The cost of Iran’s regional leverage

For more than two years, the 2023 Beijing-brokered agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran seemed to mark a shift in Gulf politics: Away from confrontation and towards managed coexistence. The agreement neither ended strategic rivalry nor sought to do so. Its significance was more limited but still consequential: It created political space for competition to be managed without repeatedly spilling into direct regional escalation. That space came under severe strain earlier this year, when direct Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia led Riyadh to expel Iran’s military attache and four other embassy staff.