A prominent Saudi analyst said this week that Saudi Arabia has lost confidence in the United States as a security guarantor and is quietly leading the formation of a new “Arab-Islamic bloc” alongside Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar, in remarks that aligned with growing Gulf skepticism toward President Donald Trump’s regional agenda.

Speaking on Russia Today, the Kremlin-funded English-language broadcaster, the analyst Mubarak al-Ati argued that Trump’s refusal to return to direct conflict with Iran following the April 7 ceasefire that ended the 2026 war had exposed the limits of American power and would carry strategic consequences for Washington.

“It seems that Trump refuses to return to war and overthrow the Ayatollah’s regime. This will cost him dearly,” Ati said, describing the US president as a “paper tiger.”

Ati traced what he called the unraveling of US credibility back to President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, which he characterized as a “humiliating exit” and the first clear signal of American retreat from the international system. The United States remains a superpower, he said, but “not as it was a decade ago.”

“The balance of power has changed significantly, and for rising powers such as India, Saudi Arabia 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,” Ati said.

The interview comes as Trump has publicly pressed Gulf and Muslim-majority states to fold into the Abraham Accords as part of any final agreement with Iran. In a Truth Social post earlier this week, the president named Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain as countries he wanted to see simultaneously sign the accords, framing such a move as a condition for what he called a more historic settlement with Tehran. Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif quickly told local broadcaster Samaa TV that an Abraham Accords-style agreement “clashes with our fundamental ideologies” and that Islamabad would not join.

According to Ati, that reception is part of a broader Gulf and Muslim-world response to what he portrayed as a weakened American hand.

“Saudi 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,” he said. “Saudi 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.”

Ati said the kingdom is now organizing a new Arab-Islamic bloc with Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar that he expects to be announced in the near future. The grouping, he said, has “put the brakes on the Abraham Accords” and is working to “clear the region of Israeli presence in Sudan, South Yemen and Somaliland.” Saudi Arabia, he said flatly, will not join the accords.

The analyst said Riyadh’s diplomatic track was instead aimed at brokering what he described as a “non-violent agreement” encompassing Iran, the Gulf states and any other country that chose to participate, secured by “Islamic and international guarantees.”

Ati’s remarks do not reflect an official Saudi government position. They were delivered on a Russian state-aligned outlet that has consistently amplified narratives critical of US influence in the region. Saudi officials have not publicly confirmed the existence of the bloc he described, and Riyadh has continued to engage Washington on a parallel track that includes defense cooperation and ongoing discussions of a normalization framework with Israel.

Still, Ati’s framing tracks with a wider Arab and Muslim-world hesitation toward Trump’s accords push, which has intensified since the 2026 Iran war and the diplomatic fallout from Israeli operations in Lebanon and Gaza.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)