Transcript: Webinar – MBS Visits Washington: Implications for U.S. and Middle East

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PANELISTS

John Hannah

JINSA Randi & Charles Wax Senior Fellow; Former National Security Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney

Jonathan Ruhe

JINSA Fellow for American Strategy

Blaise Misztal

JINSA Vice President for Policy

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TRANSCRIPT

Please note quotations have been edited for flow and clarity.

Blaise Misztal:

Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s Vice President for Policy. Thank you for joining us this afternoon.

It’s been two busy days here in Washington with the visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. We had F-35 flyovers over the White House, street closures. The Waldorf Astoria Hotel—where MBS is staying—is a virtual fortress. It’s been an exciting two days, and this follows after Ahmed al-Sharaa, the President of Syria, here last week. So we’ve had a veritable murderers’ row of visitors to the White House in the last week.

Here to talk about it, I’m delighted to be joined by my colleagues John Hannah, the Wax Senior Fellow here at JINSA, and Jonathan Ruhe, a Fellow at JINSA.

John, maybe I can start with you just to give us a bit of a background on how we got here, at least since the last time that MBS visited the White House, I believe, in 2018. What has been the course of the U.S.-Saudi relationship for the last seven years?

John Hannah:

Yeah, well, of course shortly after that 2018 visit—which lasted for weeks and in which MBS really did a complete tour of the United States , not only at the White House, he had only just become Crown Prince shortly before arriving in the United States in 2018, hadn’t been in the job a long time and there was obviously a very steep learning curve—he undertook a number of very aggressive actions in foreign affairs. Whether it be the war in Yemen, doing a number of things towards Lebanon, [or] locking up people inside the Kingdom for alleged corruption.

Which all eventually, of course, culminated in the murder of this U.S.-based Saudi columnist, Jamal Khashoggi in October of 2018. A hit team that apparently was dispatched by the royal court in Riyadh has dispatched to Istanbul, allegedly to kidnap Khashoggi back to the Kingdom to set him straight for the criticisms, in some of his columns, that he’d been making of MBS. But they ended up, obviously, killing him and disposing of his body in a particularly grisly way where we still don’t know where that body is. Of course, there was a huge backlash against that in the United States.

Trump, to his credit, I guess you got to say, stood up for the relationship, refused to break it at a time when a lot are very important and influential both Republican and Democratic senators were demanding that there be some kind of fundamental breach in this longtime strategic relationship that had, of course, its ups and downs – Saudi human rights have never been a high point for that regime. And yet, one president after another since 1945 has believed that the relationship, despite its less-attractive parts of it, regarding Saudi values and their approach to human rights and obviously the spread of Wahhabi religious jihadism around the globe to Muslim communities, that it was worth still investing in that.

The United States gained real benefits from that, and Trump insisted on maintaining the relationship through a very rough time for the end of his tenure. I think he had some hopes that when he did the Abraham Accords, he might, at the last minute, be able to bring MBS in. There was a little bit of noise around that. But in the end, they didn’t have the bandwidth. It didn’t happen.

And of course, then we had the Biden administration, which at least initially, for the first one or two years, appeared to act upon that instinct that [the murder of] Khashoggi was everything, it now defined the relationship, MBS was and Saudis were pariahs didn’t share any of our values. Now that American energy, thanks to shale oil, was rapidly rising, [the Biden administration felt] we didn’t need the Saudis anymore, and therefore could, could really dispense with that relationship. And there was a period of time in 2020 and 2021 we could have thought that the most important enemy, or adversary, of the United States in the Middle East was, in fact, the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia.

Lo and behold, we had the Ukraine war, real concerns about what was going to happen to destabilize oil markets, [and] the need for the Saudis to really get back in and be friendly and open to us in treaties regarding oil and other things. And President Biden swallows hard and changes course in a pretty fundamental way, travels to Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2022, does his famous fist bump and tries to put this kind of awful period of the first two years of his administration behind him, and tries to recover in terms of American credibility with Saudi Arabia.

There are still some bumpy patches about oil markets, but by 2023, 2024, despite the Gaza war and leading up to the Gaza war, and then even after, there’s a serious discussion in which the United States is trying to bring Saudi Arabia and Israel together in a normalization deal, being willing to consider mutual defense pacts with the Saudis as part of that, [and talks over] very advanced civil nuclear cooperation with the Saudis, including some consideration of providing some kind of indigenous capability to enrich uranium on Saudi soil in some form or another, which would have been a real step beyond traditional U.S. nonproliferation policy. But it was under active consideration, and of course, things regarding AI and new kinds of defense relationship in which the Saudis would get better access to American defense materials that they desperately wanted. So the real pivot, I think, in change, occurs when Biden has to swallow hard and even the Democrats have to acknowledge this is an absolutely pivotal relationship for America’s strategic interests, not only in the Middle East, but even these are the theaters like Russia and China, potentially. And therefore, we need the Saudis on our side, warts and all, the Saudi regime.

And I think when you get Trump back in, you just get that on steroids, because of all the personal factors surrounding it, the personal business interests, Trump’s love of Saudi Arabia and the pomp and circumstance and the way they fed Trump, and make Trump feel when he shows up there in his first term. [In] the second term, his first visit is made not to traditional allies in Canada or Europe, or Mexico, but in fact is made to Saudi Arabia. He’s treated like a king himself and loves it and has this real attachment.

