On June 3, Saudi Arabia appointed its first resident ambassador to Iraq after 25 years. The long-lasting rift between the two countries followed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. At their best, relations between the two countries had always been tense, oscillating between uneasy accommodation and hostility. The appointment of Thamer al-Sabhan as the new Saudi ambassador may ease off the tension between the two countries and encourage other Gulf Cooperation Council states to follow the lead. Iraq welcomed the decision to resume diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, according to Saudi sources. But starting a new era of cooperation and trust need more than the restoration of diplomatic relations.
Both countries have drifted away from each other and replaced the rivalry that had been masked in the 1980s by the shadow of the Iran-Iraq War with utter ostracization and even hostility, especially after the 2003 US invasion in Iraq. Since then, Saudi-Iraqi relations became hostage to two outcomes of the invasion, each mitigated against immediate reconciliation and cooperation.