Iranian analysts and news media outlets have attempted to provide answers to this question over the past few weeks after a wave of speculations began in the wake of the emergence of several press reports in Western media suggesting that officials from Iran and Saudi Arabia held a direct meeting in Baghdad for the first time in years.

At the official level, the Baghdad talks were neither repudiated nor confirmed by Iran and Saudi Arabia, though some Iranian officials hinted that the reports of talks were true.

While the controversy over the Baghdad talks was still going on, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman further inflamed the debate by offering an olive branch to Iran after more than five years of tough rhetoric against the country.

“At the end of the day, Iran is a neighboring country. All we ask for is to have a good and distinguished relationship with Iran. We do not want the situation with Iran to be difficult. On the contrary, we want it to prosper and grow as we have Saudi interests in Iran, and they have Iranian interests in Saudi Arabia, which is to drive prosperity and growth in the region and the entire world,” the Saudi crown prince said in a recent televised interview.

He also hoped that his country would be able to overcome some challenges affecting Iranian-Saudi relations and “build a good and positive relationship” with Iran.

Iran welcomed the Saudi change of tone without any hesitation. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has been a pioneer in the path of amity and regional cooperation, and welcomes the change in Saudi Arabia’s tone,” Saeed Khatibzadeh, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said in a statement.

However, there are some concerns in Iran that this change is only another effort by bin Salman to use tactical de-escalation with Iran to weather the storm at least for now.

Saudi Arabia is increasingly coming under pressure from political circles in Washington since Joe Biden took office this past January. The pressure was particularly tangible in Yemen where the Saudi crown prince, also known as MBS, has been entangled in an endless war to eradicate what he calls Iran’s influence there. The Biden administration has ended offensive military support for Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war, although the White House at the same time sought to help the Saudis to find a face-saving exit from the Yemen quagmire.

In addition, the Biden administration’s stated policy of returning to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal has put Riyadh in a bind as the Saudis had thrown their weight behind Trump’s campaign to kill the nuclear deal.

In order to cope with these challenges, bin Salman embarked on a new policy of toning down tough rhetoric against a number of neighbors; he started off with Qatar and then Iran and ultimately his new approach even included a scarcely veiled rapprochement with Yemen’s Ansarallah, the very same group he has been fighting since 2015.

The new Saudi openness to dialogue with Iran is in part grounded in the belief that resolving some of Saudi Arabia’s problems is contingent on better ties with Iran, not a genuine reconsideration that co-existence between Iran and Saudi Arabia is the only viable solution serving the interests of both countries.

During the Baghdad talks, the Saudi side presented a list of offers and temptations, according to Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, the newspaper said that at the talks the Saudis basically demanded an end to the missiles and drones launched by Ansarallah against Saudi targets, further reinforcing the belief that the talks were a necessity for bin Salman.

The Saudis also voiced readiness to accept a larger role by Ansarallah in Yemen. Furthermore, the Saudi delegation assured the Iranians that Riyadh does not want to normalize its relations with Israel, and is willing to open a new chapter in relations with Tehran, according to Al-Akhbar.

The Lebanese newspaper also said that the Saudi delegation let its Iranian team know that the Americans seek to reign in MBS even as they believe that he will rule Saudi Arabia for a long time.

Therefore, bin Salman seems to have found out that he has no other option but to reach an understanding with Tehran in light of his conviction that Tehran alone has the keys to get him out of his problems.

Bin Salman is busy setting the stage for this tactical shift. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan has paid a visit to Qatar and Oman shortly after his Iranian counterpart visited the two Arab states. Moreover, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud invited Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq to visit Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis seek to create a unified front among Arab states on dialogue with Iran, according to The Arab Weekly.

Citing observers, the publication said formulating a unified Persian Gulf position on the dialogue with Iran may be the immediate and pressing objective of Saudi Arabia, with the aim of creating a momentum for the improvement of the dialogue’s conditions.

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Dr. Kevin Barrett told Press TV in an interview on Friday that Saudis now believe that they cannot fully depend on their American Imperial sponsor, so they should improve ties with Iran.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said that Riyadh is seeking to have “good relations” with Iran, adding, however, that the rapprochement is hindered by some differences.

Bin Salman said in an interview broadcast on state TV on Tuesday that the kingdom was not interested in perpetual hostility with Iran but any thawing of relations would be conditional.

“Iran is a neighboring state, we are seeking to have good relations with Iran, we have interests in Iran,” the Saudi crown prince said. “We are working with our partners in the region to overcome our differences with Iran especially with its support for militias and the development of its nuclear program.”

Barrett, who is a journalist and radio host with a Ph.D. in Islamic and Arabic Studies, said, “The Saudi clown prince Muhammad Bin Salman is now, apparently, softening his tone towards Iran. He made a state broadcast on Tuesday, saying that he would like to mend fences with Iran, however, he said that it was up to Iran to make the kinds of moves that would make that possible. He said that this would be conditional on Iran’s behavior. Of course, that’s all rhetorical because the Saudi position vis a vis Iran, and his friends in the region has steadily weakened as the Houthis, the Ansurallah forces in Yemen, have gone from victory to victory.”

