Summary
Saudi Arabia has rapidly become the key mediator among the U.S., Iran, and Israel, creating a rare chance to negotiate reduced nuclear tensions and regional de-escalation. Iran’s leadership is fragmented among hardliners, pragmatists, an aging supreme authority, and a growing democratic opposition. A phased deal involving nuclear limits, economic incentives, and regional security steps could work if managed carefully.
Though risks exist—from sabotage to geopolitical interference—they can be mitigated through the mediator’s unique leverage. Success could stabilize the region; failure risks escalation and a nuclear crisis.
A Pivot Without Precedent
Saudi Arabia has executed the most successful geopolitical pivot of any major power since Egypt’s 1972 expulsion of Soviet advisers. In the space of 36 months, Riyadh has transformed itself from a status quo, risk-averse rentier ally into the single most indispensable interlocutor in the Middle East – the only actor that currently possesses meaningful leverage over Washington, Tehran, and Jerusalem simultaneously.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman now enjoys greater strategic latitude than any Saudi leader in history. The 2023 China-brokered detente with Iran, the quiet but robust defense-industrial partnership with Pakistan, Riyadh’s retained credibility in Jerusalem, and – most dramatically – President Trump’s designation of Saudi Arabia as a Major non-NATO Ally (announced yesterday with MBS at the White House) have combined to place the Crown Prince in a position no Arab leader has occupied since Egypt’s Pan-Arabist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s.
Just hours before boarding his flight to Washington, Iran’s President Massoud Pezeshkian had a personal letter hand-delivered to MBS – an unmistakable strategic signal of respect and recognition of the Crown Prince’s newly acquired centrality.
This unique positioning creates what may be the final non-military offramp to a genuine strategic accommodation between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran before the region slides into confrontation. Multiple channels confirm that the Saudi Crown Prince is seriously evaluating President Trump and Pezeshkian’s proposition, viewing it as his opportunity to lay the diplomatic cornerstone of an entirely new era.
Tehran’s Four-Way Fracture
The Iranian regime is no longer a unitary actor. Four competing power centers pull in opposite directions.
- The IRGC-Quds Force and its Russian-Chinese patrons treat alignment with Moscow and Beijing as regime life insurance and will sabotage any deal that threatens their empires or proxy networks.
- President Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Araghchi know economic collapse is imminent without reintegration, but they need a face-saving ladder.
- An 86-year-old Supreme Leader, increasingly isolated and infirm, both politically and physically, presides over a paralyzed household; succession planning is frozen, between hardline and interim-council scenarios; and he is fully aware of his personal and the regime’s deep unpopularity.
And then there is the force Western capitals have been slowest to acknowledge, yet may ultimately prove the most consequential: Mir-Hossein Mousavi and the pluralistic domestic opposition he now embodies. From nearly 15 years of house arrest, the former prime minister, once the very symbol of revolutionary zeal and legitimacy, declared the Islamic Republic a failed experiment.
He now calls, with moral clarity and surging public resonance, for the peaceful abolition of Velayat-e Faqih and a national referendum on a new secular-democratic constitution: definition of “regime change.” Far from a fringe figure, Mousavi has become the focal point for a broad, courageous, and increasingly coherent coalition: the old reformist intelligentsia (i.e., Karroubi, Hajjarian, quiet Zarif sympathizers, etc.), labor leaders, women’s rights networks, Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi (who from prison calls him “the architect of our redemption”), and above all the post-Mahsa generation that detects sincerity and genuine awakening in him.
To them, Mousavi is an uncorrupted, 83-year-old man carrying the deep scars of the regime’s betrayal, fully convinced that secularism is the only way out of Iran’s current paralysis. Underground sentiment places his current support at 25-29% in urban Iran, and climbing.
This is not chaos; it is the reemergence of a genuine domestic Iranian tradition, a long-standing national aspiration for sovereignty, one that explicitly rejects both theocracy and foreign domination. In many ways, this domestic coalition represents the West’s best long-term outcome: a post-theocratic Iran that is nationalist, pluralist, and instinctively pro-Western in orientation. It is the only internal force that could deliver a stable, non-nuclear, non-revolutionary Iran aligned with global norms.
Why Only Riyadh Can Thread the Needle
No other capital possesses Riyadh’s unique combination of assets: trust with Tehran’s pragmatists, credibility with the Supreme Leader’s circle (via MBS’s strategic and strong ties to Putin and Xi), a trillion-dollar leverage over the Trump administration, and the ability to give Israel the “Arab cover” it demands. Saudi Arabia is now the only regional state that is both feared and trusted in Tehran.
