Arnaud Bertrand on Substack

This (arabnews.com/node/2642938) is, by any measure, an extraordinary article: Prince Turki Al-Faisal is a son of King Faisal and ran Saudi intelligence (the GID) for over two decades.

He is writing that the plan of "the US-Israeli war on Iran" was "to ignite war between us [Saudi Arabia] and Iran," so that Israel could "impose its will on the region and remained the only actor in our surroundings."

This further confirms that, contrary to what many have asserted, the notion that the Saudis were quietly backing the war on Iran was a myth (alongside the recent fact the Saudis denied the U.S. access to its bases and airspace: x.com/RnaudBertrand/…).

From the horse's mouth they're literally saying it was as much a war on them as it was on Iran!

Pretty crazy when you think about it: this is Saudi Arabia saying that their real enemy in this war was the U.S. and Israel. Hard to overstate how significant a rupture this represents.

Now of course they could be saying so because, seeing how the war turned out, they're trying to retroactively position themselves on the winning side (at least strategically, by saying they didn't take the bait), or trying to justify domestically why they absorbed hits from Iran without retaliating.

And, of course, it's not like they're presenting Iran as some sort of ally here: Prince Turki explicitly calls them a "neighbor" that caused "pains."

But still, the end result remains: the Saudi establishment is now committing, on the record and in plain language, to a framing in which, while Iran is a "painful neighbor", the U.S. and Israel represent the deeper strategic threat, having tried to engineer their destruction.