Agreement is impossible.
Bradley Bowman 4-28-2023, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, served as a national security advisor to members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, as well as an active duty U.S. Army officer, Black Hawk pilot, and assistant professor at West Point. Orde Kittrie. Ryan Brobst. The United States and Saudi Arabia: A Possible Path Forward. Foundation For Defense of Democracies. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/04/28/the-united-states-and-saudi-arabia/. DL
To address this growing sense of insecurity, Riyadh appears to be seeking three things. The first is “firm guarantees that the U.S. will come to the kingdom’s defense when needed,” according to a March 9, 2023, Wall Street Journal report.30 The second is more reliable and expeditious access to American weapons.31 Third, Riyadh wants U.S. support for a civilian nuclear program, which would include Saudi enrichment of uranium.32
The problem for the Saudis is that in order for the administration to accommodate these three objectives, Congress must acquiesce. That is virtually impossible right now, given current sentiment on Capitol Hill stemming from grievous Saudi actions on the battlefield in Yemen as well as the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in 2018.