Hamidreza Azizi

A non-aggression pact between #Iran and Saudi Arabia? 🔹The Financial Times report on Saudi Arabia’s proposal for a regional “non-aggression pact” between Iran and neighboring states is not merely a temporary diplomatic initiative. Rather, it signals Riyadh’s attempt to redefine the Middle East’s security architecture in the aftermath of the U.S./Israeli war on Iran. 🔹The significance of this idea lies less in the pact itself – after all, this is not the first time such an idea is being discussed – than in the strategic logic behind it. Saudi Arabia appears to have concluded that the perpetual cycle of deterrence, limited strikes, and proxy warfare can no longer be managed solely through reliance on the American security umbrella. 🔹The Saudis’ reference to the 1970s “Helsinki process” is also far from accidental. That model was designed precisely to manage competition between hostile blocs, not to fully resolve ideological and geopolitical disputes. In other words, the objective is not to eliminate tensions, but to contain them. 🔹In effect, Riyadh now seems to be moving toward a form of implicit acceptance of a new regional balance of power, in which Iran, despite the heavy costs of the recent war, remains an indispensable actor in the region’s security equations. 🔹This shift also reflects a broader change in the Saudi conception of “stability.” For years, many Arab states defined regional security in terms of containing or weakening Iran’s regional influence. Now, however, the primary priority appears to be preventing Iran-Israel conflict from escalating into a permanent regional war. 🔹From this perspective, the proposal for a non-aggression pact should be understood as part of the broader trend toward the “regionalization” of Persian Gulf security. This process began with the China-mediated Iran-Saudi rapprochement in 2023 and may now enter a more complex phase, i.e., the establishment of rules of conduct for crisis management. 🔹At the same time, comparisons between the Middle East and Cold War-era Europe have serious limitations. Unlike Europe, the region lacks durable institutional structures, clear deterrence lines, and even a minimal consensus over the foundations of a regional security order. Moreover, the role of non-state actors and multilayered conflicts makes the equation far more complex. 🔹More importantly, any such initiative would remain inherently fragile without some degree of mutual understanding between Iran and Israel regarding the acceptable limits of escalation. Any new direct confrontation could easily destroy the entire process of regional de-escalation. 🔹At the same time, the proposal itself demonstrates that the Arab states of the Persian Gulf are increasingly concerned about the spillover of Iran-Israel rivalry into their energy infrastructure, trade corridors, and economic development projects. This concern has now become a major driver of regional policy. 🔹For this reason, even if the idea of a “non-aggression pact” never materializes into a formal agreement, the very fact that it has been proposed carries an important message, that a significant part of the Arab world is no longer seeking to exclude Iran from the region’s security equations, but rather to make patterns of interaction with Tehran more predictable.

A non-aggression pact between #Iran and Saudi Arabia? 🔹The Financial Times report on Saudi Arabia’s proposal for a regional “non-aggression pact” between Iran and neighboring states is not merely a temporary diplomatic initiative. Rather, it signals Riyadh’s attempt to redefine the Middle East’s security architecture in the aftermath of the U.S./Israeli war on Iran. 🔹The significance of this idea lies less in the pact itself – after all, this is not the first time such an idea is being discussed – than in the strategic logic behind it. Saudi Arabia appears to have concluded that the perpetual cycle of deterrence, limited strikes, and proxy warfare can no longer be managed solely through reliance on the American security umbrella. 🔹The Saudis’ reference to the 1970s “Helsinki process” is also far from accidental. That model was designed precisely to manage competition between hostile blocs, not to fully resolve ideological and geopolitical disputes. In other words, the objective is not to eliminate tensions, but to contain them. 🔹In effect, Riyadh now seems to be moving toward a form of implicit acceptance of a new regional balance of power, in which Iran, despite the heavy costs of the recent war, remains an indispensable actor in the region’s security equations. 🔹This shift also reflects a broader change in the Saudi conception of “stability.” For years, many Arab states defined regional security in terms of containing or weakening Iran’s regional influence. Now, however, the primary priority appears to be preventing Iran-Israel conflict from escalating into a permanent regional war. 🔹From this perspective, the proposal for a non-aggression pact should be understood as part of the broader trend toward the “regionalization” of Persian Gulf security. This process began with the China-mediated Iran-Saudi rapprochement in 2023 and may now enter a more complex phase, i.e., the establishment of rules of conduct for crisis management. 🔹At the same time, comparisons between the Middle East and Cold War-era Europe have serious limitations. Unlike Europe, the region lacks durable institutional structures, clear deterrence lines, and even a minimal consensus over the foundations of a regional security order. Moreover, the role of non-state actors and multilayered conflicts makes the equation far more complex. 🔹More importantly, any such initiative would remain inherently fragile without some degree of mutual understanding between Iran and Israel regarding the acceptable limits of escalation. Any new direct confrontation could easily destroy the entire process of regional de-escalation. 🔹At the same time, the proposal itself demonstrates that the Arab states of the Persian Gulf are increasingly concerned about the spillover of Iran-Israel rivalry into their energy infrastructure, trade corridors, and economic development projects. This concern has now become a major driver of regional policy. 🔹For this reason, even if the idea of a “non-aggression pact” never materializes into a formal agreement, the very fact that it has been proposed carries an important message, that a significant part of the Arab world is no longer seeking to exclude Iran from the region’s security equations, but rather to make patterns of interaction with Tehran more predictable.

Trump-Xi meeting and #Iran’s new maneuver in Hormuz 🔹As Trump meets Xi in Beijing – with reopening the Strait of Hormuz being a major topic on his agenda – Iran’s Fars News Agency reports that Tehran has begun allowing Chinese ships through the strait under Iranian-managed protocols, following lobbying by China’s foreign minister and ambassador. The timing is quite important. 🔹One of Washington’s key demands of Beijing is that China pressure Tehran to reopen Hormuz. Iran seems to have just made that demand structurally irrelevant. The message from Tehran is that the strait isn’t closed to partners, and it never was. In fact, Iran has been operating a selective access regime since the start of the conflict. 🔹But here, the protocol matters as much as the passage. Ships transit under Iranian management and on Iranian terms. Tehran is not “reopening” Hormuz completely; instead, it is demonstrating sovereign governance over it. This is something Iranian leaders have been emphasizing. 🔹For Beijing, the move is a diplomatic gift. Xi can tell Trump the strait is accessible to Chinese vessels – which is now verifiably true – without having applied a single day of pressure on Iran. Washington wanted Chinese leverage over Tehran, but Tehran has effectively removed the pretext for invoking it. 🔹In this sense, Iran keeps the strait instrumentalized, i.e., open enough to service partners, but closed enough to impose costs on adversaries, while retaining the ability to tighten or ease access as the diplomatic environment shifts. 🔹The development once again shows that a war designed in part to strip Iran of its instruments of regional leverage may instead have consolidated Hormuz as a permanently managed chokepoint, through which Tehran now exercises something closer to port authority than naval harassment.