And, of course, the dollar signs that the Saudis are able to deliver on the things that Trump, this transactional president, cares most about, not just the dollar signs, but the ability to announce hundreds of billions, [a] trillion, dollars’ worth of deals, even in all kinds of different sectors, investments in the United States that he can claim as great victories and of benefit to the United States, all of that you saw on display yesterday in that Oval Office meeting where Trump is defending MBS even more than MBS. He’s more defensive about the Khashoggi murder, about 9/11. Lauding MBS as this great leader and personal friend in the Saudis, as an ally, the equivalent of Israel, deserving the most advanced American defense equipment.

And then obviously MBS, despite not being a head of state, being treated as the de facto head of state in terms of an over-the-top White House launch ceremony, and, as you said, the flyovers of F-35 and F-15s and the brass bands, and then the black-tie dinner in which everybody who’s anybody in the world of high tech and other major business sectors and political leaders up on the Hill attend and pay tribute to the next Saudi King.

Misztal:

So, John, you laid out sort of the circuitous route that the U.S. has taken from 2018 to now, with regards to Saudi Arabia, the cyclical path where we’ve ended up where we began.

What about MBS? Has he changed at all? Has Saudi Arabia changed at all in that time? Is he still sort of the brash young man that he was seven years ago?

Hannah:

Yeah, in my opinion, the guy clearly learned lessons. I don’t know if he over earned the lessons, because he’s become, and we can discuss it, a pretty cautious leader in national security and foreign affairs, given the posture he had toward the Iran threat, for instance, 7, 8, years ago, the way he talked about them as a Hitler-like regime that essentially needed to be confronted, combatted and probably overthrown and thrown on the dustbin of history. That’s, you know, the same guy who, in 2023, used China to mediate some kind of detente and accommodation with the Iranians, and who, you have to say, was not particularly enthusiastic about the 12-Day War—enthusiastic, no doubt, about the outcome of it, but unbelievably nervous.

And I bet if you had asked him on June the 12th, a couple of days before the war, do you want Israel to attack and start this war or not right on your doorstep, he probably would say, ‘No, I prefer not. Let’s let the negotiations between Witkoff and the Iranians continue, to see what they can do. But I want to keep this stuff, any kind of conflict away from me, because I’ve been burned before by being too aggressive. I need to just keep this stuff, manage it away from my borders right now, focus on my number one mission, which is this truly incredible program of economic, cultural, religious transformation.’

It’s probably the most important transformation or program of reform in a major state anywhere in the world, and certainly the last, I don’t know, 30, 50, years. I guess maybe you point to China sometime in the late 20th century as something comparable, and to Ataturk, you know, after World War I, a century ago. So now that is incredibly important. It deserves more attention than it gets, I think, from American leaders. We ought to be talking about what’s happening internally in Saudi more and the benefits that could accrue both to the kingdom, the Middle East and to the United States from that.

But yes, Blaise, the basic answer to your question is, this is a man who’s learned lessons. He’s a more mature and confident leader. You saw that on display in the Oval Office yesterday [in] his command of the English language, which he obviously didn’t have seven years ago. Yeah, this is a different leader who’s, I would say, a lot more cautious on being too confrontational or aggressive in foreign affairs, which has some drawbacks to it. But what is really laser focused on the success of this Vision 2030 [agenda], his own personal success, his succession to be the king of Saudi Arabia for perhaps the next 40 or 50 years, and not only to become the dominant Arab and Muslim state in the world, but probably a top-10 player on the global scene, you know, in toto.

Misztal:

So that’s sort of how we got to the meeting yesterday. John talked a little bit about the pomp and circumstance of the meeting, but Jonathan, maybe you could talk a little bit about the substance. What was actually done yesterday, what business was done, what was agreed to between President Trump and Crown Prince bin Salman?

Jonathan Ruhe:

Yeah, thanks, Blaise. So yeah, there’s been no shortage of deals that have been announced. Sort of broad, sweeping ambitions that have been put on paper, some of which builds on Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May that the John mentioned in which the President announced a transformational vision for the region, and to people like us who have worked in Middle East security issues for a long time, maybe something we’re not always used to hearing, which is a sort of aggressively optimistic view of what the region can become.

We saw Trump reiterate a lot of those themes in his speeches in Israel and Egypt after the Gaza ceasefire last month. So as an organizing framework to understand a lot of what we’ve seen announced since MBS landed, sort of built around several themes that would you know, as John said, sort of double down on the bilateral partnership, focused specifically, in some ways, on strengthening U.S.-Saudi defense cooperation, make it more finalized.

Obviously, there’s been sort of no shortage of political speed bumps along the way in terms of things like U.S. arms transfers to the Kingdom, also security guarantees, things like that. Another sort of overlapping theme that we’ve heard about, especially going back to when there were talks under President Biden on some of these issues I’m going to discuss as a price or a tradeoff for the United States picking Saudi Arabia as a partner, doing all these things, making these commitments, having the Saudis, in various ways, essentially, for lack of a better term, choose sides in the global strategic competition with China, finding ways to bring them more squarely on board with the United States as a partner. And then also, as I mentioned, Trump’s vision of how the Middle East can be an area for opportunity and building peace through prosperity.

