Iran is deliberately outsourcing the risk. If a Houthi drone hits a Saudi tanker or an Iraqi militia rocket lands near a pumping station, Tehran retains deniability while Riyadh still pays the price. It is attrition by proxy, and it is highly effective.
Saudi Arabia is being encircled by Iranian proxies targeting its oil infrastructure and crippling its maritime trade. The picture is a terrifying scenario for the world’s biggest oil exporter — jeopardizing its plans to diversify its economy and attract investment & tourists.
Despite calls for a diplomatic solution, Saudi forces have faced attacks from both Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi rebels as they impose a Red Sea blockade on Saudi ships, and from pro-Iran militias in Iraq targeting its energy facilities.
Early on Wednesday, the kingdom struck back. Joint US-Saudi strikes in Iraq killed 20, according to the alliance of former paramilitary groups and factions whose bases were targeted.
“Saudi Arabia understands that becoming drawn into a prolonged war of attrition with Iran and the so-called Axis of Resistance does not serve the Kingdom’s long-term interests,” Danny Citrinowicz, a senior Iran researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, wrote on X.
Still, as one Saudi analyst close to the government put it, “restraint has limits”.
With several Saudi tankers hit in the Red Sea, the Houthis are seeking to limit access to a critical artery delivering Saudi crude to the international market after the Strait of Hormuz was largely choked off by Iran.
The repeated attacks have already done something more damaging than physical destruction: they have punctured the Gulf’s carefully cultivated image as a safe harbor for capital. Once that perception cracks, the cost of repairing it is measured in years, not months.
The threats on multiple fronts come just months after Iran itself launched waves of strikes targeting Saudi energy installations, including refineries, petrochemical plants and power facilities.
The salvos hit “key” installations, according to Saudi state media, impacting oil production capacity.
The repeated barrages against Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors also shattered the wealthy monarchies’ hard-earned reputation for stability.
“For the Gulf states, stability is not an abstract concept; it is the foundation of their economic model,” Citrinowicz wrote in an online commentary.
“Their long-term prosperity depends on regional predictability, investment, trade, and uninterrupted energy flows.”
Such attacks risk a bigger backlash from a cornered Riyadh, which experts say has so far held off on a larger retaliation.
“The kingdom has the capacity to impose severe punishment on the Houthis and the Iraqi militias, but has so far exercised considerable restraint,” Ali Shihabi, a political analyst close to the Saudi government, told AFP.
“That restraint has limits and should not be mistaken for weakness.”
Fear is also mounting that the Houthis will copy Iran’s playbook in the Hormuz Strait by charging ships to transit the Red Sea — giving them a revenue stream to bolster their arsenal and project power across Yemen.
On Wednesday, a minister in Yemen’s internationally recognized government claimed the rebels had already begun working under Iranian guidance to establish a fee system.
Information minister Moammar al-Eryani described the move in remarks to AFP “as a dangerous escalation aimed at transforming one of the world’s most strategic maritime corridors into a permanent source of funding for the militia’s military and terrorist activities”.
Even if fears over the tolls are not realized, analysts say the group’s ability to disrupt one of the world’s most vital waterways sends a powerful message.
“That capability is itself the warning,” H.A. Hellyer, analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told AFP. “It’s a preview of what Iran-aligned actors elsewhere on Saudi Arabia’s periphery can also bring to bear.”
With AFP Inputs
