Iran International
Iran has gained leverage over Saudi Arabia as Houthi advances and attacks put pressure on the kingdom’s territory and oil routes. But Riyadh is responding more forcefully, raising the risk that Tehran’s advantage could provoke a military backlash that ultimately weakens it.
Saudi Arabia is taking a harder military posture after efforts to defuse tensions with Tehran stalled. Riyadh had sought de-escalation, wary that a wider conflict could threaten the regional stability on which its economic ambitions depend.
A meeting planned for Monday between Iran and several Persian Gulf states over arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz was postponed after Saudi Arabia requested a delay, amid Riyadh’s growing frustration over attacks by Iran-aligned groups.
That leaves Riyadh with options, none of them ideal.
Saudi Arabia does not want an all-out war. But the Houthis may be testing how long the kingdom can afford to avoid one.
Saad bin Tefla Al Ajmi, Kuwait's former information minister, said Saudi Arabia has so far exercised patience but its military options remain open.
That restraint reflects what the kingdom has at stake. Saudi Arabia has spent years trying to avoid being dragged back into direct conflict with the Houthis, while its economic transformation depends heavily on regional stability.
"There is no stability, there is no development. There is no stability, there is no prosperity," Al Ajmi told Iran International.
But Houthi attacks on Saudi territory and advances along Yemen’s Red Sea coast are making that restraint increasingly difficult to maintain. The Saudi-led coalition said Houthi missile and drone attacks on Khamis Mushait, Abha and Taif on Monday injured 13 civilians.
Al Ajmi believes some of the Houthis' recent territorial gains could be reversed, particularly if Saudi Arabia decides to deploy its overwhelming advantage in air power. He described Houthi forces operating along the flat Tihamah coastal plain as "sitting ducks."
Saudi Arabia led a military intervention against the Houthis beginning in 2015, with direct hostilities largely subsiding after a UN-brokered truce began in 2022. Years of bombardment failed to eliminate the movement, and Riyadh subsequently spent years trying to avoid being pulled back into a full-scale Yemen war.
The question now is whether the Houthis are pushing that restraint too far.
Houthis risk overplaying their hand
The battlefield in Yemen remains fluid. The Houthis have seized Mokha, Dhubab and Perim Island and expanded their control along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, while Saudi-backed government forces have regrouped and vowed to retake lost territory. That leaves open the question of how durable the Houthis’ gains will prove.
"The Houthis fought the Saudis and the Saudi militias for years. They also have a history of being overextended," Alberto Fernandez, a former senior US diplomat, told Iran International.
Fernandez said the Houthis may have pushed too far.
"I think we could see them lose some of the territory that they've gained," he said.
"They're arrogant. Yes, they're motivated by ideology. And when you're motivated by ideology and you're arrogant, you tend to sometimes overextend," Fernandez said.
But the Houthis are also betting on reluctance from both Saudi Arabia and the United States to become drawn more deeply into the conflict.
Saudi Arabia's attempt to remain outside the wider Iran war has already "certainly backfired on them," Fernandez said.
The uncertainty over how much the kingdom can rely on its allies only complicates its options.
Fernandez described the relationship between Washington and Riyadh as increasingly complicated. The Saudis, he said, felt blindsided by the United States launching the Iran war, while Washington in turn felt unsupported by Riyadh.
That strain has become more visible as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sought direct US military action against the Houthis, while Trump declined requests for US strikes and Washington limited its support to intelligence and targeting assistance.
That uncertainty also extends to the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement, signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan on August 7. The pact says an armed attack against any one of the three countries will be regarded as an attack against all.
"So far [it] has turned out to be a paper tiger," Fernandez said, joking that the arrangement appeared to have the equivalent of a health insurance "pre-existing condition clause."
Saudi Arabia looks elsewhere for help
As Washington hesitates, Saudi Arabia is looking elsewhere.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham is considering Saudi requests for diplomatic and military support to counter the Houthis, Bloomberg reported Monday, as London grows increasingly concerned about the economic consequences of another expanding front in the Iran war.
The requests come as Britain has backed Saudi Arabia’s right to defend itself against Houthi attacks and stressed the importance of protecting freedom of navigation and global trade through the Red Sea.
The widening conflict has raised the stakes beyond Yemen. Houthi gains along the Red Sea coast and around Bab el-Mandeb, combined with attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure, are putting pressure on westward export routes that have become more important while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains constrained.
The Houthi offensive and attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure have added further pressure to oil markets already strained by the Iran war. Brent crude climbed above $108 a barrel Monday after attacks shut down Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, a crucial alternative export route while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains constrained.
"It gets to push up oil prices a little more," Fernandez said.