“And Saudi war on Yemen has completely fallen apart and now the Saudis are pretty much at war with their Emirati partners as well as with other forces, and the Ansurallah forces are actually hitting the Saudis in their own homeland, and Saudi Arabia is also having various other problems elsewhere. It’s a bit on the outs with the US since the totally controlled Netanyahu-run Trump administration left,” he observed.

“And so I think what’s happening here is that the Saudis are rethinking their position, and they understand that they can’t really depend on their American Imperial sponsor, the way they used to. And so they’re trying to sort of hedge their bets. They’ve already cozied up to Israel, unfortunately. And so this outreach towards thawing relations with Iran is of course a sign of desperation,” he explained.

“But perhaps it’s not a bad move, given the circumstances. But there’s also a sort of a regional shakeup going on in terms of alliances that this may be related to. And Israel has gone all out against Turkey by working closely and developing a military alliance with Greece. And I think that perhaps Israel which still has a lot of influence with Saudi Arabia would like to try to temper the Iranian position, supporting Palestinians, and also to try to prevent Iran from moving closer to Turkey,” he added.

The analyst believes that Israelis are “trying to post Turkey as a rival of the Saudis and to tell the Saudis to cozy up a little bit with Iran and try to prevent Iran from working with Turkey to liberate Palestine. And that’s precisely what Iran really should be doing. And so while the Iranian authorities are absolutely correct in saying that they’re always open to reasonable discussions with Saudi Arabia, and coming to terms in ways to prevent chaos and bloodshed I think that the idea that Saudi Arabia, under prince Bin Salman and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has got some commonly principal people at the top of its system, it is just not going to happen.”

“And indeed, I would like to see Iran making its alliances with Turkey, more than with Saudi Arabia, and focusing on the main issue which of course is to push the Zionists back to where they came from, and liberate Palestine, and help accelerate the departure of the American imperialists from the region. And so that’s what will be happening in the future, regardless of what Saudi potentates and other Persian Gulf Arab despots care about which of course at the end of the day is only their own skins,” he concluded.

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 They believe that the presence of bin Salman in Riyadh, and subsequently the continued support of Donald Trump and other White House officials for him, would be costly for Washington in the international system. However, it seems that Trump doesn’t intend to stop supporting the young prince of Saudi Arabia!

Trump is now looking to ignore the murder of Jamal Khashoggi so that it won’t disturb the Washington-Riyadh relationship. This is while the U.S. President’s defense of Saudi Arabia, whose leaders have denied knowledge of the brutal murder of Khashoggi while acknowledging that its agents carried it out, marks another instance of the American authorities’ violation of human rights.

In a recent article, the Washington Post has once again called into question the Trump government’s approach to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. This source noted that while the U.S. government should try to maintain strategic relations with Saudi Arabia, Trump should stop supporting bin Salman.

This is while Trump avoided blaming Mohammed bin Salman, despite the CIA’s findings that the Saudi crown prince had ordered the assassination. When the U.S. President was asked that who should be held accountable for Khashoggi’s murder, Trump said; “Maybe the world should be held accountable, because the world is a vicious place.”

As the Washington Post has pointed out, Trump’s concerns over the Khashoggi’s case is about the strategic relationship that exists between Washington and Riyadh, an issue that even the U.S. Department of State has referred to. That’s why Donald Trump, under the influence of these strategic relationships, is unwilling to approve the CIA’s investigation of bin Salman crimes.

The article reads; “Congressional Republicans continued to line up this weekend to criticize President Trump over his defense of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA believes ordered the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi”

“I disagree with the president’s assessment,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It’s inconsistent with the intelligence I’ve seen. .?.?. The intelligence I’ve seen suggests that this was ordered by the crown prince.”

The Washington Post also wrote; The White House has been struggling to square a widespread sense that the crown prince directed the killing with a desire for Saudi support for its foreign policy priorities and the need to manage close relationships between bin Salman, the Trump administration and members of Trump’s family”

According to this source, Trump, while referring to Saudi Arabia’s influence over the oil price, said that abandoning Saudis would be a “terrible mistake”, and that he’s not going to destroy the U.S. economy over bin Salman’s crimes!

“In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran.” Said Trump.

The highlight of the Washington Post’s analysis is the part it confesses to the failure of “Trump-bin Salman” alliance in confronting the Islamic Republic of Iran and the regional power of our country. Accordingly, the U.S. reliance on bin Salman to face Iran didn’t work.

This is what many other sources had to acknowledge besides the Washington Post. However, the tensions raised in the U.S. political atmosphere regarding Mohammed bin Salman is an indication of the disagreements over U.S. foreign policy. This is what makes the situation harder for Trump and his companions.

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