The Houthi attacks on Saudi airports and passenger terminals go beyond political messaging. They endanger civilians and strike at security and economic life. This escalation by an armed group outside the state raises a question larger than how to stop the attacks: can it be treated as a confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis alone, while Iran's role in building the group's capabilities and supplying its means of attack is ignored?
These attacks are hardly a Houthi product detached from their regional context. UN experts have documented the role of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah, and Iraqi experts in developing the Houthis' capabilities, turning a group of limited means into a force capable of cross-border operations. That support does not prove Tehran ordered every attack. But ignoring Iran's role in supplying the means is a misleading reduction of the problem.
The difficulty lies in apportioning responsibility between executor and patron, and in the political consequences of doing so. The Houthis' local interests and their margin of independent decision do not cancel their place in a network that supplies weapons, expertise, and coordination. Nor does that network absolve them of their own actions. Carrying out an attack and supplying its means are different kinds of responsibility, but neither can be dropped from the political reckoning. Both parties must be held to account for their roles, and the Houthis' supposed independence cannot be used to shift responsibility away from the patron.
Saudi Arabia chose diplomacy to reduce the risk of conflict with Iran, a choice embodied in the 2023 agreement brokered by China, which committed both sides to respect for sovereignty and non-interference. Attacks by an armed group backed by Tehran test the credibility of those commitments. The restoration of relations loses much of its value if armed pressure continues through parties Iran supports, and no one is held to account for the gap between declared de-escalation and continuing threat.
Saudi restraint reflects a concern to protect people, installations, investments, and development plans, and to avoid widening the war. But the approach succeeds only if partners tie de-escalation to dealing with the instruments of escalation and the networks behind them.
Washington, for its part, needs to align its objectives on Iran with its commitments to its partners and its stated opposition to weapons outside the state. If the pursuit of a quick, marketable achievement wins out, de-escalation may amount to no more than freezing the confrontation while its causes and instruments survive. Limited settlements risk entrenching armed groups as parties that disrupt security and are then negotiated with to restore it. Escalation becomes a source of gains, and building an authority that monopolizes the decision of war and peace becomes harder. The danger reaches beyond Yemen to Lebanon, Iraq, and perhaps Palestine, where stability depends on placing weapons and security decisions under state institutions. Such settlements could let these forces recover influence lost in the war since "Al-Aqsa Flood," through political recognition that offsets some of their military losses and fixes their place in the arrangements to come.
The most telling paradox is Iran's offer to facilitate dialogue between the Kingdom and the Houthis. It lets Tehran step into the role of mediator without answering for its part in building the group's strength. Mediation can help if it comes with verifiable commitments to halt military support and prevent renewed attacks. Without them, it hands the patron new leverage, letting it manage the settlement of a crisis its own support helped inflame.
The question, then, is what the dialogue covers and who guarantees its results. A settlement that separates the attacks from the sources that enable them may produce a truce, but it leaves security hostage to pressure and bargaining. A durable peace requires protecting civilians, holding perpetrators and backers to account, stopping the flow of weapons, and a Yemeni settlement that returns decision-making to state institutions and preserves the rights of all Yemenis. It also requires the affected states to have a say in the guarantees, so that the boundaries of their security are not drawn by agreements concluded between others on their own priorities. On those terms, dialogue can address the causes of the crisis rather than granting those who helped create it the right to manage its end.
The test of any settlement is whether it reduces the capacity for blackmail, and stops armed groups from being put to use again whenever negotiations stall or interests shift.
