Saudi Arabia Iran Deal: friendship with America weakened, know on which plan Saudi Prince is working now – us partnership fades saudi arabia seeks to diversify its diplomacy amid iran deal with china help

US-Saudi relations deteriorate over Egypt

In fact, the relationship between these two countries has been far more wide-ranging and complex. Relations have also been strained at times over events such as Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the Arab oil embargo in 1973 or the involvement of Saudi citizens in the September 11 attacks in 2001. But since the winds of change swept the Arab world in the 2010s, US-Saudi relations have deteriorated. There is a perception among Gulf leaders that the US did not help former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during the 2011 Egyptian revolution, and this has deeply hurt him. They fear America may abandon them the same way it abandoned Mubarak, a 30-year-old ally.

The situation became more complicated when the Gulf countries were not included in the Iran-US talks. Initially, secret bilateral talks took place in 2013 and later as part of the framework of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and named as P5+1. In addition to the permanent members of the Security Council, Germany was included. The talks culminated in the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2015. Subsequently in 2019, a missile and drone attack on Saudi oil infrastructure also affected relations between the two countries.

American credibility questioned

These attacks were linked to Iran but were never formally attributed to Iran. The response of the then President Donald Trump was that it was an attack on Saudi Arabia and not America. Trump’s remarks and subsequent US inaction sent shockwaves across the Gulf, with Gulf leaders questioning US credibility as a reliable regional partner. Finally, the withdrawal of US troops from Kabul in 2021 strengthened anti-American sentiments.

(Christian Coates Ulrichsen, Baker Institute Fellow for Kuwait, Rice University)