"For them, every dollar that prices go up, for them they see that as a plus for the regime, putting a little more pressure on the Americans and the Europeans."
The paradox for Tehran is that the greater the disruption caused by the widening conflict, the stronger the incentive may become for governments outside the region to help Saudi Arabia contain the threat.
Iran does not need to control the Houthis
"The broader strategic danger is that Iran does not need to control the Houthis completely to benefit from their actions," Mohamed Fahmy, a journalist and Middle East political analyst, told Iran International.
"It only needs the movement to retain sufficient military capability, autonomy and motivation to pressure critical maritime routes while Tehran maintains distance from the confrontation."
Fahmy cautioned against reducing the Houthis to an Iranian proxy.
They are "an intensely nationalist movement with their own domestic agenda and deeply rooted local interests," he said.
Their relationship with Tehran is nevertheless exceptionally close. Iran has provided weapons, military technology, intelligence and other support, Fahmy said, while the strategic interests of the two sides increasingly converge.
That convergence has become particularly consequential around the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb.
"One of the Houthis' strategic objectives is to exert control over Yemen's Red Sea coast and the northern Red Sea, where they can increasingly influence who is permitted to transit and who is not," Fahmy said.
For Tehran, the Houthis therefore provide an additional source of pressure on its adversaries without requiring direct Iranian military involvement.
But Saudi Arabia's military answer is not straightforward.
Fahmy pointed to Saada, the Houthis' traditional stronghold and geographical heart of their power, which has been repeatedly targeted by Saudi forces since the intervention began in 2015. Despite years of Saudi-led bombardment and military pressure, the Houthis survived and retained significant military capabilities.
"A limited campaign of additional strikes is therefore unlikely to fundamentally diminish their ability to threaten shipping or project power across the Red Sea," Fahmy said.
That leaves Saudi Arabia confronting a difficult choice.
Continued restraint risks allowing the Houthis to impose greater costs on the kingdom and giving Tehran additional leverage. But a renewed military campaign carries risks Riyadh knows well after years of fighting failed to eliminate the movement.
Iran has gained leverage as the war reaches Saudi Arabia. But the more Houthi attacks raise the costs for Riyadh, the greater the risk that Tehran’s leverage provokes the response that ultimately erodes it.
The developments centered on the loss of international oversight of Iran’s nuclear material, mounting restrictions and threats involving shipping through Hormuz, and a new round of regional military activity that prompted Saudi emergency alerts and high-level talks with the head of US Central Command.
IAEA warns of serious proliferation concern
The International Atomic Energy Agency has carried out no in-field verification activities in Iran for more than six months, except for an inspection of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in June, Director General Rafael Grossi said at the agency’s General Conference in Vienna.
Grossi said the IAEA withdrew its inspectors after renewed attacks on Iran in late February, worsening a decline in oversight of Tehran’s nuclear program during 2026.
The agency has also lacked continuity of knowledge for more than a year regarding Iran’s previously declared inventories of low- and highly enriched uranium, including material enriched to 60% purity, at nuclear facilities affected by attacks in June 2025.
“The Agency’s lack of information about this nuclear material and access to facilities to verify it is a matter of serious proliferation concern and needs to be addressed with the utmost urgency,” Grossi said.
He called a return to diplomacy and negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program “imperative,” warning that the situation had consequences for the wider global non-proliferation system.
The remarks came as Iran summoned Austria’s chargé d’affaires over Vienna’s failure to issue a visa to Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei called the decision “completely unjustified” and said Tehran had formally protested.
Bloomberg reported earlier that Austria denied Eslami entry after pressure from the Trump administration, preventing him from addressing the IAEA conference. A US official cited by Bloomberg said Washington had urged Austria not to grant a UN-requested sanctions waiver that would have permitted the visit.
Iran threatens restrictions against 77 vessels
Maritime tensions also escalated as Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority published an updated list of 77 vessels it accused of violating Iranian protocols governing passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
The authority warned that the vessels could face restrictions on future passage, including fines, detention or confiscation. Ships cooperating with vessels on the list would also be added, it said, while companies and other entities were warned not to provide services to them.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Tehran would continue taking what it considered necessary measures for as long as the United States maintained its maritime blockade.
Baghaei said security in the Strait of Hormuz was a matter for Iran and Oman as the two coastal states and blamed US actions for instability in the waterway. He said an understanding between Tehran and Muscat establishing safe shipping routes had been reached after weeks of negotiations while preserving the sovereign rights of both countries.
But a wider regional meeting planned in Oman had been postponed. Baghaei said it could have provided even a small step toward dialogue between Tehran and Persian Gulf countries, describing its postponement as a missed opportunity.
