Saudi Arabia bets on defensive alliances to deter slide into war

Increasingly dragged into a war it did not choose, Saudi Arabia is building regional defensive alliances that it hopes will keep its enemies at bay and help it respond more robustly to attacks by Iran and its network of regional allies.

But nascent attempts to construct a multinational maritime coalition in the Red Sea, and the decision to bring Turkey into a defence pact with the kingdom and Pakistan, have so far failed to ward off attacks, analysts and diplomats said.

The kingdom's own military responses to attacks from Iran, Iraq and from Yemen's Houthis, who last month opened a southern front against the kingdom and have attacked Saudi shipping, have so far been limited.

Riyadh faces a dilemma: how to deter attacks and protect the ambitious economic vision it is pursuing without becoming entangled in a broader conflict in the region sparked by the war between the US and Iran.

As one Middle Eastern official put it, "Saudi Arabia's problem is that the kingdom's enemies know it wants to avoid war. They are abusing that."

The Saudi government media office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

"This is all very concerning and is exactly what Saudi Arabia wanted to avoid," said Aziz al-Ghashian, a Saudi analyst and senior non-resident fellow at the Gulf International Forum.

"Iran and its affiliates think Saudi won't respond. They understood restraint as basically an acceptance of being targeted and this is why it was very important for Saudi to find a way to deter them. The trick is how to balance it," he said.

After the defence pact was signed, the Houthis again attacked oil installations in the kingdom.

Gradual Escalation

Since the US and Israel launched the war on Iran on 28 February, Saudi Arabia has tried to absorb attacks, choosing to first pursue a purely diplomatic path before beginning limited military responses that were kept secret.

It reached a tentative calm with Iran around the time an April ceasefire with the US went into effect and emerged as a safer haven in the Gulf.

The past few weeks have jeopardised much of that.

The kingdom has faced damaging attacks on critical oil infrastructure from Yemen and Iraq, as well as on its shipping via the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea.

Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia and the US launched joint airstrikes targeting Iraqi militias they said were involved in the attacks on the kingdom. It was the first retaliation announced by the kingdom during the war, and came despite the Saudis having sought to avoid being seen as a co-belligerent with the US and Israel.

Two days later, Riyadh announced its intention to lead a maritime defence coalition in the Red Sea.

Last week, it announced the joint defence agreement with Turkey and Pakistan in Mecca.

"This is Saudi Arabia's way to signal to Iran that we are willing to go further up the ladder, of course [first that] of diplomacy before crossing the line of diplomacy to the other side," said Yasmine Farouk, project director for the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula at Crisis Group.