MBS’s gamble: Saudi leans toward Turkey and Qatar, avoids Israel-US bloc - opinion

That position is eroding.

The Israel-US-UAE relationship is no longer a loose arrangement of convenience. It is hardening into a durable strategic bloc, with expanding cooperation in air defense, intelligence sharing, military technology, and economic integration. Abu Dhabi has entrenched itself as Washington’s most reliable Arab partner, while Israel has become the operational backbone of regional security planning. Crucially, this consolidation is taking place without Saudi Arabia at its center.

Faced with this shift, MBS has chosen to hedge outward rather than commit inward. Turkey and Qatar, long seen as challengers to Saudi leadership in the Sunni world, are now treated as useful counterweights. Turkey offers military reach and regional ambition; Qatar brings financial leverage, media power, and influence over political Islamist networks. Together, they provide Riyadh with alternatives at a moment when Saudi primacy no longer feels guaranteed.

This strategy is reinforced by a particular reading of recent history, one shaped in part by influential Western commentary that has repeatedly underestimated the likelihood of force in the region. In the period preceding the short but consequential “12-day war,” prominent analysts argued that the United States and Israel would ultimately avoid direct confrontation with Iran and default to diplomacy. That assumption proved wrong. When negotiations failed to restrain Tehran’s advances, military action followed faster and more decisively than many expected.

The lesson should have been sobering. Yet MBS appears to be internalizing the same analytical framework: restraint is structural, escalation improbable, and time always favors diplomacy. It is a comforting worldview, one that suggests Iran will remain intact, pressure will remain manageable, and hedging will suffice.

But it is also a framework that has already failed once and may be on the verge of failing again. If Saudi strategy rests on the belief that Washington and Jerusalem will indefinitely avoid confrontation with Tehran, Riyadh risks being blindsided by the next escalation, one that, by definition, will arrive when consensus says it should not.

Foreign policy, however, cannot be separated from domestic constraints. Only a few years ago, MBS presented himself as a modernizer. Projects like NEOM symbolized a post-oil, post-clerical Saudi Arabia – technologically advanced, socially liberal, and globally integrated. Today, that momentum is slowing. NEOM’s ambitions have been scaled back, timelines extended, and investor enthusiasm cooled.

Part of the explanation lies at home. Despite years of centralization, Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi religious base remains a powerful social force. Social liberalization, normalization with Israel, and deeper alignment with Western security frameworks all carry internal political costs. As economic pressures mount and flagship projects lose momentum, MBS faces tighter constraints in pushing reforms that risk provoking conservative backlash.

Iran has long served as the organizing threat of Middle Eastern geopolitics. Its presence has masked deeper rivalries and aligned competing powers against a common adversary. If that regime were to weaken or fall, the region would not stabilize; it would reorder. In that reordered landscape, Turkey’s ambitions and Qatar’s asymmetric influence would move to the forefront, often in direct conflict with Saudi interests.

By empowering these actors now, Riyadh risks strengthening tomorrow’s rivals. Meanwhile, the Israel-US-UAE axis continues to consolidate – faster, deeper, and increasingly independent of Saudi participation. The longer Saudi Arabia remains outside that structure, the harder it will be to shape its outcomes.

MBS is wagering on continuity – externally with Iran, internally with managed reform. But Middle Eastern history rarely rewards linear thinking. If Iran falls, or if domestic pressures intensify, Saudi Arabia may discover that it has traded strategic leadership for tactical hedging, as well as long-term influence for short-term stability.

The danger is not that MBS is misreading today’s Middle East. It is that he may be anchoring Saudi Arabia to assumptions that tomorrow’s region will no longer respect.