Saudi Arabia has few good options as a widening regional war edges closer to its borders. The challenge has grown more urgent after Ansar Allah began acting on its threat to impose a blockade on Saudi ports and airports, including closing the Bab Al-Mandab Strait to Saudi shipping, oil tankers included.

For years, Riyadh has sought an exit from the Yemen war while preserving its core security interests. The costs of the conflict and its impact on the kingdom's stability are well known. Yemen has long proved a battlefield that exhausts every foreign power. Yet, the main obstacle to Saudi Arabia's withdrawal has been the US, which wants Riyadh to bear the burden of protecting US interests in key maritime routes. After Saudi Arabia displaced the UAE from eastern and southern Yemen, it became solely responsible for developments there, including the blockade of Sanaa airport and the ports of Hodeidah.

Today, Saudi Arabia is paying Washington for protection that does not exist, whether in the war against Iran or in Yemen. If Riyadh truly wanted to end the Yemen conflict, there would be no reason to maintain the blockade. Lifting it was already part of the "road map" Saudi Arabia was close to signing with Sanaa before US intervention halted the agreement.

From Ansar Allah's perspective, the current situation is unacceptable. Riyadh's best option is to lift the blockade and conclude a peace agreement with the movement. Until the latest round of fighting between the US and Iran, Saudi Arabia maintained a position of relative neutrality. It allowed Washington to use US bases on Saudi territory against Iran but stayed out of direct military involvement, despite absorbing some Iranian strikes, as did other Gulf states.

The current confrontation, however, follows the collapse of an earlier memorandum of understanding. Both Washington and Tehran are now seeking greater impact ahead of any future settlement. Iran is expected to intensify attacks against US interests across the Gulf, a development that could end Saudi Arabia's relative insulation from the conflict.

At the same time, Yemen's campaign to break the Saudi blockade, backed by the US, is expanding. Ansar Allah is attempting to disrupt Saudi airports and shut the Bab Al-Mandab Strait to Saudi imports and exports, including oil shipments.

The Gulf states understand where their interests lie. What they lack is the political independence to pursue them.

Lifting the blockade on Sanaa is not an easy choice for Riyadh. The difficulty lies less in acknowledging defeat in Yemen, a reality Saudi Arabia effectively accepted when it halted the war under the April 2022 truce, than in the implications for its relationship with Washington. Although the US has repeatedly failed to protect Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, including during the current war with Iran, the relationship remains deeply rooted and difficult to unravel. As a result, this option remains politically out of reach.

The more realistic path is coordinated Gulf pressure on Washington to end the war and reach a genuine agreement with Iran that reflects the military balance. Such a deal would require changes in Gulf policy toward Tehran to remove threats originating from US military deployments across the region. Repeated Gulf assurances that US bases are not being used against Iran no longer carry credibility.

The Gulf's overriding interest, especially Saudi Arabia's, is to stop the war before it expands further. The inability of Gulf governments to influence a conflict unfolding over their own territory risks undermining their legitimacy and weakening their claim to provide security, stability, and prosperity.

The Gulf states understand where their interests lie. What they lack is the political independence to pursue them. Even so, there is room for diplomacy. Ending the war also serves the interests of both Washington and Tehran. Israel, however, is the only party that benefits from prolonging it. Gulf capitals should therefore make clear to the US that they reject Israeli efforts to derail arrangements that could allow coexistence across the Gulf, especially as a US administration member approves the matter. In that regard, Gulf states may only need to follow the fierce campaign in the Israeli press against US Vice President JD Vance, driven by his desire to reach an agreement with Iran.

Nothing is more damaging than the mindset reflected in Al-Arabiya's recent interview with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, in which Herzog called for "dialogue between Mecca and Jerusalem." If such thinking comes to shape Saudi policy toward Iran or Yemen, the region is headed for far greater deterioration.

This is an edited translation for an article published in Arabic.