MBS “does not like him and he wants to show him up,” said Douglas London, a retired Central Intelligence Agency officer who now works as a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank. He said that as threats from Iran and terrorist groups recede, tensions between them are likely to escalate. Still, London said the Saudi leader had developed a more practical approach to leading his country that makes it unlikely that he would take rash actions against the U.A.E.