It’s increasingly clear that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the Middle Eastern leader with the most influence over President Donald Trump. The de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, MBS is pushing Trump to seek a diplomatic resolution to the Iran war.He’s succeeding. As a case in point, Trump suspended plans for major new strikes on Iran after a phone call with MBS over the weekend. A Saudi readout of the call observed that MBS had “stressed the need to give precedence to … de-escalate and the importance of exerting all possible efforts to achieve calm that paves the way for diplomatic solutions … and prevent being dragged into a wider conflict.”MBS’s motives are simple. The Saudi leader wants to reestablish energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint and avoid further Iranian attacks on his energy infrastructure. While Riyadh and Tehran are Islamic nemeses, alongside the Obama and Biden administrations’ tolerance of Iranian aggression against Saudi Arabia, Trump’s flippant approach to foreign policy appears to have led MBS to believe that the United States is either unwilling or unable to restrain Iran. Hence, MBS has decided that appeasement is an acceptable price to pay to restore peace and protect his personal ambition of making Saudi Arabia an international tourism and business hot spot.