So obviously, a core issue has been the U.S. decision to sell F-35 combat aircraft to the Saudis. It’s not the first Arab partner where we’ve at least made the initial agreement. That was, following the Abraham Accords in 2020, the agreement to sell them to the United Arab Emirates, which fell through for any number of reasons. But now there’s Saudi Arabia, which already has on paper, if you look at their order of battle, a very impressive set of armed forces, including, frankly, a world-class air force, one that’s among the largest, certainly, in the Middle East.

Adding the F-35, being the only country other than Israel in the region to have a fifth-generation aircraft like this, would certainly be a game changer. And obviously, you know, agreeing to sell those aircraft, and then getting to the point where Saudi Arabia actually takes control of them is a whole different side discussion, and perhaps merits another webinar.

Another one is, as John mentioned, is an agreement about a civil nuclear cooperation deal. And then also designating Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally. It is a formal designation. Several other countries in the Middle East, like Qatar and Israel, have this designation. From what I understand in the context of Saudi Arabia, major non-NATO ally status confers a lot of things. It’s just as much a political signal as a substantive military cooperation agreement, but among other things, it expedites certain U.S. arms transfers to countries that are so designated which I read as sort of one of the main reasons it’s so interesting to the Saudis.

One thing that I think has fallen a little bit between the cracks, but is potentially a great area of vital importance to the United States, is an agreement on critical minerals supply chains. All around D.C., we constantly hear terms about China’s control of rare earth elements. That’s a subset of this larger issue of critical minerals, basic substances that are used in everything from electric vehicle batteries to critical components of advanced weapon systems. As we’ve seen in recent years, China is more than happy to exercise and leverage its near monopoly control of a lot of these resources. Saudi Arabia has signaled its intent in the past to HELP diversify the supply chains around the world. This is something that certainly has a very high ceiling for cooperation directly relevant to the United States, in a way that maybe not a lot of people appreciate off the bat.

As John mentioned, there’s black-tie galas, and this fancy dinner where Saudi Arabia announces a trillion dollars is the aim for investment in U.S. infrastructure and technology. That builds directly on things that were announced during Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May, and then, as John mentioned, also sort of an MOU, a Memorandum of Understanding, on cooperation, on AI technology, things like that. Saudi Arabia, as part of its Vision 2030, is trying to become a world leader in information technology. So that’s one more initiative going forward. So, you know, you’ve seen this large sort of grab bag of things that reflect, as John said, you know, the potential for what the U.S.-Saudi partnership could really bring to supporting U.S. interests.

Again, you know, from what we’ve seen so far, these are very ambitious signals of intent with the substance to be filled in as we go forward.

Misztal:

So that’s what was agreed to yesterday. What’s missing? What’s been discussed in U.S.-Saudi relations that we didn’t see yesterday?

Ruhe:

We certainly saw Trump make reference to the elephant in the room before MBS arrived. That is the issue of Israel-Saudi normalization, advancing the Abraham Accords. A JINSA project that I worked on with John four years ago argued that for all the amazing benefits and sort of diplomatic signals that the original Abraham Accords sent, having Saudi Arabia join that would be sort of a complete game changer beyond what we’ve already seen. It’s the Custodian of the Two Holy Places of Islam. It’s a very influential and important country, not only in the Arab world, but the larger Muslim world. And Saudi Arabia joining would give a premature legitimacy that could enable, you know, a flood of other countries to recognize Israel on a truly, not just a regional but potentially more, a more global scale.

You know, I haven’t seen in the readouts anything that hinges or links any of the laundry list I just gave that links that to this issue of normalization. Certainly Israel-Saudi normalization also occurs in the context of the Gaza ceasefire and the efforts to get a more lasting peace there, and all the political discussions that entails. I think also one thing that we’ve heard a lot about in the past is a more formal U.S. security guarantee, or mutual defense treaty, with the Saudis.

We saw Trump give Qatar a defense guarantee which is not mutual, which is essentially a U.S. security umbrella extended to Qatar. So, you know, the idea [is] that if Qatar gets that, a partner like Saudi Arabia would be in line for something much more substantive than that. [We are] still waiting to see more details on that as well.

Misztal:

Yeah, so John, I guess let me go back to you, and particularly on this issue of a security guarantee. Do you think MBS is happy with what he got? Did he get everything he could have expected? Was he hoping to get this Qatar-like executive order on a security guarantee, or is that missing? Or do you think major non-NATO ally status is good enough for the Saudis?

Hannah

JINSA was in the kingdom in the fall of 2022 at a particularly bad patch in the relationship. We met with MBS and he was extremely willing to talk about normalization, but also entirely in the context of what he would need in terms of the U.S.-Saudi bilateral relationship, real strategic improvements in order to mitigate the risk that he understood himself to be taking by normalizing with Israel at a point in time when there were still significant portions of his population – remember, this is before October 7 – that might oppose, even oppose violently, a turn toward Israel, as well as whatever fire would come at him from Iran and Iranian propaganda channels and ISIS and others.