The Deal That Could Actually Work
The parameters of such a deal have been war-gamed exhaustively in Riyadh and Washington and are deliberately phased:
- First 18 months: Iran freezes enrichment above 3.67% and accepts real-time IAEA monitoring; the U.S. lifts secondary sanctions on nonoil exports (i.e. pistachio, carpets, etc., $20-30 billion new revenue); Saudi Arabia leads Yemen de-escalation and funds her reconstruction.
- Next phase: stockpile caps, dismantlement of excess centrifuges, phased release of frozen assets, and a $100 billion “conditional” Saudi investment fund in Iranian infrastructure.
- Long term: limited enrichment rights under a 20-year sunset, IRGC proxy restraints enforced through Saudi channels, and a new “Persian Gulf Security Forum” that includes Iran, but also keeps Israel as an observer.
Managing the Risks – With Credible Mitigations
The risks are real and serious, but all are addressable. Every risk has a Saudi-specific mitigation:
- IRGC sabotage: Can be preempted through Riyadh’s side-channels on shared threats and targeted economic incentives to pragmatic field commanders.
- Israeli preemption: Can be deterred by MBS’s direct channel to Jerusalem, trading visible Palestinian progress for Hizbullah restraint and verifiable Iranian rollback.
- U.S. congressional opposition: Can be neutralized by framing the deal as a signature Trump legacy, sweetened by Saudi burden sharing and, crucially, tangible, irreversible steps toward Saudi-Israeli normalization, the long-standing quid-pro-quo President Trump has pursued; a mission-critical requisite for U.S. congressional approval of F-35 sales to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
- Russian/Chinese spoiling: Can be contained by MBS’s personal leverage in Moscow and Beijing.
- Most delicately, the Mousavi coalition momentum must be handled with care rather than fear. Mitigation means quiet, deniable, Persian Gulf-hosted dialogues offering Iran’s pluralistic domestic opposition a respected seat at a Saudi-guaranteed national conference on constitutional reform once milestones are met, treating them as legitimate partners rather than spoilers.
The message is simple and respectful: we see you as a legitimate representation of a pluralistic domestic opposition in support of the long-standing secular democratic aspirations of the Iranian people; a managed transition that includes you is infinitely preferable to chaos or IRGC entrenchment. Several key Mousavi advisors have signaled openness to a path of engagement with the West, if it delivers genuine respect for Iran’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, global economic integration, and human rights guarantees. Far from a spoiler, the democratic opposition is the West’s insurance policy-and potentially its most valuable partner-if the current regime proves too fractured to deliver.
Policy Recommendations
- Immediate U.S. Action: Dispatch a high-level envoy to Riyadh for a trilateral U.S.-Saudi-Iran kickoff, using Oman as a cutout for initial Pezeshkian buy-in.
- Saudi Incentives: Place on track an F-35 congressional sales approval process, and nuclear fuel cycle tech-sharing ratification as Phase I deliverables; contingent on steady normalization progress between the KSA and Israel, as well as Iranian compliance hitting 80%.
- European/Persian Gulf Alignment: Convene a Paris-Riyadh-Berlin summit to lock in EU sanctions relief parallelism and UAE/Qatari funding for the Palestinian component.
- Contingency Planning: Develop a “spoiler playbook” for Houthi/Iranian walk-backs, including pre-positioned U.S. assets in Diego Garcia and Saudi bases under the new ally framework.
- Public Narrative: Position the initiative as “Persian Gulf-led stability,” not “U.S.-Iran reset,” to insulate against domestic blowback.
The Alternative No One Wants
Uncontrolled escalation offers no mitigations: oil above $200, the Strait of Hormuz in flames, global recession, and a high probability of an Iranian nuclear sprint.
A Choice, Not a Favor; And a Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity
President Trump’s elevation of Saudi Arabia to “Major non-NATO Ally” status, combined with his relentless pursuit of Saudi-Israel normalization (the key that finally unlocks congressional approval for F-35 transfers) are the geopolitical accelerant this process has lacked and desperately needed for decades.
Success would hand President Trump a once-in-a-generation foreign policy triumph, perhaps even his “Nixon goes to China” moment, while redefining MBS’s global legacy and delivering the first truly stable Middle East in generations.
MBS now holds the only viable short-term key to containing Iran without war. Washington can treat Riyadh as a client and risk watching this moment vanish. Or, it can treat the Kingdom and MBS as a genuine co-architect of a new regional order. The clock is ticking: tick tock!
