Saudi-Yemen conflict: The notion of an 'American saviour' is dead

Submitted by Trita Parsi on Thu, 09/17/2026 - 18:11 Regional leaders must urgently adopt a new model in which they take primary responsibility for security in the Middle East

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends a trade agreement signature ceremony in Paris, France, on 24 August 2026 (Lou Benoist/AFP) Off

Once again, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman put his faith in US President Donald Trump to defend Saudi Arabia. Once again, Trump let him down.

Last week, as Houthi forces swept Yemen’s Red Sea coast, Mohammed bin Salman called Trump twice and urged him to launch US strikes. Trump refused, offering intelligence and targeting assistance instead.

Why Mohammed bin Salman expected Trump to say yes is anyone’s guess. He had been here before.

After the September 2019 attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities - attacks the US attributed to Iran - Trump was pressed to retaliate against Tehran. He declined, explicitly telling reporters that he had never promised to protect Saudi Arabia.

Seven years later, the same assumption persists in Riyadh and throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states: when their security is threatened badly enough, Washington will ultimately come to the rescue. But it won’t.

This assumption is not merely mistaken. The American security order in the Middle East is dead. Pretending otherwise is becoming a danger to the region’s security.

The Iran war has revealed that it is neither reliable nor effective. US bases in GCC countries have proved to be sources of insecurity rather than security. They were supposed to prevent Iran from starting a war against the GCC. Instead, it was the US itself that started the war - against the objections of several GCC states - and within that war, the bases didn’t deter Iran from attacking.

Rather, the bases served as magnets for Iranian attacks. Today, former CIA director David Petraeus admits these bases are “no longer viable” due to the massive damage Iran has inflicted on them. The US could not protect the bases from Iranian attacks, and consequently, it cannot protect the GCC states.

Forging a new order

While the American umbrella did provide security for some years, the order underpinning it - centred on Iran’s exclusion and containment - paved the way for the disastrous war we are currently witnessing. The bloc formation it generated and sustained became a source of instability, rather than a protective shield for Washington’s regional partners.

But with every crisis come opportunities. The collapse of the old order offers a chance to forge a new order in the region - one that is centred on inclusive and collective security, rejects bloc formations, and rests on the shoulders of regional powers themselves, rather than being underwritten by external powers.

That means moving away from a system in which the US seeks to organise half of the region against the other half, and towards one in which regional states develop institutions to manage their rivalries.

The Iran war can be yet another devastating conflict in the Middle East that leaves only a trail of suffering and destruction - or it can become a turning point

Iran cannot be permanently excluded. Israel must have a pathway into the order if it ends the illegal occupation of Palestine. The GCC states cannot remain permanently dependent on Washington.

Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq cannot be treated as peripheral, and smaller states cannot be expected to thrive or survive by aligning with the right external patron.

This is the premise of the model developed by the Quincy Institute’s Better Order Project: replacing the region’s failed system of deterrence, alliances and outside intervention with an inclusive regional security architecture.

All of the region’s major nations - including Iran, Turkey, Iraq and other Arab states - would participate in a permanent institution designed to manage, rather than eliminate, their inevitable rivalries. It would establish mechanisms for crisis communication and deconfliction, conflict prevention and mediation, arms control and confidence-building measures, as well as cooperation on shared challenges such as water, climate and economic development.

Regional states would assume the primary responsibility for regional security, while the US would remain an important external partner - providing diplomatic, economic and, where collectively agreed, security support - without serving as the region’s permanent military guarantor.

Powerful incentive

Crucially, the architecture would not treat the situation in the Gulf as separate from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A new security arrangement in the Gulf that leaves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unresolved would simply reproduce another source of regional instability.

The ideal model would therefore stipulate that the door for Israel’s inclusion in the order is always open, but the ticket price is the creation of a Palestinian state, based on 1967 boundaries.

This could provide the most powerful incentive yet for Israel to abandon its futile and illegal occupation of Palestinian land. Unlike the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which offered recognition for recognition, or the Abraham Accords that offer normalisation for normalisation, the Better Order proposal offers Israel integration into the region’s security architecture - provided that Palestinian rights to self-determination and statehood are upheld.

How a pragmatic axis could reshape the Middle East Read More »

This would also be a win for the US, whose populace has long favoured bringing troops home from the Middle East, amid widespread resentment of American resources being spent in the region, rather than at home.

The US could remain deeply engaged - diplomatically, economically and strategically - while dramatically reducing the military burden it has carried for decades. Regional states would assume greater responsibility for their own security, but they would do so collectively, rather than through an arms race or competing blocs.

Given the state of the Middle East, these ideas may come across as naive. But it is out of the ashes of some of humanity’s darkest chapters that visionary pathways to security and stability have risen.

The European Union was born from the devastation of World War II, transforming a centuries-old Franco-German rivalry into the foundation of a common European project. The Helsinki process emerged at the height of the Cold War, when Europe was divided between nuclear-armed adversaries - yet it created rules and institutions for managing that rivalry.

The Iran war can be yet another devastating conflict in the Middle East that leaves only a trail of suffering and destruction - or it can be transformed into a turning point that sets the region on a more peaceful and stable trajectory.

None of this will happen by accident. It will happen only if regional leaders see their own countries as the answer for the future, rather than phone calls to an illusory American saviour.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Yemen War Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0