Greg Gause, a Saudi specialist, discusses in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations an important recent development in the Middle East — the cooption of the Palestinian jihad by Iran:

Iran is really the one major state in the region that is basically confrontational and of course supports Hamas, and supports Hezbollah. The Abdullah plan was put forward in light of this notion that we’ve got to do things to reduce Iranian leverage in the region. That was the impetus or at least the strategic impetus behind the Saudi effort in the Mecca Agreement earlier this year to get Hamas and Fatah together in a coalition government which later collapsed. This was something the United States didn’t like, but the Saudis see bringing Hamas back into the Arab fold as a way to reduce Iran’s influence with Hamas and the Palestinians. Washington would like to isolate Hamas if they can get a deal between Fatah and the Israelis and thus try to reduce Iranian influence that way. So Washington and Riyadh have the same overall goal, but the real difference is in tactics.

I’m not so sanguine when it comes to Gause’s assessment of the similarities between Washington and Riyadh’s goals vis-a-vis Hamas. The rest of the interview is an interesting discussion of the maneuverings between the Saudis, Washington, and the Maliki government in Iraq.