Riyadh Airport Strikes: Saudi Arabia’s Five Miscalculations and the Houthis’ Bigger One

A CNN analysis published on October 10 traced the war’s return to “a series of miscalculations” in Riyadh. Its account, extended here, shows that Saudi policy rested on five pillars.

The first was Iran. Since Beijing brokered the restoration of Saudi-Iranian relations in 2023, Riyadh had treated détente with Tehran as a lid on Yemen. The Houthis listen to Iran, so normalisation with Iran meant calm on the border.

The second was the United Arab Emirates. The UAE-backed southern forces had a more organised command structure than the forces of Yemen’s internationally recognised government. That organisation still shows: the Giants Brigades, the Emirati-trained units now pushing towards the Bab al-Mandab strait, are doing much of the advancing.

The third was Washington. Riyadh behaved as if a full American defence commitment already existed. CNN notes that Saudi Arabia signed a new defence pact with the United States last year and was designated a Major Non-NATO Ally. A formal treaty was tied to normalisation with Israel, which Riyadh believed was close. Behind it all sat the petrodollar bargain: the world’s largest oil exporter selling its crude in dollars, and an America that could not afford to let it be hit.

The fourth was the Houthis’ own interest. The UN-brokered truce of 2022, and the understandings reached with Riyadh after it, were a dream deal for them. They kept the territory they had seized, including Sanaa, and Saudi Arabia was prepared to accept that and pay money on top. Why would they throw it away?

The fifth was intelligence. Saudi Arabia fought the Houthis for seven years. It and its Yemeni allies should have been watching every movement in Houthi territory, and any plan to return to war should have been visible long before the first missile.

The Emirati pillar went first. On December 30, 2025, coalition aircraft struck a shipment of UAE-sent vehicles at the port of Mukalla that was reportedly meant for the Southern Transitional Council, the main UAE-backed southern movement. The head of Yemen’s presidential council gave Emirati forces 24 hours to leave, and the UAE Ministry of Defence confirmed its last forces had left Yemen days later. Whoever was to blame, the rift was never contained. Riyadh let Abu Dhabi go, confident that its other pillars would hold. According to CNN, a southern official says the Saudis never replaced the UAE’s “command and control” over the anti-Houthi factions.

Eight weeks after the Emirati exit, on February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel went to war with Iran, and the Iranian pillar collapsed. In January the crown prince had assured Iran’s president that Saudi airspace and territory would not be used against Iran. Iran struck Saudi Arabia anyway. Drones hit the US Embassy in Riyadh on March 3, and missiles reached Prince Sultan Air Base, the Ras Tanura refinery and Saudi airports. Détente was over.

The American pillar fell with it, through incapacity rather than conspiracy. A Washington absorbed by the Iran war had no appetite for a second front. According to CNN, Mohammed bin Salman spoke to President Donald Trump twice in September and urged strikes on the Houthis. Trump declined. Instead, American officials met Houthi representatives in Muscat, where the group reaffirmed its 2025 truce with the United States and pledged not to attack American, Israeli or other commercial shipping. Saudi vessels were left out. The ally that was supposed to guarantee Saudi security made its own deal with Saudi Arabia’s enemy.

The Houthi pillar turned out to be an illusion. The group had an agenda from Tehran more ambitious than any Saudi offer, and it calculated that every district it seized would buy a better settlement later. When Saudi aircraft struck Sanaa airport on July 13 to stop an Iranian flight from landing, the Houthis declared the de-escalation over, imposed a naval embargo on Saudi Arabia and fired on a Saudi tanker. On October 4 they took al-Turbah, cutting the road from Taiz to Aden and putting Yemen’s third city under siege again.

The intelligence pillar was the fundamental failure. The Houthis trained, armed themselves and stockpiled weapons, then swept across large stretches of Yemen. Warnings existed: in August CNN reported that Saudi, American and regional intelligence pointed to Iranian-guided attacks in the very near future. A build-up on that scale, after seven years of war, should have been met before it moved. Before it was a military failure, this was an intelligence failure.

Saudi Arabia did look for substitutes. On August 7 it signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Türkiye (Turkey) and Pakistan, a pact with a NATO-style mutual defence clause that its supporters call an Islamic NATO. Riyadh also turned to Britain, France and Egypt.

