Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed even recently told CBS that the kingdom is “open to all initiatives for a political solution in Yemen.” That’s a long way from another CBS interview last year in which he compared Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

That pragmatism can be heard in how both Saudi Arabia and the UAE look at Syria. Since the start of the country’s war in 2011, it backed those trying to overthrow Assad.