Trump caught in a dilemma over Saudi request to strike Houthis

Donald Trump has spent the past two weeks wrestling with a dilemma: whether to honor Saudi Arabia's request to strike Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia is a key US ally and an indispensable partner in the war against Iran, but granting the request would open a new front on top of a conflict already sending shockwaves through the global economy — making it a difficult call to accept.

According to The New York Times, Yemen's pro-Iran Houthi rebels have exploited the turbulence across the Middle East to resume their war against Saudi Arabia. Trump has been vacillating for weeks over Riyadh's request for military support.

According to US administration officials, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — the kingdom's de facto ruler and a key American ally in the Iran war — called Trump on Thursday to ask the United States to intervene again and help stop the Houthis' rapid territorial expansion.

Trump had expressed opposition to striking the Houthis just one day earlier in a meeting with his advisers. After the call with bin Salman, he reversed course and ordered the Ministry of National Defense to prepare for strikes. Then, around noon Sunday, Trump reversed himself again, according to officials. The administration decided to hold off on US military strikes against the Houthis, at least for now.

A senior administration official told The New York Times only that "the United States has a defense agreement with Saudi Arabia and we will always defend our allies."

Most of Trump's senior advisers were deeply skeptical or openly opposed to joining Saudi Arabia's war against the Houthis. A particular concern was the strain already placed on US forces by the ongoing war with Iran.

When Trump decided to call off — or at least postpone — the strikes, preparations were nearly complete. According to two officials, US military commanders had already approved the target list, and troops were loading bombs onto American fighter jets set to carry out the mission. The operation had, in effect, reached the final moments before launch.

In a phone call with a Fox News reporter that morning, Trump said he was at a "decision point" on how to manage the broader war with Iran. On the Houthi question, the reporter said Trump explained that the United States was still in contact with the Houthis and that the group had so far maintained its position of not wanting to fight Americans.

The Times said Trump's repeated reversals reflect the dilemma he now faces. The Houthis have attacked Saudi Arabia while refraining from striking US vessels — and that distinction is precisely what makes the situation so difficult for Trump. He needs Saudi cooperation in the war against Iran and cannot easily ignore Riyadh's request for air support, yet he is reluctant to enter a new conflict when the United States itself has not been directly attacked.

Saudi Arabia has also shown, as recently as last May, that it is willing to use its leverage if Washington does not cooperate. The Trump administration had sought to use US forces to escort civilian oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, but the plan effectively collapsed after Saudi Arabia denied access to its airspace and US military bases on its soil.

According to officials, if the United States does join Saudi Arabia's campaign against the Houthis, the operation could be coordinated with a new ground offensive by Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces.

In the course of the fighting, the Houthis have seized key territory near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a critical chokepoint in the Red Sea. That has deepened fears of further disruption to global energy markets already reeling from the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Current and former US diplomats and military commanders with experience in the Middle East expressed doubt that limited American airstrikes would be enough to bring the Houthis to the negotiating table or force them to back down. The group endured roughly eight weeks of intensive US bombing last year. Trump announced a sudden truce with the Houthis less than two months into that campaign, saying the group had "promised not to attack ships anymore and we are going to honor that." The Houthis have since kept their word and not struck US vessels.

Questions have also been raised about whether US support for Yemeni government forces — which collapsed quickly in their first serious clash with the Houthis — would produce any meaningful results.

Gregory Johnson, a researcher at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, described the anti-Houthi coalition that would receive US air support as "a Frankenstein of basically every non-Houthi actor in Yemen stitched together," adding that "the different factions have very different visions for what they want Yemen to look like, and in some cases diametrically opposed goals." He said they "spend more time fighting each other than they do fighting the Houthis."

An official warned that if the Bab el-Mandeb strait is destabilized on top of the ongoing unrest in the Strait of Hormuz following the Iran war, the world could face further disruptions to oil and gas supply routes. Even with US forces joining Saudi Arabia, fully neutralizing the Houthis would be no easy task.