In the wake of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Saudi Arabia is quietly floating an idea that would have seemed unthinkable a decade ago: a non-aggression pact binding Middle Eastern states and the Islamic Republic itself. According to diplomats cited by the Financial Times, Riyadh is studying the 1970s Helsinki Process — the Cold War agreement signed in 1975 by the United States, European countries, and the Soviet bloc — as a potential template. The Helsinki deal did not end the Cold War, but it created channels for security cooperation and economic engagement between enemies who otherwise had no reason to talk.
Why now? Gulf states are nervous. They fear being left with a wounded but still dangerous Iran on their doorstep once the current conflict winds down and the large US military presence in the region scales back. A weaker Iran is not necessarily a safer Iran; it may be a more hawkish one. Already, Tehran has retaliated against the war by firing barrages of missiles and drones at Gulf targets and effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which a significant share of the world's oil flows.
There is also a second pressure point: Israel. Many Arab and Muslim states have grown increasingly uneasy about Israeli military conduct following Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, pointing to continued strikes against Hizbollah in Lebanon, against Hamas in Gaza, and against parts of southern Syria. That unease shapes the diplomatic geometry of any new pact. An Arab diplomat quoted in the FT report put it bluntly: 'It all depends on who is in it.' In the current climate, getting Iran and Israel into the same agreement is essentially impossible. But excluding Israel could be counterproductive, the diplomat warned, because — after Iran — Israel is now seen by many in the region as the biggest source of conflict. The Saudis are pushing the idea anyway, the diplomat added, because 'Iran is not going anywhere.'
The pact would not be a peace treaty. It would be something more modest and more realistic: a set of guardrails between rivals who do not trust each other but cannot afford another open war. European governments and Brussels-based institutions have reportedly welcomed the concept, urging Gulf countries to back it as a way to let the region manage its own affairs rather than rely indefinitely on outside powers.
But here's the catch: the Arab world is not united on Iran. There are real divisions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over conflicting visions for regional security and economic competition. The UAE has taken the most hawkish Gulf stance toward Tehran throughout the war and has criticized Arab institutions for what it sees as a soft response to Iranian aggression. That split matters. A Helsinki-style framework only works if the major players actually want the same kind of order — and right now, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi do not entirely agree on what that order should look like.
Still, the proposal is striking. It signals that the Gulf's most powerful Arab monarchy is thinking past the current war toward a different kind of regional architecture — one built less on American protection and more on managed coexistence with the neighbor it has spent decades treating as its primary threat.
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/saudi-arabia-non-aggression-pact-iran
Saudi Arabia — Iran's longtime rival — is quietly floating a non-aggression pact with Tehran, borrowing the playbook that helped NATO and the Soviets avoid blowing up the planet.
According to a Financial Times report by Andrew England and Henry Foy, Saudi Arabia has discussed the idea of a non-aggression pact between Middle East states and Iran. The talks are happening as the region tries to figure out what comes next after the recent US-Israeli war with the Islamic Republic.
Riyadh is looking at the 1970s Helsinki Process — the Cold War deal that cooled tensions between the Soviet bloc and the West — as a potential template. Diplomats say Gulf states are nervous about being left with a wounded, more hawkish Iran on their doorstep once the fighting stops and US forces scale back.
The pact isn't about friendship — it's about installing guardrails between two neighbors who don't trust each other but can't afford another war. Think of it less like a peace treaty and more like:
Roughly 20% of the world's oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz — when it closes, gasoline prices everywhere (including at your local pump) spike. Beyond that, the Middle East is where US foreign policy, college study-abroad programs, oil markets, and global migration patterns all collide. A region that builds its own security architecture, rather than depending on US troops, would reshape everything from defense budgets to which countries your generation does business with.
If this works, it would mark a historic pivot: the Gulf moving from US-protectorate logic toward something self-managed, echoing how Europe slowly built the OSCE out of Helsinki. If it fails, the most likely path is a fractured region where the UAE-Saudi split widens, Iran rebuilds quietly, and Israel remains outside any framework. Watch for whether European governments push harder for it, whether Iran signals openness, and whether the Abraham Accords (the US-backed Israel-Gulf normalization deals) get folded in or pushed aside.