Saudi Arabia survives in the cracks in the US-Iran conflict: The Houthis exert more pressure, but Trump refuses to intervene

Saudi Arabia increasingly finds itself caught in the middle of a war between the United States and Iran. Today, Saudi leadership is weighing a dwindling number of response options.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi rebels have repeatedly attacked Saudi Arabia in the past few weeks, threatening to cut off Saudi Arabia's oil export capabilities and put further pressure on the global economy. But President Trump’s reluctance to take action against the Houthis has left the Saudis both annoyed and frustrated, according to former diplomats and analysts.

Saudi Arabia’s attempts to engage diplomatically with Iran have also had limited success. Officials from Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries were originally scheduled to hold a meeting on Monday, but it was suddenly postponed on Sunday night as the positions of the parties remained far apart.

“The Saudis are really frustrated right now,” said Michael Ratney, the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "In a sense, this is the last thing they want to see happen."

The Saudi government's International Communications Center, which responds to reporters' inquiries, did not respond to a request for comment.

Saudi Arabia's predicament highlights the heavy cost of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran across the Middle East, including those who oppose the war or have repeatedly tried to bring it to an end.

In the early months of the conflict, Saudi Arabia was relatively unaffected by Iranian retaliatory attacks compared with its neighbors. Now, with no end in sight to hostilities, Iran is seeking to exert greater leverage over the United States, with Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter before the war, emerging as a prime target.

In the past two weeks alone, Saudi Arabia has been attacked by pro-Iranian forces in the east, south and north.

At the end of August, a Saudi oil tanker was attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, killing two crew members.

The Houthis, who have declared a blockade of Saudi oil shipments through the Red Sea, seized territory on a key global shipping route and routed Saudi-backed Yemeni forces on Friday.

On the same day, Saudi authorities announced they had been forced to shut down a vital oil pipeline, blaming drone attacks by Iranian-backed Iraqi militias. The pipeline has become an important alternative export channel for Saudi Arabia to transport oil to the Red Sea after Iran effectively cut off the Strait of Hormuz.

“The reason a country like Saudi Arabia has invested so much resources in developing a security partnership with the United States is to prepare for this eventuality,” said former ambassador Ratni.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country's de facto ruler, had reason to be confident in the partnership. Over the years, the Saudi government has invested billions of dollars and considerable political capital in building a personal relationship with Trump and his family.

But when the crown prince asked Trump to take military action against the Houthis last week, the president refused, according to people familiar with the matter.

Saudi officials and commentators have made clear that the kingdom does not want to fight the Houthis alone. Not least because a previous Saudi-led military campaign against the Houthis ended up mired in a decade-long quagmire.

“This requires the support of the international community, not just Saudi Arabia and regional countries,” Abdulrahman Rashid, a columnist close to the Saudi government, wrote in a Saudi-owned newspaper on Saturday.

Trump, however, seemed unwilling to intervene.

“Already engaged in an open-ended conflict with Iran, with an overwhelmed Navy and dwindling ammunition inventories, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t want to open a new front,” said Dan Shapiro, a former top Middle East policy official at the Pentagon during the Biden administration. "But this is deeply disappointing to the Saudis."

Trump told reporters on Saturday during a visit to Ireland that the Houthis had "called us and they don't want to fight us."

He later added: "There's only one country they're not happy with and we'll take care of that," referring to Saudi Arabia.

Houthi political official Mohammed al-Bhayti denied the group had ever been in contact with the United States. "We did not communicate with Trump or ask him not to attack us," he said.

Retired Navy Vice Adm. John Miller, who once commanded U.S. naval forces in the Middle East, said whether U.S. involvement in Yemen is still under discussion and that Washington is continuing to provide intelligence assistance to Saudi Arabia.

Barbara Leaf, former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs at the U.S. State Department, said Saudi Arabia will now likely turn to diplomacy. Despite years of bombardment by Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel against the Houthis, "no one has ever found a military solution to the Houthi problem," she said.