So [to agree to normalize], at that point in time, he said [it would require] nothing less than a Japan-like, [NATO] Article Five-like, mutual defense treaty with the United States which would have bipartisan support in the United States Congress: a supermajority of 67 Senators voting in favor. That would become a permanent feature of the American national security landscape, that would then insulate Saudi Arabia from one of the things it hates most, which is this sense that from one American administration to another, you have these dramatic fluctuations in policy towards Saudi Arabia that the Kingdom simply cannot rely on in terms of its defense doctrine in a very difficult neighborhood. That was a position that he seemed to have throughout the Biden administration as well: I need a Japan-like, Article Five-like guarantee from the United States that’s approved by the United States Senate and lasting.

And instead, it appears so far anyway, in the first place, Qatar beat him to it. Whatever it was, Qatar beat him to it by getting an executive order that gave this unique and unprecedented explicit American commitment that an attack on Qatar is going to be treated as a very serious issue for American national security, that we’d be willing to contemplate using military force to combat [external threats to Qatar]. Qatar got that—this small, insignificant tribe that’s a pimple on the Arabian peninsula that has a fraction of the influence, of the power that Saudi has, both regionally and globally, much less this eight-decade storied relationship going back to the FDR-Abdul Aziz meetings on the USS Quincy in 1945. Qatar’s got none of that, and yet they’re the ones who suddenly rise to this first-tier of American security commitments in the Middle East.

I think for MBS, having to play catch up to that, I would imagine, would have been hugely embarrassing, having to climb down from his insistence on a mutual defense treaty that would have been lasting and permanent. Okay, [Trump is] a president he likes, but a president who is pretty unpredictable, kind of mercurial, likely only to be around the next three years, who in 2019, when the Saudis sort of had a near-death experience with the Iranian attack on their most important oil infrastructures, the most important infrastructure in their entire economy, Trump basically said, ‘Too bad. You got a lot of hardware we sold you. Defend yourself. We’re not going to come to your assistance.’

So, the best you can get is a temporary [deal], maybe. It doesn’t appear they’ve got an executive order even yet, we don’t know what’s in this U.S.-Saudi strategic defense agreement that they’ve apparently signed, signed up for. We’ve got to see what that language, what the security commitment looks like in there. But then they also got major non-NATO ally status, right? I mean, something Israel and Egypt had 40 years ago, Jordan had 30 years ago, Kuwait and Morocco had 20 years ago, Tunisia 10 years ago, and the Qataris three years ago. So, big whoop. Okay, you’re following in their footsteps. What took you so long, Saudi Arabia?

But they got that, and I think it’s because as bad as it is to be seen following these guys and to be climbing down from the defense treaty, you can’t get the defense treaty because it’s wrapped up in normalization, and normalization is too difficult for you at this point, and too difficult for the Israelis. But you certainly don’t want to be relegated to some second-tier status in the pantheon of American security commitments in the Middle East, so you got to get something that somehow begins to reassert Saudi Arabia’s preeminent role.

You got to get something that’s at least as good as what the Qataris got, if not some more. And I think the thing they get, at least on paper, is a commitment in principle to sell them the F-35 and if it’s consummated several years hence, they’re going to be the only Arab state with the F-35 in their order of battle. And that, again, begins to set the kingdom apart, as of course did Trump’s treatment of MBS as a virtual head of state and the next king of Saudi Arabia over the last two years. It is hard to remember the last actual head of state, allied or otherwise, that got the kind of treatment that MBS got yesterday, much less the kid glove kind of treatment, and defense he got on some pretty indefensible things that have happened, by the President of the United States.

Misztal:

So on that point about the F-35, Jonathan, you touched on this little bit earlier, but maybe you could delve into it a little more, both sort of the process – when would Saudi get F-35s, is it a done deal, are there obstacles in the way still – and what would the effect of that be on the balance of power in the region?

Ruhe:

Yeah. So the short answer is, it would be a long process for any number of reasons. One is, you know, there’s a long list of buyers for the F-35 especially in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Plenty of European countries have already put in bids to acquire the F-35. That’s in addition to the countries that were already in line to take order of these, including Israel ordering a third squadron of the F-35. Currently they have 50. That would bring them up to 75. So partly, it’s just a function of the United States’s ability to crank these out, and the place in line that the Saudis would try to be holding.

Another one is a political set of considerations. Something potentially as game-changing as the F-35, it’s one of the best export capabilities the U.S. defense industry has available. You know, as we’ve seen in the past, Saudi acquisition, their attempts to acquire U.S. offensive weapons systems in the past, comes into any number of holdups, some of which can be in the executive branch about export control restrictions, although Saudi Arabia’s major non-NATO ally status is meant to obviate some of that. Also, Congress has a say, and certainly they’ve exercised that in the past to hold up or complicate arms transfers.

That’s all a long way of saying, we’re talking likely years. I’ve seen estimates it could be in the ballpark of five years. Certainly, for other countries that are still waiting to acquire F-35s, that have made big buys, it’s been an even longer waiting time than that. I think also there’s the other political issue, which is Israel’s qualitative military edge. Now, we’ve seen and heard, in the past few days that Israel, sort of officially, opposed the idea of transferring the F-35 to Saudi Arabia because of, again, this thing that’s written into U.S. law: the United States must consider Israel’s qualitative military edge when considering arms sales to other countries in the region.

