Donald Trump exited the White House in January 2021, secure in the knowledge that he had sown the seeds of peace in West Asia by getting Israel and a clutch of Arab nations to sign peace deals under the framework of what is known as the Abraham Accords. Perhaps Trump's only regret was that he could not get enough time to get Saudi Arabia to be a part of this regional peace deal with Israel. It was left to the incoming administration to finish the job.

Four years on, President Joe Biden is about to pack his bags, lugging the weight of unfulfilled promises and dashed expectations. Not only did he fail to expand Trump's pet project, but his tenure will also be remembered for watching Israel unleash devastation in Gaza while murmuring half-hearted disapproval. Biden also stood by as China strolled in to broker peace between sworn enemies, Saudi Arabia and Iran, leaving the US looking like a sidelined bystander in the geopolitical game it once dominated.

Now, with Donald Trump, the original dealmaker, just days away from his White House comeback, the question looms large: can the Abraham Accords' chief architect finally seal the deal with Saudi Arabia?

The Abraham Accords, a set of US-brokered agreements that brought Israel and several Arab nations—like the UAE and Bahrain—into a diplomatic embrace, were a Trump-era hallmark of 2020. Leveraging a mutual distaste for Iran, Trump dangled security guarantees and the promise of regional economic cooperation to seal the deal.

But the real jackpot was Saudi Arabia, the sole custodian of Islam's two holiest places—Mecca and Medina—and the world's biggest oil exporter. After the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan jumped aboard, it was only natural to expect that Riyadh was next in line. By October 2023, it was widely believed that Saudi and Israeli leaders were inching closer to a historic handshake. But the fact is that Riyadh hadn't even held formal talks with Tel Aviv, clinging firmly to one condition: there'd be no deal without a credible resolution to the Palestinian question.

Regardless, West Asia seemed on the brink of a major reset. Then, Hamas gunmen stormed southern Israel, bringing the whole effort to a screeching halt. Many see this brazen attack as a calculated move to torpedo the Saudi-Israel peace deal, fuelled by Palestinian frustration that the Abraham........

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