August 10, 2026

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Saudi Arabia Responds to Encirclement

(Saudi Press Agency via AP)

Pressuring the Arab Gulf monarchies militarily has been central to Iran’s war strategy. From its own territory, Iran has launched missiles and drones on targets in Saudi Arabia, aiming particularly at facilities that host U.S. forces, such as Prince Sultan Air Base. But Tehran has calibrated its direct assaults on Saudi Arabia so as not to upend Saudi de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) preference for de-escalation. Saudi Arabia and Iran represent the leading powers of the Sunni and Shia worlds, respectively, and signed a landmark pact in March 2023 that restored relations after a seven-year break and have since sought to de-conflict their rival interests. Iran has calculated, apparently correctly, that the Saudi preference is to encourage Washington to accede to accommodate Iran at the bargaining table, rather than escalate.

Strategically, Tehran has relied on its regional non-state allies for the thrust of its attack on the Kingdom, using them to pressure the Kingdom on all northern and southern borders. From the north, Iran’s Iraqi militia allies have been attacking Saudi energy infrastructure targets, causing some temporary production shutdowns and other damage. Last week, Saudi and U.S. intelligence detected that Iran-backed Iraqi militias — grouped in a coalition called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq — were planning multiple “imminent” attacks on Saudi Arabia, in coordination with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Houthi movement in Yemen. A Saudi official told journalists the attacks could target civilian and economic sites, including energy infrastructure.

To Saudi Arabia’s south, over the past month, the Houthis have renewed their battle against the Kingdom, shattering more than four years of an uneasy truce with the Kingdom and its local ally, the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC). The Houthis have answered a call from Iran to block Saudi shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, through which 12 percent of global trade passes, adding pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump and the global economy. The Houthis have also attacked the Saudi port of Yanbu, to which the Kingdom has diverted most of its oil exports in order to circumvent Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. On Thursday, the Houthis claimed responsibility for strikes in Marib and Hadramout provinces of eastern and southern Yemen that killed at least 30 PLC troops and wounded 50 others. Later that day, more than 10 Saudi civilians, including a four-year-old child, were injured by Houthi attacks on the southern Saudi region of Najran, near the Yemen border.

The Houthis have represented their attacks as an effort to break the Saudi blockade of Houthi airfields and ports — not directly connected to the Iran war. But the end of the truce was perhaps inevitable when the U.S.-Israel war on Iran broke out. As is Tehran, the Houthis are placing their faith in asymmetric warfare, calculating that Saudi Arabia has more to lose from a prolonged conflict than they do.

Tehran’s strategy has presented MBS with difficult choices — whether to respond to the Iran-related challenges through military escalation, or whether to stay on its preferred course in pursuit of de-escalation and diplomatic engagement. Both pathways pose risks. Diplomatic concessions risk leaving in place well-armed state and non-state actors that will pose challenges to the Kingdom indefinitely. But confronting Iran and its partners runs the risk of embroiling the Kingdom in unwinnable and protracted conflict that will cause significant casualties, further damage Saudi Arabia’s vital energy infrastructure, and deter the investment MBS needs to implement his Vision 2030 economic diversification program. Military conflict with Iran and its Axis also risks expanding into a broader Sunni-Shia conflict, potentially embroiling the entire region, and increasing the potential for acts of sectarian-motivated violence in areas of the globe not directly involved in the Iran war theater.

MBS’ responses to the crises raging on his borders illustrate that his first instinct is to deter Iran by building alliances of like-minded powers. On Friday, MBS convened a summit with Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in the holiest city in Islam — Makkah. According to official Saudi statements: “The three Sunni Muslim powers signed the Makkah Agreement for Mutual Defense,” which “…aims to strengthen joint deterrence against any aggression, stipulates that any armed attack on any of the three countries is an attack on all, and the agreement is concerned with developing all aspects of defense cooperation between them.” Reports on Sunday indicated Egypt might also join the pact. A week earlier, 14 countries, including Türkiye, Egypt, Pakistan, Nigeria and several other Arab and African nations, affirmed their support for a Saudi initiative to maintain security in the Red Sea. However, experts doubt that either Pakistan or Türkiye will be willing to assist Saudi Arabia militarily to deter or respond to Iranian or Iran-backed attacks.

In his quest to expand the Kingdom’s strategic alliances, MBS is not willing to follow the pathway of his erstwhile partner, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (MBZ), President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), by openly cooperating with Israel. MBZ has aligned with Israel as the one regional actor most willing to confront Iran and its allies militarily. However, the escalating threats on the Kingdom’s borders might prompt the Kingdom to expand its quiet ties to Israeli intelligence and other security organs, particularly on such issues as missile and drone defense, even if Saudi demands for a roadmap toward Palestinian statehood go unfulfilled.

Although MBS advocates de-escalation, his government has shown it is willing to use force to back up diplomacy. In late July, Saudi fighter jets conducted a joint strike with their U.S. counterparts against the headquarters of Iran-aligned militias near Basra, Iraq, in retaliation for the militias’ drone attacks on more than 30 Saudi targets during the month. The strike paved the way for Saudi diplomacy to register a significant success. After the U.S.-Saudi strike, Riyadh dispatched its head of General Intelligence, Khalid Al-Humaidan, to Baghdad, where he suggested to the new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi ways to “enhance coordination and joint cooperation regarding security developments in the region,” according to Saudi media. The visit appeared to produce results on Friday, when the Islamic Resistance in Iraq coalition announced it would postpone its armed response to the joint U.S.-Saudi strikes. The stand down was mediated by parliamentarian Hadi al-Ameri, who heads one Iran-aligned militia, the Badr Organization.

The Kingdom’s dispute with the Houthis, on the other hand, might prove intractable. The Houthis’ grievances against the Kingdom and the Yemen government transcend the Iran war and would not be alleviated by that war’s de-escalation. The Houthis control the Yemen capital, Sana’a, and most of central and northern Yemen. Unlike Iraq or Lebanon, there is no national governing authority that can assert a monopoly of armed force by insisting the Houthis disarm. The Saudi blockade of Houthi-controlled territory has achieved only mixed success in preventing the flow of Iranian arms to the group.

The Houthis have repeatedly been able to demonstrate their leverage against the Kingdom. Even after the Saudi-Türkiye-Pakistan pact was signed, formally committing the three to mutual defense in a provision akin to NATO’s “Article 5,” the Houthis on Sunday attacked another facility of state-backed Aramco. The Houthis have also been girding for renewed ground battle, should MBS decide to resume land warfare against the group. On the other hand, should MBS choose to escalate militarily, Washington is unlikely to impose the limitations on Saudi use of U.S. munitions and its war tactics that Washington did during the height of the conflict in 2015-2022. Saudi officials claim U.S. restraints contributed to the decision by the Saudi-UAE-led Arab coalition, and its Yemeni partners in Aden, to agree to a ceasefire favorable to the Houthis in 2022. If the Yemen ground war resumes, Saudi officials would likely appeal to the Trump team for direct support in the form of advisors, trainers, airstrikes, advanced munitions, and other support. But the Iran war has depleted U.S. munitions stockpiles, according to a wide variety of reports, and the Trump team will likely try to avoid further expansion of a conflict with Iran it has been unable, to date, to conclude on acceptable terms.