Saudi Arabia is confronting what one expert calls the gravest threat to its oil industry since the kingdom was founded in 1932, as Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launch cross-border attacks and seize territory near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a critical Red Sea chokepoint.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that Iran “likely instigated the Houthis to force a blockade on Saudi Arabia.”
“I think this situation is really precarious for the Saudis. This is the biggest threat to their production of oil since their kingdom was founded in 1932. And this is almost existential,” Abdul-Hussain said.
He added that the Saudis are scrambling for outside help. “We see that the Saudis are trying to shop for some force to fight their war for them. And I think along the lines, they also called President Trump. It doesn’t look to me that Washington is going to get involved in this one,” he said. “We’ll probably offer them advice and tell support, but I don’t think we, the United States, will get involved with this war over Bab el-Mandeb.”
The pressure has been building fast. Last week Saudi Arabia was forced to temporarily shut down its East-West oil pipeline after a drone attack launched from Iraq, an attack President Trump said he believes Iran was behind. On Tuesday, Saudi forces destroyed a Houthi drone attempting to enter the airspace near Mecca.
Why Iran wants a blockade
Abdul-Hussain laid out the strategy behind the pressure campaign. The United States has already blocked Iran from exporting oil, licitly or illicitly. “What the Iranians are trying to do is that they’re trying to telegraph to the other oil exporters in the region that either we export, all of us export oil, or none of us will export oil,” he said. “This is why you see Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.”
That forced Saudi Arabia to reroute its oil shipments away from Hormuz, sending tankers from the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea south through Bab el-Mandeb to Asian markets instead. “Iran didn’t like this because clearly all or none didn’t work,” Abdul-Hussain said. “So they likely instigated the Houthis to force a blockade on Saudi Arabia.”
Trump: the Houthis “don’t want to fight with us”
Fox News Digital reported Friday, citing a source familiar with the matter, that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had urged Trump to take military action against the Houthis. Trump gave his answer the next day while visiting Ireland.
“The Houthis called us and they don’t want to fight with us,” Trump said. “They let us know, they don’t want to fight with us…they don’t want us to go after them. But they have called and they have talked to us, and they don’t want us to, they would much prefer not having us involved.”
Abdul-Hussain said the expectation in Washington has long been that the Saudis, armed and trained with decades of U.S. weapons sales and military support, should be capable of defending their own tankers and shipping lanes. “The Houthis announced that they’re only going after Saudi ships and Saudi navigation and they made it clear that they are not going after international shipping, whether U.S. ships or European ships,” he said. “So this forces a choice on us. Do we go to war with the Houthis out of nowhere, even though they’re not willing to, or at least they didn’t wage war on our ships and our navigations through Bab el-Mandeb?”
“Or we ask the Saudis to handle this, you know, after all the Houthis are not really a state, they’re a non-state actor and Saudi Arabia should be able to deal with them,” he added. “Unfortunately, the Saudis don’t seem to have been able to deal with the Houthis.”
A senior administration official told Fox News Digital on Thursday that the U.S. remains focused on protecting core national security interests, including freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, while pushing regional allies to manage the crisis themselves. The official said the Trump administration remains in continuous dialogue with Saudi Arabia and Yemen over regional stability.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.
