Policymakers in Washington and the Middle East have been busy talking about the possibility of Saudi Arabia normalizing its ties with Israel in return, in part, for a formal defense pact with the United States. Receiving far less attention is a critical question, at least for Riyadh: Would such a move jeopardize Saudi Arabia’s recent diplomatic accord with Iran?
There’s strong reason to think it would. Iran doesn’t just have adversarial relations with Israel. The two countries have been in a shadow war for decades—one that has escalated over the past seven years. Just last year, it was reported that the Israeli military had carried out more than 400 airstrikes since 2017 in Syria and other parts of the Middle East against targets belonging to Iran and its sub-state allies. One would imagine the number of such attacks has gone up since.
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الصورة من مورتزا نيكوبزل/نورفوتو عبر غيتي إيمدجز
معهد الشرق الأوسط (MEI) هو منظمة تعليمية مستقلة وغير حزبية وغير ربحية. لا يشارك المعهد في أي أنشطة دعوية، وآراء الباحثين فيه تعبر عن آرائهم الشخصية. يرحب المعهد بالتبرعات المالية، لكنه يحتفظ بالسيطرة التحريرية الكاملة على أعماله، ولا تعكس منشوراته سوى آراء المؤلفين. للاطلاع على قائمة المتبرعين للمعهد، يرجى النقر هنا.
