Saudi Arabia no longer trusts the US to provide protection, Saudi analyst Mubarak al-Ati said in an interview on Russia Today TV last week.<\/p>\n
“It seems that [US President Donald] Trump<\/a> refuses to return to war and overthrow the Ayatollah’s regime. This will cost him dearly,\u201d Ati said, while claiming that the US president has shown that he is a paper tiger.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ati said that the US\u2019s first real sign of its failure in international affairs was Biden\u2019s \u201chumiliating exit\u201d from Afghanistan in 2021. \u201cThe US is still a superpower, but not as it was a decade ago,\u201d he opined.<\/p>\n \u201cThe balance of power has changed significantly, and for rising powers such as India, Saudi Arabia<\/a>, and Brazil, all of which are G20 members, there are now new possibilities, and they can establish relations with all forces, not just with the US.\u201d<\/p>\n The Saudi expert claims that the US\u2019s dwindling presence on the world stage has led Gulf States<\/a> and other Muslim countries to not take Trump\u2019s demands to join the Abraham Accords very seriously.<\/p>\n \u201cSaudi Arabia refrained from being drawn into war and did not stand alongside Israel and the United States, just as it did not stand alongside Iran,\u201d Ati said. \u201cSaudi Arabia has not declared hostility toward any of the parties, and this means they analyzed the situation and saw themselves as an independent actor who cannot be a satellite of Israel and the US.”<\/p>\n He said that instead, Saudi Arabia is leading a new \u201cArab-Islamic bloc\u201d with Pakistan, Turkey, and Qatar, which will likely be announced soon.<\/p>\n