🇮🇷🇸🇦THE DAY SAUDI ARABIA REALIZED IRAN COULDN’T BE DEFEATED.
Breaking: Saudi Arabia shocks the region with surprise appearance at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral. Saudi Arabia’s Tehran Visit Signals a New Middle East Reality.
Riyadh’s unexpected move sends a powerful message to Washington and Tehran. While Oman and Qatar were on the list of foreign delegations, Saudi Arabia was Not. Saudi Arabia makes surprise appearance at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral: What is Riyadh really scignalling amid souring ties with U.S.?
While delegations from Oman and Qatar were expected, Saudi Arabia was notably absent from the official list – making the visit a major surprise. In a diplomatic surprise, Saudi Arabia sent its Deputy Foreign Minister to the funeral ceremony of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, an unexpected move that has drawn attention amid the fragile regional balance following the U.S.-Iran conflict.
The Saudi delegation’s presence was particularly notable, as Riyadh was not initially listed among the foreign governments expected to send official representatives to the funeral, especially in the wake of the Iranian attacks on U.S. assets in the kingdom. While delegations from Oman and Qatar were expected due to their direct roles as regional mediators in US-Iran diplomacy, Saudi Arabia’s participation had not figured in the official list.
Why Saudi attendance was unexpected.
Although Saudi Arabia and several Gulf states initially resisted Washington’s request to support military operations against Iran, they eventually allowed the United States limited access to bases and airspace for strikes on Iranian targets. Tehran responded by targeting U.S.-linked assets across the region, with Riyadh emerging as one of the most prominent flashpoints. That made the arrival of a senior Saudi official particularly significant, especially given the long and often hostile history between Tehran and Riyadh.
What the Saudi presence signals.
The Saudi presence is being interpreted as a message of strategic caution and diplomatic balancing. By attending the funeral, Riyadh appears to be signalling that despite its differences with Iran and close security ties with the United States, it wants to preserve channels of communication with Tehran and avoid further regional escalation. The move also suggests Saudi Arabia is closely watching Iran’s leadership transition following Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death and the rise of his successor, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.
Saudi Arabia’s Tehran Visit Signals a New Middle East Reality.
For a long time, Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia has been wary of Iran’s Shia influence in the region. Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Gulf monarchies collaborated with the United States and Israel to build massive military bases across the region to curtail Iran’s influence. The Sunni monarchies, including Saudi Arabia, supported the rebels in Syria in an effort to replace Bashar Al-Assad’s government with a Sunni-led government. Iran needed Syria because it served as a critical supply route for weapons to Hezbollah, giving Iran two front lines against Israel through both Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon. This strategy worked because Israel could not easily operate through Syrian airspace to reach Iran.
Once Assad in Syria was overthrown and replaced by Al-Jolani, with the support of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and others, Israel intensified its attacks in Lebanon, including the pager attacks, the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, and the killing of much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership. Israel believed it had Hezbollah on the back foot and concluded that the time had come to confront Iran directly. With Hezbollah weakened and much of its leadership eliminated, Israel became confident it could take the war to Iran.
However, Netanyahu knew Israel did not have the military capability to wage a large-scale war against Iran on its own. He convinced Trump that if Iran’s leadership and military command were eliminated, the Iranian government would collapse.
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Previous U.S. Presidents, including Barrack Obama, did not fully buy into Netanyahu’s narrative. Nevertheless, they continued imposing sanctions on Iran, even though Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while Israel is not a signatory and is widely believed to possess more than 100 nuclear weapons. The double standard was evident. Israel has nuclear weapons, faces no international inspections, and is not treated as the primary threat. Iran, meanwhile, has a nuclear program but no confirmed nuclear weapon, yet it has been portrayed as the greater danger.
Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Gulf states were all part of the regional opposition to Iran. Crown Prince – Mohammed bin Salman even encouraged Trump to finish off the Iranian leadership. But they failed to realize that Iran had a strategy of its own.
Iran fought back and inflicted significant damage on U.S. military bases and installations across the region while demonstrating its ability to strike strategic targets. It also sent a clear message to the Sunni Gulf states, particularly Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait, that it possessed the military capability to retaliate if attacked.
They are now coming to terms with the reality that they may no longer be able to depend solely on the United States for security guarantees. From their perspective, the United States and Trump ultimately prioritized defending Israel while leaving the Gulf states vulnerable to Iranian retaliation. As a result, they are beginning to ask whether they still need large U.S. military bases in their countries or whether a new regional security arrangement is necessary.
Saudi Arabia has also come to recognize that Iran is a major regional power. Through its influence in Yemen and the Houthis’ ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, Iran possesses significant strategic leverage. After years of collaboration with the United States and decades of rivalry rooted in the Sunni-Shia divide, Saudi Arabia now appears to recognize that its previous approach did not achieve its objectives.
That helps explain why Saudi officials traveled to Tehran to pay their respects and acknowledge what may be an emerging regional security reality. It is not only Iran that seeks to shape the region. Israel also seeks regional dominance, and many view Israel as an extension of U.S. strategic influence in the Middle East aimed at maintaining and expanding that regional order.