![]() ![]() It created the opportunity for MbS to launch a diplomatic offensive that included high profile summit appearances. MbS' position strengthened last year when Western economies turned to Saudi Arabia to help tame an oil market destabilized by the war in Ukraine. "He is not getting what he wants from the other side," Sager added, saying Saudi Arabia's ententes with regional foes were based on Riyadh's approach to regional security. "This is a strong signal to America that 'we're reshaping and redrawing our relations without you'," said Abdulaziz al-Sager, Chairman of the Gulf Research Center, of the summit. Still, with Washington seemingly less engaged in the Middle East and less receptive to Riyadh's anxieties, MbS is pursuing his own regional policy with less apparent deference to the views of his most powerful ally. To be sure Saudi Arabia still depends militarily on the United States, which saved it from possible invasion by Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 1990, monitors Iranian military activity in the Gulf and provides Riyadh with most of its weapons. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy came to the Jeddah meeting and MbS offered to mediate between Kyiv and fellow oil producer Moscow. His blithe confidence on the world stage was not only visible in his reception of Assad. ![]() promises on Saudi security and tired of its scolding tone, MbS is instead building ties with other global powers and, regardless of Washington's consternation, remaking his relations with their shared foes. Shunned by Western states after the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi hit squad, the prince has now emerged as a player whom Washington can neither disregard nor disavow, but must deal with on a transactional basis.
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