In Saudi Arabia's War, the Shield Is No Longer American

On September 13, at the American embassy in Muscat, officials of the United States sat down with representatives of the Houthi movement. The meeting was secret. The terms were simple. American vessels, and most commercial ships, would have safe passage through the waters the Houthis control. Saudi ships would keep being attacked. And Washington, the Houthis asked, should stay neutral in the war in Yemen ^[1].

The United States' core interests in the Middle East include ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and the region, as well as preventing the export of terrorism. — Federal government of the United States

Six days later, on September 19, Houthi missiles reached Riyadh for the first time in this war. The terms held. That is what the American role in this war looks like now. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had already asked twice for American strikes against the Houthis — the second request came after a Houthi drone aimed at Mecca — and both times the answer was intelligence and targeting data instead ^[1][2]. The intelligence was real, if narrow: help selecting targets, and a secret channel, arranged through US Central Command, the American military's Middle East headquarters, for feeding Israeli intelligence to Saudi forces ^[2]. Everything else Saudi Arabia did alone — an air campaign of more than fifty strikes across Yemen in three days, while the Houthis seized islands in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, shot down a Saudi F-15 and put Mecca under emergency alerts. Washington's stated reason for staying out was the narrowest available: no expansion of the existing war with Iran ^[3]. In Dublin on September 12, Trump had explained the position in public, citing a military recovering from the war with Iran and elections at home ^[4].

they don’t want to fight us — Donald Trump

On the day Riyadh was struck, Trump confirmed the channel from his end.

The Houthis called us, and they don’t want to fight with us. — Donald Trump

A senior figure in the movement matched it from the other side: the group, he said, had assured Washington that American vessels would not be targeted ^[5]. The reluctance runs both ways, and it predates the war. In July, Saudi Arabia closed its airspace and Prince Sultan Air Base to the American military, wrecking a US escort operation planned for the Strait of Hormuz. The White House answered by threatening to withhold missile interceptors, and it has weighed a drawdown of American forces from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait since, with the capabilities to move toward Israel and Jordan ^[6]. And after Houthi missiles hit the East-West pipeline, the overland line that carries Saudi crude across the peninsula toward the Red Sea, the most visible American contribution was the energy secretary, offering timelines for when the oil would flow again ^[3]. The security split between Washington and Riyadh is written in tanker routes. The Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of the Persian Gulf, is where the American mission still runs at full strength: since the war with Iran closed the strait in February, US forces have held it under a blockade US Central Command describes as ironclad, with more than a billion barrels of crude moved through under American guard and Iran's exports at zero ^[7]. Saudi oil no longer passes that way. When Hormuz closed, the kingdom rerouted its crude through the northern Red Sea, so the lane America guards hardest is no longer the lane Saudi Arabia uses. The lane it does use empties through Bab el-Mandeb, the strait at the Red Sea's southern mouth, where Houthi attacks had cut tanker traffic by 39 percent by early August ^[8][7]. That lane, Riyadh has had to garrison itself: on September 19, a 14-nation maritime coalition the kingdom assembled — Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt among them, after European states declined to join — reached initial operational capability, the military's term for a force ready to start work, and began deploying ships to the strait ^[9]. The American mission has not gone away. It has been redrawn around oil and Iran, and the kingdom's lane now falls outside it. Even the coordination talks between Riyadh and Washington have a name for what they are managing ^[4].

the security of international maritime routes is a collective responsibility that requires effective and sustainable international partnership — Government of Saudi Arabia

The vacuum has been filling for twelve months. What has been filling it began as a secret, in September 2025: a mutual-defense agreement between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, under which an attack on one would count as an attack on both, signed and disclosed to no one ^[10]. In January, Turkey's foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, opened talks to widen it into a three-way platform, and he framed the widening as a hedge ^[11].

At the end of all of these, we have a proposal like this: all regional nations must come together to create a cooperation platform on the issue of security. — Hakan Fidan

In April, the paper became hardware. After Iranian strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure, Pakistan activated the agreement and deployed to King Abdulaziz Air Base: between 8,000 and 13,000 soldiers, sixteen JF-17 fighter jets, two squadrons of drones and Chinese-made HQ-9 long-range air-defense systems. The deployment was one the crown prince had to summon Pakistan's leadership to Jeddah to obtain when Islamabad first balked, and one Pakistan's defense minister has since spoken of in terms that suggest the kingdom sits under Islamabad's nuclear umbrella ^[12]. Then the Houthi war arrived. On July 16, a four-year truce in Yemen broke apart after the Houthis said Saudi forces had bombed an airport under their control, and their leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, promised to answer whatever Saudi forces struck with the same kind of target in return ^[13]. A blockade of Saudi-linked shipping followed within days. By mid-August, Houthi missiles were reaching Saudi military targets and commercial ships, among them a double strike on the vessel Tihamah that killed six people, Pakistani and Indonesian crew among them ^[14]. Under that fire, on August 7, the arrangement took its public name and shape. In Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a mutual-defense clause on the NATO model: an armed attack on any one of the three counts as an attack on all, marrying Saudi money to Turkey's arms industry and Pakistan's manpower ^[15]. The text is not shy about what it is for.

any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all — Government of Pakistan

Tehran reads it exactly the way its members do, and Iran's foreign ministry has spent recent weeks telling the region so.

security is not a commodity that can be purchased from false security brokers. — Esmail Baghaei

Parliament's speaker, Qalibaf, has proposed that Muslim nations build their own security architecture from the ground up ^[16]. When Riyadh was struck, the new arrangement answered first ^[5]. Turkey's foreign minister said Ankara stood ready to meet Saudi military and technical needs.

There may be military needs, particularly in certain technical areas, and we would have no problem meeting them. — Hakan Fidan

Pakistan's answer came the same day.

We observe very serious attacks on Saudi Arabia's territorial integrity and sovereignty. — Hakan Fidan

Those answers were built for defense, and everyone involved is careful to keep them there. Pakistan's foreign office, earlier this month, was still holding the pact itself at arm's length.

At this stage, there are no discussions regarding the expansion of the Makkah agreement. — Government of Pakistan

The pact remained formally inactive as of September 9; the soldiers and air-defense systems at King Abdulaziz, Islamabad points out, are in the kingdom under an older bilateral agreement, not the trilateral one ^[17]. Turkey's part, pending ratification in Ankara, is defensive by design ^[18].

any direct Turkish or Pakistani intervention on Saudi Arabia’s behalf would carry a “heavy price”. — Mohammed al-Bukhaiti

Which leaves Riyadh itself, hedging harder than anyone. The intelligence channel US Central Command arranged, the one feeding Israeli intelligence into Saudi target lists, is still open ^[2]. So is a line to Tehran, through Iran's foreign minister, Araghchi ^[19]. In twelve months the kingdom has bought itself a new shield without closing a single old account, and the largest account still open is the one with Washington: Saudi Arabia's own war planning holds that a major campaign against the Houthis would likely need direct American military support, and formal sign-off from the United States, to go ahead ^[20].