The United States and its European partners must have breathed a sigh of relief over the smooth succession in Saudi Arabia following the death of King Abdullah on Jan. 22. Within hours, the royal household announced that Crown Prince Salman was the new king. The quick settlement silenced all observers who had anticipated power struggles within the house of Saud and gave reassuring signals that it's business as usual in the most important kingdom for the strategic interests of the United States and its partners. Yet, the United States must not become complacent over the many challenges facing its troubled relations with the house of Saud over the coming years.

The first challenge stems from the United States increasing closeness to Saudi Arabia’s archenemy and rival, namely Iran. Despite reassurances that the United States remains the most loyal guarantor of Saudi security and interests, its developing relations with Iran is always interpreted as a sign of abandonment by past and present Saudi monarchs. Neither deceased King Abdullah nor current King Salman demonstrated willingness to accept the United States' superficial rapprochement with Iran, simply because the Saudis had got used to being the main and only US partner in the region, following the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and increasingly so after the Arab uprisings.

If the United States had gradually gone beyond the 1979 US-Iranian fallout and the US hostage crisis in Tehran after the revolution, the Saudis have locked themselves into a long rivalry with Iran and developed hostilities that cannot be easily overcome. They were driven by a simple logic that they can replace Iran as the main force in the region, and built this logic on sectarian rather than political considerations. Once conflicts are clothed in sectarian garb, it becomes increasingly difficult for the Saudis to change or reverse policies. Of course the Saudis can initiate clandestine relations and reconciliation with Iran, but they risk losing face among their domestic constituency and other anti-Iranian forces in the Arab region.

Any Saudi rapprochement with Iran will automatically be interpreted as a sign of Saudi defeat and Iranian triumph. This zero-sum game is thoroughly entrenched in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world. Negotiation and compromise have both disappeared in foreign relations and political practices. The domestic and regional polarization has gone too far, thus leaving little room for politics as a field driven by both competition and negotiation rather than utter victory or defeat.