I forget the exact wording, but basically, Israel’s QME, as it’s called, is its ability to defeat threats to its existence at reasonable cost to itself from its neighbors or a coalition of its neighbors. That can be an elastic and somewhat subjective definition, but things like selling fifth generation aircraft to a country that almost borders Israel is certainly one of the things that sort of sharpens that definition. But that’s the U.S. legal requirement that would be put into consideration.

Trump, as we’ve seen, was willing to look past Israel’s concerns in agreeing to transfer the F-35. But, this QME issue is certainly something that could continue to come up, given how long it’s likely going to take for Saudi Arabia to take control of these aircraft – if it ever does.

Misztal:

Yeah. John, one more question for you. Is an F-35 an F-35 an F-35? Are all of these aircraft made equal? Does that mean that Saudi Arabia is getting the exact same aircraft and systems that Israel has?

Ruhe:

From what I’ve seen, Saudi Arabia is asking for the F-35A which is, I forget the production runs, but it’s the, basically the standard F-35 airframe. It’s meant for typical use by an air force, as opposed to some of the other variants, which are used for naval purposes. It’s similar to Israel’s, but Israel has a more bespoke model called the F-35I in which they install their own avionics and various other capabilities. Look, the F-35, one of the things that makes it so great—and I would commend other recent JINSA products about events related to the 12-Day War and Israeli operations to learn more about the F-35 because Israel has really been on the cutting edge of deploying and learning all about what this aircraft can do—the F-35, while it’s called a combat aircraft, we call it a fighter jet, for shorthand, but really it’s sort of a multi mission enabler.

Basically, the F-35 is a platform that enables all the other aircraft and systems that a country has to work together more effectively. So it would be part of this larger piece. It’s a capability by itself, but it’s part of this larger piece to be considered with Saudi Arabia’s vast fleet of very advanced F-15 combat aircraft they bought from us. Also, they have a bunch of European-made fighter jets, and also air defenses, electronic warfare capabilities, things like that, advanced airborne early warning, this whole suite of very advanced air force and air defense capabilities that, if the F-35 is used correctly and used well, is what we call a force multiplier.

So I would encourage people to think of the F-35 not just as another, stealthier, version of an F-15 or F-16 that can drop more bombs. Its importance goes way beyond that.

Misztal:

So John, I guess, let me ask you bluntly, what is the future of normalization now that you know that the Saudis get the F-35 and major non-NATO ally status, and that’s good enough, and we’ve sort of given up all of our leverage. If they got the milk for free, maybe there’s no reason to buy the cow? Or is this idea of the defense treaty hanging out there still enough leverage to maybe for the United States to convince MBS to keep going down that path and keep working towards peace with Israel?

Hannah:

Yeah, I think normalization is not dead. I mean the fact that MBS talked about it in terms of, you know, we want to normalize, we want to have peace with Israel, but it’s got to be in the context of a solution to the Palestinian issue. There’s still not nothing for a Saudi monarchy that rejected the existence of a Jewish state for decades and decades and still—because of, let’s face it, domestic hostility to Israel, especially in the wake of the Gaza war—refuses to normalize its relationship with Israel.

It can actually get something done with Israel on the Palestinian issue. It’s demanding that Israel first takes steps. But Trump talked about it. I think Trump badly wants it. I do think he sees it as really legacy capping for him, the key probably to a Nobel Peace Prize, and something that, if he got Saudi-Israeli normalization, for all the reasons that Jonathan mentioned, the knock-on effects of making peace between the world’s only Jewish state and the world’s most powerful and influential Arab and Islamic state is going to resound foreign and wide, not just regionally, but globally. It’ll be a very, very big, big deal.

So I think Trump probably understands that it might, together with the Abraham Accords, make him the most consequential president ever, diplomatically, in terms of the Middle East, in the way it transforms the landscape in ways favorable to American national interest. So I think he wants it. I think MBS still sees the value in being able to have peaceful relations with the region’s most powerful military and economic force so close to his borders. [That] could be enormously helpful to him, but, but obviously, we’re stuck around this obstacle of what to do about the Palestinian issue

MBS feels in the wake of the Gaza war, and in light of his domestic and regional and global situation as the protector of the Two Holy Mosques—his role in global Islam as a leader—that he’s got to deliver something significant now for the Palestinians, and it’s a price that at least this Israeli government and probably the Israeli public feels they can’t do anything about it now.

As I said, I think if you gave a true serum to MBS, what he’s getting on the security dimensions is not what he would have really liked from the United States. If he thought he could have de-linked normalization from a mutual defense pact, he would have wanted to go for a mutual defense pact. I think right now, as I said, he’s playing catch up. He’s getting what he can right now in order to reassert the Saudi role with the United States.

