The last thing President Donald Trump needs right now is another war brewing in the Middle East. But this is what Trump is getting at a time when he’s in a monthslong standoff with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz and as midterm elections, traditionally seen as a referendum on the first two years of a president’s term, are weeks away.
Over the weekend, the people of Saudi Arabia awoke to a series of missile attacks on one of the country’s busiest airports. The Houthis, a militia that for years has ruled swaths of Yemen, launched the weapons at King Khalid International Airport, directly hitting two terminals. A dozen people were killed and about 300 others were wounded in what was the deadliest strike on the kingdom in over a decade. The airport was struck again the next day, forcing Saudi authorities to shut it down.
The Houthis have described the assaults as retaliation for Saudi airstrikes in Yemen and a Saudi-enforced blockade of Houthi-held areas. The Saudis, of course, see the attacks as terrorism meant to kill innocent civilians and coerce the kingdom into a striking a deal on the militia’s terms.
Even before the airport was struck last weekend, Riyadh’s international supporters rallied to its defense.
The United States agreed to provide the Royal Saudi Air Force with intelligence for its bombing runs. France is sending military advisers and air defense systems to the Saudi port of Yanbu, a key oil export facility. Pakistan, which signed a mutual defense agreement with the kingdom last year, has deployed at least 8,000 troops to Saudi Arabia to reinforce its security.
None of these countries, however, are interested in bailing the Saudis out in Yemen or taking offensive action in a country that spits out foreign invaders like a 3-year-old spits out peas during dinner.
For Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, better known as MBS, the resumption of war with the Houthis is coming at a terrible time. The Saudi government is set to host an international investment conference this month, where billionaires, CEOs and senior-level government officials will hobnob for a day of meetings. The event is designed to highlight Saudi Arabia’s attractiveness as a moneymaker, increase the kingdom’s international profile and boost MBS’ flagship Vision 2030 project, which seeks to transform the country into the Middle East’s premier business center.
Needless to say, missiles flying into airport terminals is not helping that image. Who is willing to invest billions of dollars in a country where planes are grounded and infrastructure is being targeted?
The Saudi government understands the gravity here and has taken pains to emphasize the country’s potential as a land of endless opportunity. The problem is that MBS’ options for dealing with this mess are limited.
Yemen brings back terrible memories for him. When he was defense minister in 2015, MBS convinced his father, King Salman, to organize an Arab-led military coalition to assist the internationally recognized Yemeni government’s efforts to reclaim the capital, Sanaa, months after it was kicked out by the Houthis. The brash prince thought the mission would be straightforward; Riyadh assured President Barack Obama’s administration that the war would be over in weeks.
Instead, the Saudis and their allies got bogged down. The Yemeni government’s military was less a military and more a collection of militias that fought each other as often as they fought the Houthis. The Saudi Air Force was well equipped with U.S.-supplied fighter planes yet was indiscriminate in its targeting and hit civilian buildings such as homes and wedding halls as well as school buses.
The Saudi-enforced blockade, meant to stop weapons from getting into the Houthis’ hands, held up humanitarian aid deliveries, contributing to a hunger crisis. The Houthis dug into their positions and withstood all of it.
As one U.S. official reflected, “We knew we might be getting into a car with a drunk driver.” Hundreds of thousands of deaths later, MBS decided that continuing the war was futile and terrible for his own reputation and cut a ceasefire deal with the militia.
Trump has a bad history with Yemen as well. In March 2025, he ordered a weekslong bombing campaign to destroy the Houthis’ military infrastructure and force them to stop firing on civilian vessels transiting the Red Sea. The Trump administration packaged the operation as a bold decision made by a bold president, and some U.S. officials even believed
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aggressive airstrikes could set the stage for the Houthis’ collapse.But Trump, like MBS, eventually got tired of the engagement. The U.S. military struck more than 1,000 Houthi targets, including drone manufacturing facilities, missile storage sites and radar systems. Yet the bombings failed to deter the Houthis from attacking ships at sea, and Washington was using up costly precision-guided munitions with no end in sight. About six weeks later, Trump announced a ceasefire with the militia and sold it to the American people as a win.
At the time of writing, Trump hasn’t shown much desire to go through that again. The Saudis have repeatedly requested U.S. assistance in the form of airstrikes, if only to demonstrate to Riyadh that its relationship with Washington still yields dividends. Trump has declined, and he deserves credit for that. His first war with the Houthis wasn’t a triumph, so why would a second war prove any more successful?
The airport attacks could very well change Trump’s calculations. Just don’t expect U.S. military involvement to achieve much.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Tribune.
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