Saudi Arabia Faces Existential Threats, Needs Israel Alliance

Saudi Arabia is facing significant geopolitical challenges, including attacks on its infrastructure and airspace by Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen and militias in Iraq. These attacks have targeted critical assets like oil pipelines, disrupting exports, and have even reached the vicinity of Mecca. The article argues that Saudi Arabia's military, despite advanced American equipment like F-15s, has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to effectively counter these threats, symbolizing a systemic failure.

This operational impotence, coupled with the perceived weakness, is pushing Saudi Arabia into a diplomatic corner. Instead of seeking overt alliances with the U.S. and normalizing relations with Israel, Riyadh is pursuing indirect strategies, including engaging Egypt for maritime security, pressuring China to influence Iran, and recruiting mercenaries from Syria. The Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is reportedly hesitant to normalize ties with Israel due to fears of political and religious backlash, preferring to maintain ambiguity.

The article posits that Saudi Arabia's core legitimacy rests on oil revenues funding a vast welfare system and prestige projects like "Vision 2030." Disruptions to oil exports, therefore, pose an existential threat to the regime's survival. The recent public display of King Salman wielding a sword is interpreted not as a show of strength, but as a sign of panic from a regime whose authority is waning.

To counter this, the article proposes a strategic shift for the U.S. and Israel, moving away from dependence on Saudi Arabia towards a modular regional approach centered on a "corridor of the righteous" including India, the UAE, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and the U.S. Saudi Arabia should be treated as a transit state, not a linchpin. The proposed strategy aims to make Riyadh realize that its current isolation poses a greater existential threat than the perceived risks of openly aligning with the U.S. and Israel.

Specific recommendations include operationalizing the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) as a private commercial venture, leveraging India's position as a major energy consumer to pressure Saudi Arabia into facilitating the corridor, and making U.S. security and intelligence assistance conditional on Saudi cooperation. The article concludes that Saudi Arabia will only normalize ties with Israel when it perceives the threat from its current isolation to be greater than the risk of peace, suggesting that fear, not gratitude, will be the primary motivator.