Because before Riyadh and Abu Dhabi could trust each other again, everyone first had to trust that the ships would keep moving.… By the time the memo reached the West Wing secure conference room, the mood had already changed. Three weeks earlier, the proposal had seemed elegant. Not easy—nothing involving Riyadh and Abu Dhabi was ever easy—but elegant. If Washington could quietly rebuild trust between Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed, then the United States could restore a functioning Gulf front. A repaired Saudi–UAE axis would make coordinated pressure on Iran possible: tighter oil diplomacy, unified maritime messaging, and fewer backchannel contradictions over the Strait of Hormuz. The political team liked it for another reason. Midterms. Every domestic strategist around President Trump knew the same arithmetic: gasoline prices mattered more than speeches. If Hormuz remained unstable, crude would stay ...