What the escalating war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis means for Trump in Iran
Por James C. Reynolds — – World RSS Feed
Analysis What the escalating war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis means for Trump in Iran
Washington has largely ignored the lingering disruption created by the Houthis around the Red Sea. But a wider conflict with Saudi Arabia could force them to intervene, writes James C. Reynolds
Monday 14 September 2026 14:03 BST
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Yemen’s Houthi rebels have forced a lightning offensive to the Red Sea coast, assuming control over another vital waterway in the region and threatening to expand the frozen US-Israeli conflict with Iran to the east.
By securing a position overlooking the narrow Bab el-Mandeb strait, the Iran-aligned group has opened a second pressure point, further squeezing Saudi Arabia’s oil exports already diverted from the Strait of Hormuz.
The sudden land grab over the last week has been accompanied by an aerial campaign against military instalments in southern Saudi Arabia, shifting the balance of power after more than a decade at war.
Analysts say the main aim of the offensive is to secure control over the Red Sea as Iran maintains its grip over Hormuz, allowing them to raise oil prices and making it harder for Washington to resolve the crisis.
open image in galleryGulf states – already deliberating over Iran’s ambitions to control shipping through Hormuz – will have to choose between tolerating the status quo and engaging with Tehran to protect trade across the region, they say.
Already fighting a deeply unpopular war to the east, Donald Trump has avoided any commitment to bailing ally Saudi Arabia out with strikes against the Houthis, though experts say US intervention may be needed to break the Houthi grip on the Red Sea.
The Independent looks at what the Houthi advance means for regional stability.
Why are the Houthis fighting with Saudi Arabia?
The Houthi rebels are a military, political and religious movement that rules over most of northwest Yemen and has disrupted global trade and energy markets with strikes on cargo ships and tankers in the Red Sea.
The group exploited the chaos of the 2011 Arab Spring to oust the internationally recognised government from Sanaa in 2014, beginning the devastating Yemeni civil war.
open image in galleryFearing the Iran-aligned group could seize control of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, and therefore threaten Riyadh’s ability to export oil, Saudi Arabia intervened a year later, supported by the US, UK, France and others.
A UN-brokered ceasefire followed in 2022 and since then, both sides have refrained from major escalatory actions. Iran has not directly intervened in Yemen, but the fighting is considered part of a wider Iran-Saudi proxy conflict.
It was during the Israeli war in Gaza, from 2023 to 2025, that the Houthis started attacking ships in the Red Sea in support of Iran-aligned Hamas. The UK and US hit Houthi targets in 2025 as part of a campaign to restore freedom of navigation.
Crucially, Trump last year struck a deal to end the US strikes on the Houthis in exchange for a halt to strikes on Red Sea shipping. Taking on the group now would likely expose US forces in the region to missile attacks from Yemen.
Clashes with Saudi Arabia restarted in July as both sides enforced new blockades on maritime traffic. The Houthis struck Saudi oil tankers accused of violating their blockade.
What are they doing now?
Despite years of conflict – and with some 14% of Yemen’s population displaced – the Houthis last week oversaw an astonishing push east to the coast, granting them much greater control over traffic through the Red Sea.
Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former UK ambassador to Yemen, told The Independent that after months of attacks at sea, the Houthis “think the moment has come to call the Saudi bluff”.
open image in gallery“They think the Saudis have lost the stomach for the fight. They think that they showed themselves to be weak and frightened in the face of the Iranians,” said Mr Fitton-Brown, a senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“And the Houthis think that this is the moment where they can effectively raise their demands and get the Saudis to concede even more advantageous terms than they were previously willing to do.”
With Iran controlling the strait on one side of the Arabian peninsula, and the allied Houthis controlling the other, the wider war has handed more regional influence in the region to Tehran, with Gulf countries now forced to accept they may have to engage with Iran and give up their faith in Washington as a guarantor of security.
The war presents the US with a dilemma, too: intervene and spend huge resources on a second front in the deeply unpopular war with Iran, or watch on and undermine the relationship with another ally in the region. Sources told CNN that the US has offered intelligence and targeting support to the Saudis in lieu of military support.
What has changed on the ground?
The Houthis said on Tuesday that they were launching a broad operation deep into Saudi Arabia, ramping up attacks on energy infrastructure and southern cities as they began their push west in Yemen.
Mr Fitton-Brown said that the advance towards al-Mokha, which fell on Thursday, would grant better access to the Bab el-Mandab strait and make it easier for them to more reliably target ships in the strait.
By Friday, government sources were reporting that the Houthis had taken the strategic Perim Island, dividing the strait. Middle East analyst Fawaz Gerges said the capture of strategic islands in the waterway was a “game changer”.
“It changes the balance of power and gives them far greater geopolitical and geoeconomic leverage over Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, the United States and global trade,” he said.
A separate attack on Friday, which Riyadh has blamed on Iran-backed fighters in Iraq, knocked out Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, the main route for Middle East oil bypassing the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.
Riyadh had rerouted much of its crude through Red Sea ports after the US-Iran war effectively closed the Strait on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula.
Regional sources told Reuters the mounting economic cost and Trump’s refusal to strike the Houthis was reinforcing a view in some Gulf countries that negotiations with Tehran are no longer a choice but a necessity for self-preservation.
What happens next?
Mr Fitton-Brown said the region was calling for American leadership to recognise the connectedness between the fronts and intervene, where the Saudis have been unable to uphold maritime law.
“For the Americans to ignore the Red Sea, to ignore this threat to Saudi Arabia from the Houthis, is just completely self-defeating.” he said.
open image in galleryHe said he would expect the US to remain “flaky” on the issue for now – but not back out entirely.
“They’re not going to fall on their sword because every so often these provocations will cross a threshold where they have no choice but to respond,” he said.
The challenge would be to bring together a ‘hybrid’ coalition, including some military participants, but also countries willing to enforce sanctions and join a diplomatic coalition to force Iran to “back down”.
“It can be done, but it requires a level of diplomatic patience,” he said.
Lindsay Newman, associate fellow with Chatham House, said that one of the major open questions was the resilience of Iran’s proxy network across the region. While Hamas and Hezbollah have been degraded, the Houthi military “are proving more intractable” despite efforts to stop them.
Crucially, she said, this was not addressed by June’s interim agreement between the US and Iran. Washington had been pushing to raise the issue of Iran’s support for regional proxies before the war broke out in February.
“[The] developments make clear that a resolution on the proxy question must be integrated into any offramp for the wider regional conflict. Otherwise these groups can and likely will resupply and remain disruptive across the region.”
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