Saudi Arabia's dilemma as it tries to stay out of US-Iran war — SkimNews
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- Saudi Arabia carried out joint strikes with the US this week on Iranian proxy militias in Iraq, believed to have launched 30 drone strikes on the Kingdom since the US-Israel war on Iran began on 28 February.
- Iran retaliated by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz — through which 20% of the world's oil and LNG travelled — forcing Saudi Arabia to redirect roughly 5 million barrels per day through its east-west pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea.
- Houthis struck Saudi airports at Abha and Jizan in retaliation for a Saudi strike on Sanaa airport on 13 July and began attacking Saudi shipping in the Bab El Mandeb strait, choking off Red Sea oil exports to Asia.
- Satellite images on Monday confirmed the Abqaiq oil facility was struck again by Iranian proxy drones from Iraq — the same site knocked offline in a 2019 attack that halved Saudi oil exports for several days.
- Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 plan to diversify away from oil and attract foreign investment, including vulnerable data centres, was not built to absorb simultaneous attacks from Yemen, Iraq, and Iran.
- Saudi Arabia spent seven years trying to bomb the Houthis into submission and failed; a 2022 truce involving reported payoffs is now collapsing under renewed Houthi attacks.
Why it matters: Saudi Arabia now faces simultaneous threats from Iran, Iraqi militias, and Houthis — directly endangering the ~5 million barrels per day of oil exports it relies on and the Vision 2030 foreign-investment push MBS has staked his rule on. Its choice between escalation and de-escalation through payoffs will determine whether the Kingdom becomes a full combatant or opens a costly new channel of appeasement.
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