![]() The greatest promise of the Iran-Saudi Arabia normalization is peace in Yemen. But so far, it looks like the Iranians are leveraging normalization to press their regional advantage rather than diminish tensions. The Beijing-brokered agreement is only three months old. A tour around the region, from Syria to Israel’s borders to the Strait of Hormuz, indicates the opposite. Yet despite the planned exchange of ambassadors and an invitation from Saudi King Salman to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to visit Saudi Arabia, de-escalation has not happened. Greater dialogue and cooperation between the Saudis and Iranians is positive, of course. Others suggested that the agreement could provide a range of benefits beyond the conflict zones, including an end to Iran’s meddling in Bahrain, renewed Saudi investment in Iran, and even improved chances for nuclear nonproliferation. The well-respected Economist Intelligence Unit best summed up this view, declaring, “Greater dialogue and co-operation between Saudi Arabia and Iran rather than antagonism and active support for rival factions would remove an important destabilising dynamic from the region’s conflict zones”-though the unnamed authors acknowledged that violence remained possible. ![]() ![]() Even though the Chinese-sponsored deal was an apparent blow to the United States’ status in the Middle East, experts speculated that normalization between the Saudis in Riyadh and the Iranians in Tehran would lead to regional de-escalation. When the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomatic relations was announced on March 10, many U.S. ![]()
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