“Israel is the only beneficiary of tensions between Iran and Persian Gulf countries,” he said, calling on neighboring states to set aside past disputes and pursue regional dialogue.
Saudi Arabia had sought amendments to the Omani-Iranian proposal over concerns that its language could establish an unacceptable new status quo in the strait, Axios reported, citing a senior regional official.
The United States, meanwhile, said its forces had redirected 101 commercial vessels while enforcing the blockade against Iran as of September 13.
Shipping traffic through Hormuz remained sharply reduced over the weekend. Only four commodity vessels exited the Persian Gulf and 10 entered, Reuters reported, citing preliminary tracking data. Daily traffic fell to single digits, compared with a 10-day average of 14 vessels, although the figures excluded ships operating with their tracking transponders switched off.
The IRGC also said that it had detected and destroyed an advanced MQ-1 drone over the Strait of Hormuz using a new Aerospace Force air-defense system. It did not identify the drone’s operator, and the statement was not independently verified.
Houthis claim Saudi air-base attack
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis said they attacked an air base in Khamis Mushait in southwestern Saudi Arabia on Monday. Saudi authorities did not immediately confirm that a strike had occurred.
Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defense initially issued emergency alerts warning of potential danger in Khamis Mushait and nearby Abha, but announced shortly afterward that the danger had passed in both locations.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met US Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper to discuss the latest regional developments.
Elsewhere, missiles struck three camps belonging to Iranian Kurdish opposition groups east of Sulaimaniya in Iraq’s Kurdistan region early Monday, two security sources told Reuters. No casualties were reported, and the sources did not identify who carried out the attacks.
The latest round of tensions has added to pressure on energy markets and regional shipping. Brent crude rose more than $3 to above $108 a barrel at the opening on Monday following fresh strikes on Saudi Arabia and vessels in the Persian Gulf over the weekend.
Pressure was also evident in Iran’s currency market with the US dollar trading at 2.34 million rials, the euro at about 2.7 million rials and the British pound at 3.16 million rials by around midday Monday.
Bread prices in the Iranian capital have risen sharply without official authorization, putting even bread and cheese beyond the means of some workers, labor-focused ILNA news agency reported.
“Things are very bad with bread, and the unofficial increase in bread prices has become staggering. There was a time when a worker could at least count on bread and cheese, but today they can no longer afford even that,” Ali Torkashvand, executive secretary of the Workers’ House, told ILNA.
The pressure comes as Iran’s official minimum wage stands at about 166.3 million rials per month, equivalent to roughly $72 at the open-market exchange rate.
Messages sent separately to Iran International describe sharp increases across basic food and household purchases. One citizen said several kilograms of vegetables had cost 25 million rials, equivalent to about 15% of the monthly minimum wage.
“Damn the Islamic Republic for making people suffer this much. We really can’t afford to buy anything anymore,” the citizen said.
A packet of meat-flavored instant noodles cost 900,000 rials, another citizen said.
“I bought a few food and hygiene products and it came to 20 million rials,” another citizen told Iran International, a sum equivalent to about 12% of the monthly minimum wage.
Bread moves beyond reach
ILNA linked the rising cost of essentials to repeated currency depreciation and increases in energy prices, saying shocks to fuel and foreign-exchange costs feed through to food, medicine, housing and other necessities.
Wages and pension payments had failed to keep pace with rising prices, leaving workers struggling to meet basic household expenses, Torkashvand said.
The latest pressure follows the government’s decision to double Iran’s third-tier gasoline price to 100,000 rials per liter from September 8.
Higher gasoline prices could drive up the cost of other goods and services through increased transportation and production expenses, Torkashvand said.
Iran’s economy has come under mounting pressure from international sanctions and restrictions on trade and finance, the economic fallout from war and US efforts to block Iranian oil exports and other revenue streams, alongside declining investment and domestic economic mismanagement.
Workers were struggling with rising prices even before the latest gasoline increase, Ali Zamiri, a labor activist, told ILNA.
“Under the present circumstances, there is no longer any clear order or pattern to prices, while workers’ incomes have not changed in line with these rising costs,” Zamiri said.
Food prices outpace wages
Prices for some staples have risen far faster than overall inflation, with rice increasing by more than 200% and cooking oil by more than 300%, Majid Rahmati, a member of Tehran province’s Islamic Labor Councils board, told ILNA.
Rahmati called for increased food subsidies and higher wages and benefits during the second half of the Iranian year to offset some of the loss in purchasing power.
The strain has also forced some families to seek credit for basic food. ILNA reported on Sunday that people in poorer areas of Tehran were asking neighborhood stores to let them buy groceries, meat, prepared meals and even bread on credit.
Shopkeepers themselves were finding it increasingly difficult to continue extending credit as their own costs rose, according to ILNA.
