Britain's Financial Times said on Sept. 15 local time that bin Salman's government has been caught in a "triangular encirclement" between threats from Iran, the Houthi rebels and Iraq-based armed groups where Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operates. The immediate cause of that encirclement is the war the Trump administration launched against Iran.
But the seeds were planted 11 years ago, when bin Salman took Saudi Arabia into Yemen's civil war. Appointed defense minister at 29 in January 2015 when his father, King Salman, ascended the throne, bin Salman two months later, in March of that year, launched a sweeping offensive against the Houthis in support of Yemen's government forces. The move came after the Houthis, a pro-Iran armed group, seized the capital of neighboring Yemen in 2014. But the war did not go as bin Salman intended, and seven years later, in 2022, after becoming prime minister, he struck a truce with the Houthis and pulled Saudi Arabia out of the conflict.
The Yemen intervention has come back to haunt him. Ahmed Nagi, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, wrote in a 2022 report that Saudi intervention "fueled anti-Saudi sentiment and further strengthened ties between the Houthis and Iran." Houthi hostility toward Saudi Arabia has remained a detonator through the U.S.-Iran war that erupted in February.
The Houthis are no longer the force they once were. Their manpower is estimated at as many as 350,000, and they are believed to possess an array of weapons including ballistic missiles and attack drones — most of them supplied by Iran. The group also deploys weapons it manufactures itself using imported Iranian components. The asymmetric strategy proven in the war with Iran is working in the fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis as well. Saudi Arabia spent $83.2 billion on its military last year, the eighth-highest in the world, and fields advanced American and European weapons, but it is being outmaneuvered by Houthi guerrilla tactics.
Amid the armed clashes between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, an attack warning was issued for Mecca, Islam's holiest site, for the first time. Saudi Arabia's Civil Defense issued alerts on Sept. 15 local time warning of possible attacks on Mecca as well as Jeddah and Taif. It was the first time an attack warning has sounded for Mecca since the Middle East war began.
The Trump administration, focused on the midterm elections, is keeping its distance from Riyadh. Crown Prince bin Salman personally received Gen. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, during his visit to the kingdom. But President Donald Trump is reported to have rejected two Saudi requests for military support. The New York Times noted that "Saudi Arabia feels frustration and disappointment at the Trump administration's lukewarm stance."
Whether Saudi Arabia can remain under the U.S. security umbrella is also in doubt. Riyadh and Washington enjoyed a honeymoon after Trump began his second term. The two signed a strategic defense agreement last November, and in July concluded a nuclear cooperation agreement that left open the possibility of Saudi uranium enrichment. Progress has since stalled as the Trump administration demanded that Saudi Arabia join the Israel-led Abraham Accords as a condition for approving the nuclear pact. The Associated Press said bin Salman's decade-long effort to transform Saudi Arabia from an oil producer into a global business hub has run into a "nightmare scenario."
Experts say the crown prince has few options. If Saudi Arabia escalates militarily to drive the Houthis out of the Red Sea, the conflict could drag on and provoke fiercer Houthi retaliation. "The Saudis cannot capitulate to Houthi demands, but they also cannot afford an all-out war that would cost them half their oil output," said Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East at Eurasia Group.
