A Houthi ballistic missile targeted Riyadh on Saturday. The Saudi-led coalition said its defenses intercepted it. Later, a plume of smoke rose near the capital’s airport. It was the first strike on the city since the fighting escalated this summer.

The attack exposed a hard truth. Saudi Arabia owns one of the world’s costliest arsenals. Yet the movement it went to war against in March 2015 now holds Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast, according to AFP. It has seized Mokha and claims Perim Island, in the middle of the Bab al-Mandeb strait. Military power has not produced political control.

The war has a long history. Saudi Arabia launched its air campaign on March 26, 2015, to stop the Houthi advance on Aden. A truce in 2022 eased the fighting. Then, on July 20 of this year, the Houthis declared a blockade of Saudi ports and ships. The Institute for the Study of War and the Critical Threats Project traced that step to a Saudi attempt to block Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisers from landing in Sanaa.

Washington has chosen a limited role. Axios reported, citing two American officials, that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called President Trump twice on Sept. 10 and urged him to order strikes. Trump refused, the report said. Reuters, citing sources, reported a similar request. Neither the White House nor the Saudi embassy immediately commented, and the details remain unverified.

Trump then said the Houthis had reached out. “The Houthis called us, and they don’t want to fight with us,” he told reporters in Dublin on Sept. 12. He added that they were letting most ships through, with “one country they’re not too happy with,” CNN reported that he meant Saudi Arabia.........

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