as the mistaken strategic direction pursued by the US toward Iran. Still, it is possible that the summit contributed to an understanding by the administration that it must devise a policy to roll back Iranian involvement...
It may well be the case that convergent threat assessments do facilitate some covert contact between the security echelons of Israel and some of the Arab states concerned about the shadow of Iranian hegemony, and the potential may exist for expanded ties. But the added value of more intense and/or overt ties is not self-evident, and it could reasonably be argued that the potential benefits to Israel of a real regional approach are too modest to justify the soul-searching and domestic political tensions that would inevitably ensue....
It has been a long time since Arab countries managed to unite for the sake of taking substantive action, especially military, in order to defend their own interests. However, Iran’s efforts to penetrate various arenas and expand its influence throughout the region are an ominous threat to at least some Arab states. Therefore, one can already speak of a collective Arab achievement in light of the Arab nations’ ability to come together to deal with the inherent threat of increased Iranian influence in the region. The Saudi-led...
The attempt to establish a Sunni pact against the background of the challenges created by the turmoil in the Arab world and the strengthening of Iran’s power in the region is not new. Moreover, Turkey and Saudi Arabia do not have a tradition of good relations in order to forge stronger relations at the current time. There have been some periods in which their relationship has been closer, such as the period between 2005 and the first signs of turmoil in the Arab world, but these were exceptions, not the norm. However, because Riyadh...
While an arrangement that leaves Iran as a nuclear threshold state may be the lesser of all evils for the United States, it can be expected to be very bad for Israel. A signed agreement of this sort will widen the existing disputes between the Israeli government and the US administration, as well as the gaps in positions on how to deal with Iran. A dangerous shadow may be cast over the strategic relations between Israel and the US. At the same time, Israel stands to gain certain advantages with an agreement that stops Iran at the...