But I think he knows he can play for more later, once normalization might be riper, depending on what happens in and around the next Israeli election, next, next year sometime. And I think you know, on the MDT, the mutual defense treaty, remains real leverage with him that would truly set him apart. And in the context of normalization, I think it’s still a possibility. So I still think there’s that card for the United States to play. And I do think the timeframe of F-35 – [it is] easy for Trump to say, I’m willing to sell them, they’re a great ally, wonderful guys, [while] knowing that this is years down the road before these things get produced, before Saudi pilots get trained, before whatever Congress does what it’s going to do.

It’s a long way away, and in that time, it wouldn’t surprise me if Trump, or people around Trump are thinking to themselves, on the one hand, we got to balance. We got to get something. We got to boost this important strategic bilateral relationship with the Saudis. Yet we also have to keep in mind our interest that we need some leverage on normalization and so down the road, as this begins to play out, as hopefully the Gaza ceasefire moves forward, we get to a better place with the Palestinian issue, and Israel finds its way to be able to come up with some formula that that satisfies MBS. I’m sure there are other things Trump could do to incentivize MBS outside of the Palestinian issue, whether it’s in terms of the AI chips, in terms of U.S. investments, in terms of other defensive systems we’re prepared to provide.

But I do think even the F-35, even though it’s been great in theory, is a long way to delivery and Saudi pilots flying these near Israel’s borders. There’s still a lot of negotiations and things that can happen that will allow for this. You know, two, three years down the road, especially with some distance away from the Gaza war, once the emotions begin to cool, assuming we don’t have a restart of the war and the kind of carnage that Saudis were seeing on their screens over the last two years, I think that distance and that time also is the South that will allow MBS a little greater flexibility.

So I’m still hopeful that there are important levers out there that the Saudis value, that the United States can still pull, even as it tries to advance elements of the Saudi U.S. bilateral relationship, apparently de-linked from normalization.

Misztal:

Yeah, I think it’s probably important to remember that as part of the Abraham Accords more than five years ago now, the UAE was promised the F-35 and there’s been no movement on that so far. So that is potentially quite a way in the distance.

Hannah:

It is just worth mentioning it’s almost as deeply worrying that you could have the impression over the last couple of days that the President could give a rat’s you-know-what about QME. And in his mind, these are equal allies. They should both get the same kind of weaponry, as worrying as that would be, and I don’t think that’s true, because they’re statutorily bound to do this. And I do think Trump values Israel’s security.

I’m not sure Israel, knowing that this deal has been in the works for several weeks and months, I’m not sure Israel ever made the best and timely case for why and how problematic this would be. I don’t know that for a fact. That is my impression. They’ve kind of lost the thread on F-35s over the last several months, and didn’t make their best case.

Misztal:

Certainly compared to how much we’ve heard from Israel about their concerns about Turkey.

Hannah:

Absolutely. I think they had their eye on that ball and less on the Saudi ball, and now they’re trying to sort of furiously catch up, and it looks like they’ve taken a hit here, frankly, and weren’t able to affect the president’s decision despite this close relationship between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Trump. The other thing, almost equally as worrisome, I’m not hearing anything about the China thing. I didn’t hear anything about what we got from Qatar in terms of any of its really bad behavior, much less on China, in terms of permanently solving that problem in exchange for a very unique and unprecedented American bilateral security commitment, or at least a presidential security commitment to that to them, and we’re not hearing anything about Saudis.

And obviously, in the context of the F-35 or anything having to do with U.S. interests, as deep as the Saudis are into certain elements of Chinese high-tech, the economic relationship, but it’s mostly the high tech. It’s Saudi personnel and scientists and engineers inside of the kingdom. It’s Saudi [Arabia’s] Chinese weapon systems, drones and missiles and other fairly advanced capabilities. It’s Aramco and other Saudi entities that are deeply reliant on Chinese AI and the Deep Seek learning model. I don’t hear anything about that. I thought I heard the President, to the extent he talked about China, say we got a great relationship with China. It’s not an issue. It’s not a problem. Being very dismissive about it.

In the UAE case, this might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, their inability to get the UAE in a timely way, to back off from its interactions with China, particularly in the high tech space. That sank the F-35 deal with the UAE. I’m not hearing anything about [any] basic commitment of the Saudis that ‘no more hedging with China, much less the Russians on Ukraine.’ We got to know that if the balloon award goes up in Taiwan and China remains as dependent as it is on major oil exports from Saudi, you don’t need to tell the Chinese this, but America needs to know that you’re going to stand, you’re going to fall on the American side of that equation. And I don’t have any confidence in that regard yet. And I just think it’s the kind of thing obviously, that the Congress, if not the American public are going to have to pound away at in addition to the QME issues and normalization over the next several weeks, months, years, whatever it is,

Ruhe:

Yeah. I’ll just add on to that. I’m looking here at the White House language and their official statements of all these deals that were announced. They don’t mention China. They talk more about these agreements which will, you know, protect U.S. technology from foreign influence and make America Saudi Arabia’s partner of choice. So that’s a little too loose for me.

Misztal:

So first of all, let me invite the audience to submit any questions they want to ask John or Jonathan, using the Q-and-A function on Zoom. If you type out your question, I can pose it to John or Jonathan. But in the meantime, John, maybe picking up on your last thread there, what did the United States get out of this? If President Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize for expanding the Abraham Accords and getting Saudi-Israeli normalization, he didn’t get that. He didn’t get something very clear on China, as you just said.

