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Is the Houthi crisis a diplomatic opportunity? Saudi Arabia has come running to Washington and even to Israel in its hour of need. Meanwhile, Riyadh's feud with the United Arab Emirates continues to backfire, and the safeguard-breaking Saudi nuclear deal with President Trump has been submitted to Congress.
With all of these moving pieces, there may be a checkmate forTrump to find. The point isn't that he must answer the calls of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for U.S. airstrikes. Instead the Houthi blockade on Saudi oil has already become the impetus for the kind of Saudi-Israeli-Emirati cooperation that only U.S. Central Command can convene. That's the regional alliance needed to counter Iran and its Houthi proxy militia.
Now that the Houthis have seized crucial territory along Yemen's Red Sea coast, the Saudi claims to have the problem under control--and not to need the U.A.E.'s help--are in tatters. So is the Saudi hope that its new Mecca Joint Defense Agreement with Pakistan and Turkey would ride to the rescue.
Riyadh needs better allies. The Saudis have already sought Israeli intelligence on the Houthis through Centcom intermediaries. Israel hasn't focused much on Yemen, but when it did a year ago it was able to take out the Houthi Prime Minister and some 10 senior officials in a single strike.
The vision behind this sort of cooperation has a name: the Abraham Accords, whichTrump midwifed between Israel and some Arab countries in his first term.Trump says the Saudis must join as a condition of their nuclear deal with the U.S., though that's nowhere in the public text. He seems to have added the condition after the deal took heavy criticism for permitting domestic Saudi enrichment of uranium--giving away the nuclear store.
It's unlikely that Congress will be able to block the deal, which could spread sensitive enrichment technology that the U.S. has spent decades working to restrict. A Stimson Center analysis argues this would set off a nuclear competition around the world, with the Emiratis and other U.S. allies demanding the same enrichment, and Russia and China offering it to their allies as well.
The Saudis are also on their way to receiving F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter aircraft from the U.S., in a $24.3 billion potential sale approved by the State Department on Thursday. Congress may not be able to stop that either, despite concerns about Chinese technology theft in Saudi Arabia.
What Congress can do is persuade the President to use the nuclear deal as a bargaining chip. The Saudis have been making a lot of requests after they denied the U.S. use of its airspace at a crucial moment, derailing Operation Freedom to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Let the Saudis give up the deal's domestic-enrichment plank, unnecessary other than for establishing a path to a bomb.
Or Riyadh can join the Abraham Accords, asTrump says, and cement the U.S. regional alliance. Progress continues among Israel, the U.A.E. and Bahrain, and Israel and Morocco agreed Wednesday to resume direct flights, appoint ambassadors and turn their diplomatic missions into full embassies.
Riyadh says it wants a path to a Palestinian state first, but after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas massacre, that's effectively a stall. The Pakistanis and the Turks aren't going to save the day for the Saudis. There's no substitute for the U.S.-led alliance, and this looks like a chance for it to reach its potential.
-- Wall Street Journal