Lawfare Archive: The Saudi-Iran Deal Featuring China
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 November 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
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Summary
From April 13, 2023: A few weeks ago, China made headlines for brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to thaw diplomatic relations after seven years of cutting ties and even more years of tense relations. Since then, we've already begun to see some downstream effects of this deal, with significant movement on the war in Yemen and the reopening of Iran's embassy in Saudi Arabia.
This is a story with two major strands—one about the potential effects of a successful normalization between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and another about how China, and not the U.S., seems to have made it happen. To understand what all of this might mean for the region, Lawfare Associate Editor Hyemin Han talked to Lawfare Senior Editor Scott Anderson and CNAS Middle East Security Program Director Jonathan Lord about the contours of the deal, China's involvement in the process, and what to look out for as this deal ripens.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Nearly every news alert in 2025 has raised questions, some old, some new, about the law and national security. |
| 0:08.0 | And now you get the chance to ask Lawfare directly. It's time for our annual Ask Us Anything Mailbag podcast, an opportunity for you to ask Lawfare this year's most burning questions. |
| 0:19.0 | You can submit your question by leaving a voicemail at |
| 0:22.1 | 202-643-8474 or by sending a recording of yourself asking your question to Ask Us Anything Lawfare |
| 0:32.8 | at gmail.com by December 16th. |
| 0:49.9 | I'm Isabella Royal, Internet Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare Archived for November 23, 2025. |
| 0:53.3 | On Tuesday, November 18th, President Trump welcomed Saudi crown |
| 0:56.5 | prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House. During the visit, President Trump announced that the |
| 1:01.1 | U.S. would recognize Saudi Arabia as a major non-N NATO ally. Following the visit, the White |
| 1:05.9 | House said that bin Salman would increase investment commitments in the United States to nearly |
| 1:09.6 | $1 trillion, that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia had signed a framework on collaboratively diversifying Salman would increase investment commitments in the United States to nearly one trillion dollars, |
| 1:15.3 | that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia had signed a framework on collaboratively diversifying critical mineral supply chains, and that President Trump had approved a defense sale package to Saudi Arabia. |
| 1:21.1 | During the leaders' meeting, President Trump also chastised a reporter for asking about the murder |
| 1:25.3 | of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and asserted, counter to U.S. |
| 1:28.8 | intelligence assessments, that bin Salman did not order Khashoggi's assassination and dismemberment |
| 1:34.0 | in 2018. For today's archive, I selected an episode from April 13, 2003, in which Haman |
| 1:40.6 | Han and Scott R. Anderson sat down with Jonathan Lord to discuss the contours of the then-recent deal to restore diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, |
| 1:49.7 | China's role in brokering that deal, the future of the United States in the Persian Gulf, and more. I'm Haman Hahn, associate editor at Lawfare. |
| 2:09.8 | This is the Lawfare podcast, April 13, 2023. |
| 2:15.1 | A few weeks ago, China made headlines for burkering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia |
| 2:21.0 | to thaw diplomatic relations after seven years of cutting ties and even more years of tense |
| 2:26.8 | relations. Since then, we've already begun to see some downstream effects of this deal, |
... |
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