The Fate of Saudi Arabia in a Changing Middle East

With a third consecutive American administration in place that promises less involvement in the Middle East, and a more specific sense that its decades-long alliance with the U.S. is unraveling, Saudi Arabia finds itself at a geostrategic crossroads. To make matters worse, the Iran-backed Houthi insurgency in Yemen poses a very direct threat to the kingdom. Mohammed Alyahya and Bernard Haykel examine Riyadh’s response to these and additional circumstances. Among other topics, they address what they agree is the foolishness of the American belief—articulated by both the current president and his two immediate predecessors—that supporting its Middle Eastern allies is somehow at odds with combatting Chinese aggression. As Alyahya puts it, “the current administration’s idea is to free up resources from the Middle East in order to counter China, . . . and I think the idea in China is to allocate more resources to the Middle East in order to compete with the U.S.” (Moderated by Michael Doran. Video, 80 minutes.)