Were there any promises that Saudi Arabia would maybe change some of this worrisome foreign policy behavior, where they went to China and made amends with Iran, and in the past couple of weeks, they’ve signed a defense treaty with Pakistan? Have they committed in any way to sort of fully come back to the U.S. orbit? Or what else is it? Just the trillion dollar investment? What’s the United States getting out of all of this?

Hannah:

It’s a good question, Blaise. Listen, there’s obviously a lot we don’t know. It’s very frustrating. You get these grand announcements and very broad statements about various areas that have been agreed to. We don’t have any of the text. We don’t have any of the understandings. We don’t have any insight into the negotiating history and what kind of quiet promises were made and commitments were made by each side. So I think we do have to be careful. I think, you know, the one thing I think you do get a sense of is that MBS on sort of core questions about Saudi security and things like AI, the high-tech future, that I do think they have made a decision that America remains their partner of choice. America is a strategic partner for them, everybody else that they mess around with that’s much more transactional and tactical for them, it’s a part of playing power politics on the global stage.

They’ve got, you know, obviously, a 360-degree foreign policy. They deal with Russia, they deal with China, they deal with India, they deal with Pakistan, they deal with Europe, they deal with the United States. And, you know, ‘what’s the big deal?’

I do think we ought to make a big deal about it. I hope we are. We can’t begrudge the Saudis being a major player on the world stage and being, obviously, the world’s main exporter of oil and having relationships with these other great powers that are mutually beneficial. But again, we got to have fair confidence that on issues that are obviously crucial and vital to American national security, like making sure Russia doesn’t win in Ukraine by the Saudis buying up cheap Russian oil so they can sell it for a profit, or engaging Chinese high-tech in a major way that’s threatening to us and threatens our technology. And in the event of a war in Taiwan, we’d want to know firmly that the Saudis are not going to hedge like they did in Ukraine, but they’re going to be on America’s side using all the assets at their command, that they have. So you hope some of that happened. We don’t have evidence of it.

One thing we have evidence of is a trillion-dollar announcement of Saudi investments and commitments economically to the United States, which plays obviously into every Trump wheelhouse there is. The announcements are almost more important than the actual execution of these deals. How many years, decades, if ever, are these deals going to be consummated? That doesn’t matter to Trump. It’s something he can claim right now. It’s now $21 trillion of investment that are going to be pouring into America, making us great, making us strong. Listen, unfortunately, I have to say it, the personal business elements of this are seedy and corrupt and unknowable, although we know some thanks to some reporting that’s been done. It’s something pretty unprecedented, and it had a scope and scale that’s just unimaginable. How much of that trillion dollars is being wrapped up in various deals and investments within interested parties and players who have an ability to affect U.S. national security policy? I hate to say that, but it’s hard, you know, if you’re objectively looking at the situation over the last year, not to have to introduce that into the equation.

Outside of that $1 trillion announcement, God knows how it’s ever going to be executed. How the Saudis are going to make good on that, given they’ve got about a trillion dollar GDP, and 80% of their public investment fund is committed to local investments in Saudi Arabia. So it’s going to be a very, very heavy lift to do it in any reasonable timeframe, but it’s a fantastic announcement for Trump to make and to make to his base on how he’s making good on his commitments and his America First foreign policy. But frankly, outside of that, and even that, is pretty flimsy.

I’m not sure what we got for giving, at least on paper, the Crown Prince a lot of what he wanted in terms of AI in particular, and turning Saudi Arabia into an AI superpower, certainly the most important one in the Middle East, thanks to American technology and American companies flooding into the kingdom to build out data centers on cheap oil and cheap land, which I think was probably his first priority. It is the key to his most important goal, which is the success of Vision 2030 and securing his reign for the next several decades.

But then even also on things like the F-35, that was an important card for America to play, even if it’s somehow vaguely linked to normalization in the distant future for the President to play that without thinking. How do I shape all of these goodies for the Saudis, not just in terms of some futuristic commitment to the American economy, but to really radically transform the security architecture of this vital region of the world by bringing our most important ally Israel together with our most powerful and influential Arab and Muslim partner. Bringing them together, anchoring them in some kind of mutual defense agreements, and building out from there a genuine regional architecture that will carry the burden for securing regional peace and security and stability, take a lot under an American umbrella, an American organization and American enablers. But, also, allowing America also to do what it needs to do, and transferring at least some of its intentions and resources to our other global responsibilities, in particular, obviously the Asia-Pacific.

Misztal:

So with the few remaining minutes that we have, Jonathan, quickly, one of the questions we got pertaining to the future of normalization is what impact Israel’s elections next year might have on prospects for getting a deal.

