Would like to share an analysis I have just read on some Iranian channels close to the security establishment about some | Hanami
Would like to share an analysis I have just read on some Iranian channels close to the security establishment about some of the regional dynamics currently taking shape around Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
- What I found interesting is that the analysis goes well beyond the usual question of whether Saudi Arabia will eventually join the Abraham Accords. The argument is that Netanyahu and MBZ may be trying to shape a new regional security architecture before Riyadh can shape it on its own terms.
- Iran, the Houthis and the broader question of Persian Gulf security would all fit into this framework, with Israel offering military and intelligence capabilities and Abu Dhabi trying to position itself as the political bridge between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
- But there is another layer which, in my view, is even more interesting: the competition between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. If MBZ succeeds in making the UAE the indispensable intermediary between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the analysis goes, Abu Dhabi’s regional weight would increase considerably. Yet this could produce exactly the opposite effect in Riyadh, reinforcing Saudi suspicions about Emirati ambitions, especially given their already visible differences over Yemen and their broader competition for influence in the region.
- There is also something else worth considering. Riyadh has already begun building a regional framework of its own. The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement with Pakistan and Turkey has created a collective security mechanism outside the Israeli orbit, while Saudi Arabia is also part of the R4 with Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt, which has backed the Islamabad diplomatic track between Iran and the United States.
- In the Iranian reading, therefore, Israeli and Emirati pressure on Riyadh is not only about normalisation. It is also about trying to disrupt, or at least reshape, these emerging regional arrangements: on one side the Makkah security architecture, and on the other the diplomatic channel that has developed around Islamabad and dialogue with Tehran.
- From Tehran’s perspective, weakening both would ultimately serve Israeli strategic interests.
- This is, of course, an Iranian interpretation rather than an established fact. But it offers an interesting way of reading the current regional manoeuvring.
- In this picture, MBS is not simply being asked to normalise relations with Israel. He is being pulled between different ideas of what the future regional order should look like, and Riyadh may increasingly prefer to build one on its own terms rather than join one designed elsewhere.