Saudi-UAE feud undercuts US moves to neutralize Iran permanently: ‘Knock it off’
The headline tells the story.
The United States’s efforts to permanently neutralize the Iranian threat are getting tangled by disagreements between allies who, theoretically, should be cheering on the regime’s collapse.
President Donald Trump has ordered a second aircraft carrier to join military patrols in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. envoys are meeting with increasingly desperate Iranian counterparts with the goal of negotiating an end to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Yet in ally Saudi Arabia, more ink is being spilled over the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), widely considered the Senate’s supreme warhawk toward the Islamic Republic, had a hard time controlling his anger at the Munich Security Conference on Friday as he lambasted the Middle East leaders he believes are holding back an anti-Iran coalition with petty feuds.
“As to [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] and [UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan] — knock it off. … I’m tired of this crap,” he shouted from the stage, warning that “any leader in the region that doesn’t understand you’re on the verge of history — history will judge you poorly.”
In this Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2019, photo released by the Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, shakes hands with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at Qasr Al Watan in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Rashed Al Mansoori/Ministry of Presidential Affairs via AP)
The Saudis and Emiratis have escalated their rhetoric against one another in recent weeks, focusing more public statements on each other’s perceived duplicity than on the Shia dictatorship that is under threat of collapse.
The sour relations emerged in December 2025, ostensibly over conflicting visions for leadership in Yemen and Sudan. That complicated dispute has quickly mutated into tit-for-tat insults using Israel as a wedge.
Saudi media outlets and sermons delivered by state-sanctioned clerics have renewed campaigns characterizing Israel as “Zionist aggressors” and decrying the Jewish state’s treatment of muslims’ “downtrodden brothers in Palestine.” The Saudis have used this narrative as a cudgel to hammer the UAE, which maintains a close relationship with Israel, as a “Zionist Trojan Horse” and “proxy” being used to “divide Arab states.”
The UAE has been accused of lobbying American advocacy groups to brand Saudi Arabia as “antisemitic” in response.
Graham, exasperated in Munich on Friday, urged Salman to …
The headline tells the story.
The United States’s efforts to permanently neutralize the Iranian threat are getting tangled by disagreements between allies who, theoretically, should be cheering on the regime’s collapse.
President Donald Trump has ordered a second aircraft carrier to join military patrols in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. envoys are meeting with increasingly desperate Iranian counterparts with the goal of negotiating an end to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Yet in ally Saudi Arabia, more ink is being spilled over the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), widely considered the Senate’s supreme warhawk toward the Islamic Republic, had a hard time controlling his anger at the Munich Security Conference on Friday as he lambasted the Middle East leaders he believes are holding back an anti-Iran coalition with petty feuds.
“As to [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] and [UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan] — knock it off. … I’m tired of this crap,” he shouted from the stage, warning that “any leader in the region that doesn’t understand you’re on the verge of history — history will judge you poorly.”
In this Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2019, photo released by the Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, shakes hands with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at Qasr Al Watan in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Rashed Al Mansoori/Ministry of Presidential Affairs via AP)
The Saudis and Emiratis have escalated their rhetoric against one another in recent weeks, focusing more public statements on each other’s perceived duplicity than on the Shia dictatorship that is under threat of collapse.
The sour relations emerged in December 2025, ostensibly over conflicting visions for leadership in Yemen and Sudan. That complicated dispute has quickly mutated into tit-for-tat insults using Israel as a wedge.
Saudi media outlets and sermons delivered by state-sanctioned clerics have renewed campaigns characterizing Israel as “Zionist aggressors” and decrying the Jewish state’s treatment of muslims’ “downtrodden brothers in Palestine.” The Saudis have used this narrative as a cudgel to hammer the UAE, which maintains a close relationship with Israel, as a “Zionist Trojan Horse” and “proxy” being used to “divide Arab states.”
The UAE has been accused of lobbying American advocacy groups to brand Saudi Arabia as “antisemitic” in response.
Graham, exasperated in Munich on Friday, urged Salman to …
Saudi-UAE feud undercuts US moves to neutralize Iran permanently: ‘Knock it off’
The headline tells the story.
The United States’s efforts to permanently neutralize the Iranian threat are getting tangled by disagreements between allies who, theoretically, should be cheering on the regime’s collapse.
President Donald Trump has ordered a second aircraft carrier to join military patrols in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. envoys are meeting with increasingly desperate Iranian counterparts with the goal of negotiating an end to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Yet in ally Saudi Arabia, more ink is being spilled over the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), widely considered the Senate’s supreme warhawk toward the Islamic Republic, had a hard time controlling his anger at the Munich Security Conference on Friday as he lambasted the Middle East leaders he believes are holding back an anti-Iran coalition with petty feuds.
“As to [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] and [UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan] — knock it off. … I’m tired of this crap,” he shouted from the stage, warning that “any leader in the region that doesn’t understand you’re on the verge of history — history will judge you poorly.”
In this Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2019, photo released by the Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, shakes hands with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at Qasr Al Watan in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Rashed Al Mansoori/Ministry of Presidential Affairs via AP)
The Saudis and Emiratis have escalated their rhetoric against one another in recent weeks, focusing more public statements on each other’s perceived duplicity than on the Shia dictatorship that is under threat of collapse.
The sour relations emerged in December 2025, ostensibly over conflicting visions for leadership in Yemen and Sudan. That complicated dispute has quickly mutated into tit-for-tat insults using Israel as a wedge.
Saudi media outlets and sermons delivered by state-sanctioned clerics have renewed campaigns characterizing Israel as “Zionist aggressors” and decrying the Jewish state’s treatment of muslims’ “downtrodden brothers in Palestine.” The Saudis have used this narrative as a cudgel to hammer the UAE, which maintains a close relationship with Israel, as a “Zionist Trojan Horse” and “proxy” being used to “divide Arab states.”
The UAE has been accused of lobbying American advocacy groups to brand Saudi Arabia as “antisemitic” in response.
Graham, exasperated in Munich on Friday, urged Salman to …
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