Back in March, Saudi and Iran announced they had agreed to restore diplomatic ties in a deal brokered by China, ending a seven-year rift. The Saudi Arabia-Iran deal–one of the latest in a series of geopolitical realignments that have lately been going on in the Middle East–has been widely lauded, with the U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby saying, “To the degree that this arrangement can lead to an end to the war in Yemen, to the degree that it can help prevent Saudi Arabia from having to defend itself against attacks, to the degree that could deescalate tensions – all that’s to the good side of the ledger.
