The Door Tehran Kicked Open: MBS, The Bomb, and The Battle for The Gulf (feat. Bernard Haykel)
Podcast: The Iran Breakdown with Mark DubowitzPublished On: Wed Apr 29 2026
Description: Riyadh is pressing Washington with a blunt message: don't leave the job half-finished.Saudi Arabia publicly condemned the strikes — and privately urged Trump to launch them. Now MBS faces the question he's long telegraphed: if Iran gets a bomb, the Kingdom follows. With IAEA inspectors locked out, is that still a signal — or active policy?Bernard Haykel, Princeton's foremost scholar of the Arabian Peninsula and author of the forthcoming book, The Realm: MBS and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia, joins Mark Dubowitz to break down what Riyadh wants, what it's willing to do, and what Washington still misunderstands about the man running the Kingdom.
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