Saudi rollback plans for Iran on hold: 'US pressures & failure on all fronts'

"... Sensing that the U.S. may be moving toward a detente with Iran, the Saudis may be trying to hedge their bets and defuse what has taken on the dimensions of a regional confrontation with the Islamic Republic. This would follow an established pattern. Since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Saudi outreach to Iran has ebbed and flowed based on Saudi perceptions of U.S. resolve in the region..... Now that the U.S. may be ending more than 35 years of confrontation with Iran, Saudi Arabia, along with the rest of the Gulf region, is being forced to reassess its own regional security interests, particularly with the Syrian civil war generating immense pressure on the internal cohesion of Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. ..........
.......... the Saudis will likely pursue a strategy they have used toward Iran in the past, which a 2009 RAND study characterized as combining elements of engagement, containment and rollback. ......
 In Lebanon, the Saudis have reportedly worked actively behind the scenes to support Lebanese Sunnis and other groups willing to roll back Hezbollah’s dominance in Lebanon in the wake of the Iran-backed movement’s “victory” against Israel in their 2006 war. ....... The Saudis’ dual “smiles and daggers” approach to Iran’s regional influence ended, however, with Hezbollah’s takeover of Sunni West Beirut in May 2008, which led to a cooling of Riyadh’s posture toward the Islamic Republic. ....."