Every one of these partners was tested faster than anyone planned. On October 5 the three Mecca states agreed to activate collective deterrence measures, the pact’s first invocation. An analyst quoted by Foreign Policy called it “an earlier test than any of these countries would have wanted.” Neither Ankara nor Islamabad imagined the pact would be called on two months after signing, before a joint command existed, before forces were organised and before anyone had written down how it would work. The air-defence systems Riyadh sought from friendly countries also take time to deliver, and Houthi missiles do not wait.

None of this means Saudi Arabia is weak. Great powers misjudge wars too. Washington entered the Iran war expecting it to last a week, then two. Nearly eight months later it still cannot extract itself from the region, and the midterm elections are closing in on Trump. Strategies fail. What matters is whether the mistakes are corrected.

The Houthis are betting that Saudi Arabia will give in and that nobody will stand beside it: the world will wash its hands of Riyadh, the missiles will keep landing and the kingdom will sign a new deal on worse terms to make them stop.

Their method is to raise the price of the war to its maximum. The Israeli analyst Zvi Bar’el argues in Haaretz that the strikes threaten Riyadh’s flagship gatherings. The 25th WPC Energy Congress opened in the capital on October 11, a day after the deadliest strike and on the same day the airport was hit again. The Future Investment Initiative, which brings global business leaders to Riyadh, is due from October 26 to 29. Organisers say both events will go ahead. The Houthis do not need to hit every Saudi airport. They need to keep the capital’s airport closed and frighten investors until Mohammed bin Salman decides the war is not worth the risk.

That is a misreading of the kingdom. Losses on this scale do not produce a crown prince who says “enough”. They produce a country that wants to retaliate. In late September Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Saleh al-Fawzan, told the kingdom’s troops to be ready to give their lives for the Houthis’ complete defeat. That is the language of a nation that will not retreat or surrender and intends to fight to the end. After the October 10 strike, coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki called it a “full-fledged war crime” and promised to respond decisively.

Nor is Saudi Arabia standing alone. The United States, the United Nations, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, India and Canada were among those who condemned the attack, and Qatar backed “all legitimate measures” Riyadh takes to protect itself.

American help will come, though not out of loyalty. Watch what Trump has done with oil. On October 9 he announced that Russia would supply diesel to the United States, and a day later he said Ukraine should get a new leader who can make a deal, according to the Washington Post. A president who will sell out Europe and Ukraine for fuel prices will not let Saudi oil burn. The United States does not need to protect Saudi Arabia as an ally. It needs to protect it as the world’s oil supplier.

That changes the timetable. The timing of America’s return to war is no longer in Iran’s hands, set by whether Tehran signs a settlement. The Yemen war is now forcing the decision. Asked whether the United States would join Saudi strikes, Trump said on October 10: “We may. We’re gonna look at it.” As the strikes continue and oil markets burn, the answer will become yes, and quickly.

American entry would change the war. The United States has the precise information the Houthis fear most: where their weapons are stored and where their leaders hide, and the means to reach both. There is a price. Once American forces join, the Houthis will turn their missiles on American ships in the Bab al-Mandab strait, or try to close it entirely, after months of targeting only Saudi vessels. That would be expensive for Washington. But the alternative, damaged Saudi oil facilities and a kingdom under fire, is a loss either way. This time the intervention should be done properly: a broad international military coalition, built by Saudi Arabia and the United States, to finish the Houthi threat.

Just as the Houthis do not need to hit every Saudi airport to frighten investors, Saudi Arabia does not need to kill the Houthi leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, or drive his fighters out of Sanaa to end the war. Defeating the Houthis is the easier objective.

The plan is simple. Stop the Houthi capture of Taiz. Cut the supply lines to the forces stretched around the city. Inflict losses on their ranks so heavy that the group cannot replace them. Then the Houthis will stop, and they will be the ones who surrender.

Militarily, betting on a Houthi surrender is far safer than betting on a Saudi one. Economically, Saudi Arabia must hold out. On the battlefield the balance is clear. The Houthis are a militia, backed and directed by Iran, but they are not Iran. They do not have Iran’s depots and factories, and they do not control all of Yemen, only a limited part of it. Their workshops are not scattered under mountain ranges across a vast country. The ground they hold is small enough to be surveyed from the air and hit with decisive strikes. Cut off the units around Taiz and their lines will collapse faster than expected, because they have no deep reserve of manpower to replace them.

The Saudi-backed offensive launched in early October is already pressing the coast, with government forces advancing towards the Bab al-Mandab. If Saudi Arabia holds its nerve, it will win. A Houthi movement that learns this war is lethal for it will not want to return to another. That means a warm peace for years to come, without uprooting the Houthis from Sanaa.