Saudi scrambles to solve ‘humiliating dilemma’ after US rejects Red Sea intervention

Saudi Arabia faces a “humiliating dilemma” after the United States refused to militarily intervene to prevent the Iran-aligned Houthi militia from tightening its blockade of the kingdom’s key backup maritime trade route with Asia, according to analysts.

US President Donald Trump on September 12 dismissed the Houthi seizure of Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast as a problem that “only affects one country”. Iran has already blockaded the Straits of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia’s main oil and petrochemicals export lane from the Gulf.

This stance has “deeply disturbed” the Saudi leadership, according to Michael Ratney, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. It was “deeply frustrating, to say the least” for Riyadh, Ratney said at a webinar hosted by the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute on Wednesday.

Trump’s belief that all would be “fine and dandy” contrasted starkly with the suspension of Saudi oil exports from the Red Sea the same day, after drone strikes by Iran-allied Iraqi militias badly damaged the east-west pipeline that had enabled the kingdom to bypass Hormuz since the Iran war erupted on February 28.