The reckless missile attack on King Khalid international airport in Riyadh on Saturday did not just export the death and misery inside Yemen to Saudi Arabia, it also left Donald Trump forced to reconsider his diplomatic and political strategy designed to take him into the midterm elections next month. The US president’s plan had only been unveiled on Saturday. It was to blame what he described as “a world problem” – spiralling diesel prices – on the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying his attacks on Russian oil refineries were the cause.
He was going to keep the political temperature down on his war of choice in Iran and its spillover in Yemen until after the midterms. In pursuit of this strategy, he claimed the Iranian blockade in the strait of Hormuz was in effect broken, producing figures on daily oil barrel exports to assuage the markets. As a further insurance he also claimed it was impossible to negotiate with the Iranians since there was no single leadership in Tehran.
Saudi Arabia, in conjunction with Turkey, and Pakistan, were largely to be left to sort out the Houthis along the Red Sea. The fate of Yemen, the poorest country in the world according to the International Monetary Fund, was not going to shift votes in Kansas or Alaska. Now, after the Riyadh airport attack, it’s doubtful for a basket of reasons that this anyway threadbare strategy, largely born of desperation, can hold.
For all the talk of the Gulf becoming responsible for its own security, it is doubtful that Saudi Arabia can be left to fend for itself after the carnage in Riyadh. One of the the 12 dead is an American and there may be more amon the severely injured. Something is clearly wrong with Saudi defences since the Houthis are firing rockets from 900km away, and they are reaching their target too often.
The US has had a unilateral ceasefire with the Houthis since 2025, and once the hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis recommenced in the summer, the pact was quietly renewed. Trump has twice rejected Saudi appeals for help. Can he spurn them three times?
The pressure to act as allies are expected may prove overwhelming. But “the blame Zelenskyy, trade with Russia” strategy is anyway unlikely to work. The amount of additional diesel Vladimir Putin will put on the market is not enough to bring down prices at the pump.
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