The announcement of the proposed U.S. agreement to help build Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear energy program on July 22, in the midst of the U.S. war on Iran, indicates that both Washington and Riyadh have concluded, from the perspectives of their respective vital national interests, it’s time for a reset of the 80-year-old U.S.-Saudi strategic relationship.
The original strategic understanding forged in February 1945 by Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdul Azziz Ibn-Saud was based on a simple bargain anchored in realpolitik: energy security for the United States in return for economic security for Saudi Arabia.
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