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◼ REMARKS
● SaudiArabiaandIranbattleeach
otherviaproxies,buttheirrivalryhas
triggerpointsformoredirectconflict● ByBenjaminHarvey
the king. “You as Persians have no business meddling in Arab
affairs.” The king said Mottaki had one year to improve ties.
Abdullah didn’t wait that long to make his next move.
Moments later he told a delegation of visiting U.S. officials that
the Iranians couldn’t be trusted and implored them, in the
words of a senior adviser, to “cut off the head of the snake”
by attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and hitting it with eco-
nomic sanctions, according to the same classified U.S. diplo-
matic summary of the meeting, which was published in 2012.
President Obama did nothing of the sort. And the Saudi roy-
als would have to wait almost a decade until they got a more
amenable American president. Indeed, Abdullah wouldn’t
live to see the shift.
When Donald Trump was running for office in 2016, you
wouldn’t have guessed it would be him. Trump the candi-
date railed against foreign entanglements, costly interven-
tions in other nations’ affairs, and what he called America’sThe
Of My
● Enemy
In April 2008, Iran’s then-Foreign Minister Manouchehr
Mottaki flew to Riyadh to meet with Saudi Arabia’s King
Abdullah. It did not go well.
Mottaki was seeking better relations with his country’s
chief regional rival. Instead he got a lecture from the king
about Tehran’s interference in Palestinian affairs. But “these
are Muslims,” Mottaki responded, according to U.S. diplo-
matic cables made public by WikiLeaks. “No, Arabs,” replied