Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's long‑pursued reconciliation strategy with Iran has hit its biggest crisis. After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, Iran moved to retaliate by targeting Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia.
Until just a few years ago, bin Salman harshly criticized Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the "Hitler of the Middle East," sticking to a hard‑line stance. Then in 2023, he pivoted his diplomatic strategy by normalizing relations with Iran through China's mediation. Judging that regional stability is essential for economic development and attracting investment, he took the gamble of shaking hands with a longtime rival.
But this war is shaking that vision to its core, the Financial Times (FT) reported. As a cornered Iran launched retaliatory attacks on U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia and key oil facilities such as Ras Tanura and Shaybah, Saudi Arabia has been pulled into the vortex of a direct war. Bernard Haykel, a Middle East expert at Princeton University, said in an interview with the FT, "Missiles flying over Saudi Arabia is the scenario the crown prince most wanted to avoid."
A prolonged war would be a heavy blow to bin Salman's "Vision 2030." The core of "Vision 2030" is expanding foreign investment and the tourism industry, but an unstable security environment is becoming an obstacle. In fact, the Saudi‑Bahrain Formula 1 (F1) Grand Prix scheduled for Apr. was canceled. The FT reported that if the war drags on, funds earmarked for mega‑city projects such as "Neom" in Saudi Arabia could be reallocated to defense spending. Amin Nasser, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Aramco, said, "This situation is the biggest crisis ever faced by the region's oil and gas industry."
The situation has rapidly chilled relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The FT said, "Contacts between the two countries are currently staying at the ambassadorial level, not high‑level," adding, "Within Saudi Arabia, there is an assessment that the illusion of being able to build a stable relationship with Iran has disappeared." In the end, the reconciliation strategy with Iran that bin Salman chose for "stability" has, paradoxically, boomeranged into a variable that heightens uncertainty across the Middle East, analysts say.