The U.S. and Saudi Arabia Can’t Remain at Odds Forever
Leaders of the two countries haven’t been talking lately, but both have a stake in repairing their relationship.
Strained ties.
Photographers: Nicholas Kamm/AFP; Jacques Witt/AFP via Getty Images
The most important partnership in the Middle East has been put in jeopardy by the peevishness of a prince and political opportunism of a president. Repairing the Saudi-American relationship will require the first to behave like a grown-up, the other like a statesman.
That’s asking a lot of two men who have little in common beyond a reputation for stubbornness. One operates in a conscience-free bubble that comes with absolute power, while the other wields a selective moralism characteristic of a performative political culture. But the war in Ukraine just might help them both get over themselves.