After the Medina Strike, Saudi Arabia Waits for Washington Before It Hits the Houthis

Mohammed bin Salman set out the kingdom’s position on September 30 in the annual royal address to the Shura Council. Saudi Arabia, he said, is making “every possible effort to de-escalate tensions and support diplomatic solutions without the slightest compromise on preserving our security”, and it “will not hesitate to respond firmly to any threat or attack.” He accused the Houthis of choosing “chaos and destruction.” A preference for diplomacy does not mean Saudi Arabia will stay silent. When its response comes, it will be very strong and very dangerous for the Houthis.

The timing depends on Washington, which has been at war with Iran for seven months and is enforcing a naval blockade while talks stall. Riyadh is building a broad coalition: the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Türkiye (Turkey) and Pakistan, French troops at Yanbu, a thaw with the UAE. However large that front grows, the United States remains its indispensable member, and Saudi Arabia will not move without an American military presence alongside it. President Donald Trump has said he may resume bombing Iran after the midterm elections, which fall on November 3. So start counting from November. The US military could move soon after the vote, or the following month; January is more likely. Until then, Riyadh waits. We set out the timeline in more detail in why Saudi Arabia is holding its fire on the Houthis.

Trump’s phrase has set off talk of nuclear weapons. He cannot use them. Picture the sequence: the day the United States drops a nuclear bomb on Iran, Russia uses one in Ukraine, and China feels free to do the same over Taiwan. Every nuclear power is restrained by the taboo, the moral stigma and the certainty of a fierce reaction. Russia has fought in Ukraine for four years without breaking it. The power that broke it first would make nuclear use legitimate for everyone else, and that power would be the US military.

Moscow is already signalling. On October 1 Vladimir Putin warned that Russia was prepared to use “all weapons” to defend its exclave of Kaliningrad. The Gulf would pay too: even a small device aimed only at Iran’s buried facility under Pickaxe Mountain near Natanz would spread its effects across the Gulf states, emptying them of visitors and investors. Washington’s allies there would never accept it. When Trump says Iran will cease to exist, read it as a threat to bring new conventional weapons into the war, not nuclear ones.

All of these signals point the same way: the Americans are turning back toward a military confrontation with Iran, and that is exactly why Saudi Arabia is holding back now. If the war returns, Saudi Arabia will be a player in it, which was not true before. In the earlier round the Gulf states closed their airspace and kept their bases off-limits, and US forces relied on Israel and Jordan. This time Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain can be expected to open their airspace; Qatar and the UAE are unlikely to. Saudi bases would be a major asset.

In effect, Riyadh is telling Washington: give us air defence and take part in the war in Yemen, and we will open our skies and join the strikes on Iran. Axios’s sources described the same logic from the American side: the United States will need Saudi airspace if major combat resumes, and the Saudis will not grant it unless their oil facilities are protected.

The kingdom is also gathering its neighbours. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, the UAE’s vice president, met the crown prince in Riyadh on September 29, the first senior Emirati visit since last year’s rift. Days later, after an Israel-bound Flydubai jet made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia when its co-pilot allegedly stabbed the captain, Riyadh let an Emirati security team escort the accused pilot to Abu Dhabi. That is Saudi-Emirati cooperation returning step by step, as we argued it must in Saudi Arabia and the UAE must mend their rift. Add the crown prince’s shuttle diplomacy, with Cairo, Paris and London, and the shape is clear: a large coalition against the Houthis, to be crowned by the Americans. The Houthis know the expected response, a ground operation or a ferocious air campaign, has not come yet, and they are using the pause to escalate.

Anyone expecting the Houthis to make peace with Riyadh should forget it. They have already taken what they wanted in Yemen. They seized the Red Sea city of Mocha on September 10 and the island of Mayun the next day, tightening their hold on the Bab el-Mandeb strait, and they have cut supply lines vital to Yemen’s government forces. Saudi jets have been pounding their positions ever since, and the government in Aden has called a general mobilisation against them.

This is the moment to bank the gains. Had the Houthis halted, rebuilt their ranks and repeated the four-year truce to prepare for a later round, that would make sense, and they could even win concessions from Riyadh that were never on the table. Instead they keep pushing, whatever their losses, as if on a suicide mission against the Saudi air force. That is the behaviour of a force serving someone else’s goals. The Houthis are Tehran’s attack dogs.

Tehran’s interest is simple. The war is no longer being fought inside Iran; it is being fought in Yemen, and that suits Tehran. If Iran takes a heavy blow, the Houthis will close Bab el-Mandeb, and all their promises to the region’s states that they target only Saudi shipping will vanish overnight. Talk of freedom, of lifting a siege, of wanting fair treatment and negotiations is cover. The Houthis are now a card Iran can play in its bargaining with Washington, and Saudi Arabia is not at that table: Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt carry the messages, even though Riyadh worked hard to reconcile Washington and Tehran before the war. Tehran appears to have written off reconciliation with the kingdom. Its larger aim is to break Saudi Arabia.

Strike the holy sites, the capital and the energy infrastructure, and the message writes itself: we can hit anywhere in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi air defences cannot stop us. If a drone on a power station upsets you, imagine what happens when the war with Iran returns. Even the holiest places, the message says, are beyond the kingdom’s protection, so next year’s Hajj is in danger and anyone planning Umrah should think twice. The Houthis then turn the blame around: it is not we who attack the holy cities, it is the Saudis who cannot defend them.

This is a cynical message aimed at every Muslim, and a false one. A movement that has decided it may attack the two holy mosques to make political points has reached the depth of depravity, and it appears that one attack was not enough; it intends to repeat them to drive the point home. Dragging religion into politics this way is the dirtiest act there is.

What is just as striking is the silence in deeds. Türkiye and Pakistan both condemned the Medina attack, yet no Muslim state has mobilised to defend the holy cities. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed with those two countries only in August, should mean more than statements. Arab states must stand with the kingdom, as we argued in Arab states must stand with Saudi Arabia against the Houthis.