US diplomacy could help Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reconcile their efforts to reverse Houthi conquests in Yemen.

The Houthis are on the march, and America’s ally Saudi Arabia is in their crosshairs. From their stronghold in Yemen, the Iranian-backed Houthis are raining missiles and drones on Saudi airports, oil facilities, and military installations while blocking Saudi shipping through the crucial Bab el-Mandeb Strait. 

The kingdom’s leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), is urging President Donald Trump to help, including joint air operations over Yemen. Trump can help, but not through another futile air campaign against the Houthis. If Trump really wants to slow the Houthis’ advance, he should launch a hard-headed diplomatic push, not more bombing, to heal the rift among America’s Gulf allies that Iran and the Houthis are exploiting.

This is urgent. On October 10, a strike killed 13 people and injured more than 300 at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport. Saudi authorities gulped hard and canceled their flagship investment conference, and the country is bracing for more attacks. Even more than the Iran War, Houthi attacks are shaking confidence in Saudi Arabia’s security and denting MBS’s ambitious economic plans.

For now, the United States and other Saudi partners are supporting the kingdom’s defense while avoiding direct action in Yemen. They are right to be cautious. Renewed US airstrikes would almost certainly break the bilateral truce with the Houthis that has been in place since 2025. Doing so would invite Houthi attacks on American personnel and assets in the region and could reignite all-out war with Iran. With the Iran War deeply unpopular, the Trump administration has strong incentives to avoid broadening the war or being drawn into a costly, open-ended fight in Yemen.

Nor is it clear that the US airstrikes that MBS wants would turn the tide. Air campaigns against the Houthis have limits. Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Israel have all tried, with limited success—including Operation Rough Rider, a major, 52-day US bombing campaign in 2025 that failed to stop the Houthis from harassing Red Sea shipping. 

Of course, air campaigns can destroy some of the Houthis’ weapons, disrupt their communications, and threaten their leadership. But without a meaningful ground offensive and a political strategy, airstrikes won’t fundamentally threaten the Houthis’ control of a chunk of Yemen or change their behavior. In fact, past bombing campaigns backfired when they killed Yemeni civilians and served as a rallying cry against foreign intervention.

The United States can offer far better help than bombing. Tough-minded diplomacy, at a fraction of the cost, could make a real difference. A concerted US push could help Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—two former partners who fell out over Yemen earlier this year—overcome their differences. That would help anti-Houthi Yemeni forces to push back against the Houthis and ultimately forge a political path for ending Yemen’s spiraling war.

Saudi-UAE alignment is critical for several reasons. The UAE could bring vital military capacity and experience to the ground offensive. Of all Saudi allies, Abu Dhabi is the best placed to quickly engage with Yemeni forces on the ground to strengthen frontlines in the south and push the Houthis out of territories they seized along the Red Sea coast in September. The Emiratis helped Yemeni fighters push Houthi forces out of Aden in 2015 and to recapture much of the Red Sea coast in 2017 and 2018.

Yet political alignment is equally important. Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s differing priorities and visions for Yemen are both a reflection and a cause of divisions within the Yemeni government—and those divisions have been a huge asset for the Houthis. Saudi-UAE agreement on an achievable military objective and a shared political vision for ending Yemen’s war could also help anti-Houthi Yemeni groups unify. 

As it stands, the patchwork of anti-Houthi forces in Yemen seems unable or unwilling to coordinate an effective counteroffensive, much less agree on a vision for a postwar Yemen. This is a recipe for further Houthi gains, positioning the Houthis to impose a victor’s peace that would allow them to continue to extort Saudi Arabia and threaten stability in the Red Sea basin and beyond.

Bringing Saudi Arabia and the UAE together will require tough compromise. But the stakes for Saudi security—inextricably linked to Emirati security—and broader regional and maritime security should be high enough to get it done. A slow accommodation may already be taking shape, with high-level meetings between Saudi and Emirati officials in Abu Dhabi and in Riyadh. But without US support, this thaw may prove too little, too late, with profound consequences far beyond Yemen.

Washington cannot bomb its way to a stable Yemen or a secure Saudi Arabia. But it can use its diplomatic leverage to bring together its two estranged Gulf allies, strengthen their Yemeni partners, and create the conditions for an eventual political settlement that will need to include the Houthis. For a president seemingly eager to keep the United States out of another war in the Middle East, helping allies help themselves may be the most effective—and least costly—form of American leadership.

About the Author: April Longley Alley

April Longley Alley is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She was the senior political advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Yemen from 2020 to 2024. Dr. Alley spent a decade at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based conflict prevention organization, ending her tenure there as deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa. She also worked at the National Defense University’s Center for Applied Strategic Learning. Dr. Alley holds a PhD in Government and an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University.

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