Hannah:

Yeah, listen, I mean, the solution to this right now is the easiest solution, but also the hardest one, because of Israeli politics. In the post-October 7 environment is for an Israeli government to say, yes, our vision somewhere many years hence is that if there is a Palestinian entity prepared to accept very constrained sovereignty, to live in peace with Israel, to be demilitarized, to educate its children, to live in peace with the Jewish state to not make any be able to make any treaties with Iran or any other hostile actors that’s friendly to the key buffer state of Jordan. ‘If that happens, we can accept some kind of limited, sovereign, independent Palestinian entity next door to us, with all those appropriate constraints and changes and reforms in the way they do business,’ knowing that it’s years in the future, if ever. But that kind of commitment by an Israeli government, which they’ve done more or less in the past, I think, would probably go a long way to cutting this Gordian knot and allowing MBS to really begin to make a major push, and for America to make a major new push toward this, you know, big strategic deal of normalization in the region.

That’s not to say that the creation of some kind of even constrained, sovereign Palestinian entity in the West Bank and Gaza wouldn’t be a big strategic deal and risky and dangerous, but that would be the course that you get some kind of Israeli government that’s prepared to, and that can, do it. In 2009 he basically accepted a constrained Palestinian sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza. Very, very heavy constraints on everything it could do, particularly militarily. Had to fight terror, couldn’t control its own airspace. Borders largely controlled in conjunction with Israel, both east and west. But yes, they’d have passports, they’d have a flag, they’d have a toehold in some neighborhood just outside of East Jerusalem. So Bibi has been there before. He obviously has reversed dramatically since then, because of October 7, could he get there again? I don’t know, in the context of a Saudi deal, maybe a pardon for him in Israeli politics down the road.

It’s not impossible, especially if Trump really badly wanted it, and Trump has shown he’s capable of exerting some kind of pressure on Bibi. And Bibi personally feels, feels heavily constrained to oppose Trump and say no to Trump, because he’s got a lot of right lot riding on Trump and for any reelection campaign. So yes. Why they’re either, why the weather with Bibi and more likely with some new Israeli governmental configuration? Is it possible? Yes, especially with a lot of Americans support and pushing, and the rest of the world playing their appropriate role with the Palestinians and getting them to, at last, finally begin to fly right – if that’s possible at all. Yeah, in theory, it’s doable and possible. And I think, you know, at that point, Bibi, MBS, and Trump would be primed to go and make normalization happen.

Misztal:

Thanks. Jonathan, one, maybe last question, and we can close out quickly with you. Any thoughts on Iran using the Houthis to pressure the Saudis to back off the U.S. and Israel relationship?

Ruhe:

Good question. You know, I think so. On the one hand, the Houthis have proven a very useful cudgel against the Saudis. You know, the Houthis showed for years their ability using relatively rudimentary drones and also some more advanced missiles to make life hell in in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the land of a lot of high value targets, and, certainly, trouble defending its airspace in any way nearly as well as Israel has. The Houthis also showed a similar capability to make life rather difficult for the U.S. Navy in the Red Sea.

I think ultimately, understanding the Houthis’ decision-making, calculus and their risk acceptance has proven difficult for a lot of people. You know, it seems for now, at least, that the Houthis, have got their own sort of de facto Cease fire. The Saudis, for a long time, they’ve got now got one with Israel, since the Gaza ceasefire. You know, I would ultimately look to Tehran here. You know, Tehran’s decision-making calculus about certain things has profoundly been affected by Israel and U.S. effectiveness in the 12-Day War, and in June, particularly in the nuclear program. I think Iran’s decision-making calculus about the rest of its ability to threaten the region, its missile programs, its air defenses to protect itself, and also its ring of fire to surround the region.

I think we’re seeing Iran certainly try to rebuild that network, and to prepare basically undo the verdict of the last two years, and to prepare to have at least the ability to credibly launch it, launch those threats again. And the Houthis, you know, sort of out, survived every other proxy in the network. Hezbollah was always supposed to be the crown jewel. And look what happened there. So yeah, I think Iran certainly has not given up its general mind frame, which is, it’s always best to push, you know, sort of push our ability to threaten our enemies as far away from our own borders as possible. And the Houthis have certainly, certainly shown a willingness and even an ability to do that to greater extent than the other proxies that are on, frankly, spent more time and effort building and design over the years.

Hannah:

Hey, Blaise, just one point that’s important for the audience to know that I just read about. Whatever civil nuclear deal has now been reached with the Saudis explicitly does not include enrichment and reprocessing capability inside of the kingdom. Which is incredibly important is a change from what MBS was insisting on up until and this is how crucial that 12-Day War was, that 12-Day War in June. June setback significantly for a few years, the Iranian nuclear program and the United States government landed on a position.

It’s the gold standard. It’s long standing nonproliferation position of zero enrichment for Iran, therefore taking away any kind of the argument the Saudis had for if you’re giving Iran enrichment under the JCPOA, you’ve got to give us enrichment 12-Day War, and the Trump administration strong position, finally, on zero enrichment has kind of shut that down, and that’s incredibly important, and that’s an important success for United States and Israeli policy, frankly.

Misztal:

Well, thanks, John, that’s a perfect segue. For those of you are interested, please join us tomorrow at 4pm for a webinar where we’re releasing our latest report, which is an assessment of, and lessons learned from, Operation Rising Lion and the 12-Day War, where we get into all of that much more deeply. But in the meantime. John, Jonathan, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your expertise with us today.

Thank you to everyone who joined in, and we’ll see you on the next webinar.