Politics, they say, makes strange bedfellows. Even a month ago, hardly anyone would have foreseen that Saudi Arabia would sit down with Israel, the United States, and other Arab nations to discuss a joint military strategy against Iran and its Houthi proxies.
Reportedly, at the secret conference in early September, Israeli officials offered to provide Riyadh with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support similar to the assistance it has been providing to the United Arab Emirates (including the Iron Dome).
The Houthis have targeted Saudi Arabia, shutting down oil pipeline operations (and severely impacting world oil prices) even while allowing ship travel by other nations through the Red Sea. Like their big brothers in Tehran, their goal appears to be to punish the rest of the world for interfering with Iran’s goal of becoming a nuclear superpower.
This historic shift in alliances — despite the unresolved matter of the Gaza Strip, the one-time Egyptian territory that has been a powder keg for decades – is not yet operational and may not lead to any deeper ties between Israel and the Saudis. But it would be impossible without American diplomacy, Iran’s attacks on its neighbors, and the urgency to restore the free flow of oil.
That diplomacy may soon produce a result far more important long term, because in July the United States approved in principle a landmark civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that would authorize the Saudis to develop their own uranium resources — an even greater insult to the warmongering Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that refuses regional cooperation.
Preliminary work toward this agreement began in April 2025, when U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, after a meeting with Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, said the two nations were on “a pathway” toward an agreement to work together to develop a Saudi civil nuclear program.
While the current agreement remains tentative (with the U.S. wanting the Saudis to sign the Abraham Accords even without resolution of the “Gaza question”), the fact that Israel and Saudi Arabia, which do not have diplomatic relations, are considering working together against a common enemy – and that fellow Arab nations are already on board – increases the possibility for long-term cooperation.
The importance of a U.S.-Saudi nuclear energy agreement took on new life this month when Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman announced his nation had identified 114 million metric tons of raw materials containing uranium concentrations and other rare-earth elements near the holy city of Medina.
The announcement of this find indicates the Saudis may be more willing than ever to find a way to finalize the agreement. Not only could the Saudis process their own nuclear fuel for the planned Duwayhin nuclear power plant, but they might also have enough to sell to other nations.
Despite a glut of crude oil, nuclear energy has become a preferred option in the desert kingdom, largely because solar energy is intermittent and requires two to three times more storage to match nuclear’s constant output. As the nation’s population has mushroomed from four million in 1960 to 37 million today, its energy needs have likewise mushroomed.
Saudi officials pointed to nearby existing oil and energy infrastructure as a major factor in choosing the site, at which South Korea’s Korea Electric Power Corporation is set to supply high-efficiency, gigawatt-scale APR-1400 units that could connect to the national grid by 2032.
The start of construction may have been delayed further by the Houthi attacks, but just this week the Saudi energy minister reaffirmed his nation’s goals to diversify its energy mix at the International Atomic Energy Agency general conference in Vienna, Austria.
At the IAEA meeting, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that “Exploration and geological studies at the Jabal Sayid project in Madinah Region have identified estimated resources of approximately 114 million tons of ore containing high concentrations of rare-earth elements, particularly heavy rare-earth elements, alongside promising concentrations of uranium.”
He added that Saudi Arabia’s hopes for developing these resources had “gained further momentum” during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the U.S. in November 2025, when the two nations signed a framework for cooperation on critical minerals and securing supply chains.
The next step was a partnership between the Saudi Arabian mining company Ma’aden and the U.S. company MP Materials to develop capabilities for processing and separation of rare-earth elements and the production of associated uranium. All this was built on a pilot project in cooperation with the French company Orano.
The energy minister said further that Saudi Arabia intends to build an integrated economic and industrial value chain for all these minerals, beginning with exploration and mining and progressing through processing, separation, and refining; production of rare-earth oxides; recovery and purification of associated uranium; and production of yellowcake.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was the chief architect of Vision 2030, which commits his nation to create a “vibrant society in which all citizens can thrive and pursue their passions” along with a “thriving economy where everyone has the opportunity to succeed.”
This places the Saudis (along with the leaders of many other Gulf states) 180 degrees apart from the present government of Iran, which has chosen war rather than cooperation with Israel, the U.S. and its neighbors.
And that – along with the growing economic, diplomatic, and security cooperation of Gulf states with each other and with their long-estranged cousins – could signal that the policy shift envisioned by signatories to the Abraham Accords may actually be a region-wide work in progress.