Coverage of Saudi Arabia’s recent diplomatic maneuvers in Iran’s state-censored media bears the marks of envy and admiration, with analysts encouraging the regime to pursue a similar strategy. Saudi Arabia agreeing to normalize relations with Iran while also pursuing a U.S.-brokered agreement to normalize relations with Israel and playing the United States, China, and Russia against each other to its own advantage should serve as a model for Iran, whose anti-Americanism has denied it similar maneuverability. The fact that Iran’s censors have allowed such discussions may indicate Iran’s ruling elites and institutions agree to some extent that Tehran’s unbalanced orientation toward Beijing and Moscow has made it too dependent on the East, requiring an opening to Washington to restore the balance.

Throughout its modern history, Iran’s leaders, and to some extent the public at large, have perceived Saudi Arabia as a dependency of the United States rather than an independent regional power with interests of its own. While Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi accused Saudi Arabia of serving Western economic interests by undercutting Iran’s hawkish oil pricing policy in OPEC, the Islamic Republic has accused Saudi Arabia of being an outright stooge of the United States. Notoriously, when accepting the United Nations-brokered cease-fire in the war with Iraq on July 20, 1988, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accused the House of Saud of propagating what he called “American Islam,” “promoting sectarianism among the Islamic community of believers,” and “bowing in the direction of their overlord, the world devouring America.” Following this logic, Tehran, in particular under the Islamic Republic, has perceived the state of Iranian-Saudi relations as a component of Iranian-U.S. relations. Therefore, Iran has at times targeted Saudi Arabia as a way of retaliating against U.S. measures against Iran.

The Iranian leadership’s view of Saudi Arabia did not even change after the rise of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but as the new regime consolidates its position in Riyadh, analysts and policymakers in Tehran are gradually coming to see Saudi Arabia as an autonomous actor pursuing its interests independent of the United States and other world powers.

Mir-Qassem Momeni, a pragmatic regional affairs expert, in an August 1 interview with pan-Shia Shafaqna News implicitly praised Riyadh’s diplomatic maneuverability but also warned of the implications of a possible agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalize relations. Explaining the March 10 declaration signed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China in which Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed, among other things, to restore diplomatic relations, Momeni argued: “Saudi Arabia fears a war between Iran and Israel and senses it may be targeted by Iranian missiles in any war. Therefore, for the sake of its security, it reached an agreement and said, ‘I have no beef with you. You let me be!’” Momeni also warned: “Saudi Arabia’s relations with Iran are based on expediency, but its relations with Israel are based on shared interests.”

This line of thinking was also expressed by Asghar Zargar, a professor at the Tehran branch of the Islamic Azad University. In an August 3 interview with reformist Entekhab News, Zargar argued Saudi Arabia agreed to normalize relations with Iran to “secure its economic development plans” against possible Iranian attacks and is simultaneously normalizing “already existing relations with Israel” in line with its national security interests.

Before long, a former diplomat joined the choir of analysts and academics loudly admiring Saudi diplomacy. In an August 10 interview with reformist Shargh Daily, Qassem Mohebali, the former chief of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Directorate, said, “All Persian Gulf states tried to endear themselves to Iran in order to reduce the potential cost of their relations with Israel,” referencing the threat of Iranian attacks against those states. Mohebali also complained of Iran’s “lack of diplomatic maneuverability” to counter the maneuvers of Arab states.

Where Mohebali abstained from explicitly explaining what he meant by Iran’s “lack of diplomatic maneuverability,” regional affairs analyst Hamzeh Salehi praised Saudi Arabia’s flexible foreign policy and delivered a devastating critique of Iran’s foreign policy in an August 25 piece in Entekhab.

“By adopting a flexible and balanced policy, and through tactical alignment with China, Saudi Arabia has not only managed to attract the attention of the United States but has also made the Chinese get closer to it in order to reduce America’s influence in the region. Through flexibility and tactical maneuvers based on its national interests, Saudi Arabia has managed to extract great concessions from both parties,” Salehi wrote. He continued: “Iran, on the other hand, has harmed its own maneuverability and reduced its geopolitical worth by pursuing a single track and inflexible policy.” Proposing a means of restoring a more balanced foreign policy, Salehi urged Iranian officials to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal or reach a similar agreement with the United States. By doing so, Salehi argued, “China will be compelled to engage in a greater effort to keep Iran on its side … Iran will not only get sanctions removed and extract concessions from the West, but it will also significantly improve its bargaining position with China and Russia.”

There are signs that the regime and powerful institutions, such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, agree to some extent with these analysts and are already involved in a cautious opening toward Washington, as exemplified in the recent U.S.-Iran prisoner exchange agreement expected to secure the release of around $6 billion in Iranian assets frozen in South Korea. IRGC mouthpieces have not only openly defended the agreement but have also described it as a precursor to further agreements with the United States after the November 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The outcome of the U.S. election is only one among several factors, internal and external, that will impact Iran’s ability to reorient its foreign policy and establish a more balanced position in relations with the great powers of the East and West. Internally, institutions that have hitherto benefited from Tehran’s anti-American posture, in particular the IRGC and its extraterritorial operations Quds Force, must see greater benefits from positive engagement with the United States than from being in confrontation with it. This was indeed the case when Iran accepted the JCPOA, removal of international sanctions, and the prospects for foreign direct investment in Iran, from which the IRGC expected to benefit. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei too must show the necessary ideological and political flexibility to publicly endorse such a policy reorientation. Here, Khamenei may find it easier to give the green light to an implicit and not too visible reorientation toward the United States so he can combine political pragmatism with preservation of the illusion of Iran as a revolutionary state. Externally, the entire experiment may evaporate should President Joseph R. Biden Jr. fail to get reelected. If Biden fails to win a second term, there is likely to be little interest in Washington to accept Tehran’s overtures. Tehran’s potential pragmatic opening toward Washington may also not be welcomed by Washington’s allies in the Middle East, who jealously guard their position as strategic allies of the United States. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia’s recent approach appears to be a model Iranian leaders are considering emulating.