Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meet in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 17, 2025. Photo: Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS

There is a structural problem with Gulf Arab reliability that “Project Freedom” — President Trump’s plan to secure the Strait of Hormuz for global transit — just made impossible to ignore.

The United States launched a legitimate military operation to break Iran’s maritime chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz. The operation was undermined not by Iranian firepower — but because a key Arab partner quietly withdrew the access, basing, and overflight rights without which American air power in the region cannot operate.

Saudi Arabia, the country whose oil wealth depends most directly on the Strait remaining open, effectively stopped the operation. That outcome reflects a pattern of hedging that now constitutes a strategic liability for both Washington and American allies in the region.

The strategic logic of Project Freedom was sound and the moral case was unambiguous. Iran has weaponized the Strait of Hormuz against the entire world economy, restricting transit, mining shipping lanes, and attacking commercial vessels from countries with no quarrel with Tehran.

An American-led escort operation framed as a global public good, rather than a bilateral confrontation with Iran, was exactly the kind of initiative that reframes the conflict on Washington’s terms. It placed Iran in the position of aggressor against neutral commerce, and positioned the United States as the guarantor of international order. The Trump administration was right to attempt it.

The problem was not American intent. The problem is that executing such an operation depends on Gulf partners willing to support such a mission, and to honor the access, basing, and overflight arrangements that give American air power its regional reach.

Saudi Arabia denied use of Prince Sultan Airbase and withdrew overflight permissions. A direct call between Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not resolve the impasse. Within 48 hours, an operation that US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had described as a powerful demonstration of American resolve was paused, with Iran’s blockade intact and US leverage undiminished.

Saudi Arabia’s calculation deserves scrutiny rather than sympathy. The kingdom did not oppose the strategic objective of keeping the Strait open. It chose to prioritize its own diplomatic positioning over a concrete American effort to enforce the freedom of navigation that Saudi oil exports require.

The trigger was Iranian strikes on the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, a major UAE energy hub, which Riyadh interpreted as a sign that Iranian retaliation against Gulf infrastructure was a real risk. But the lesson Riyadh drew was to distance itself from Washington rather than to demand a stronger American response to Iranian aggression. That is a choice, and it is the wrong one.

The Gulf monarchies have spent this war attempting to sit between two fires. They want Iran weakened enough to stop being threatening, but are unwilling to accept the exposure that comes with actively enabling the military pressure required to achieve that outcome. They have watched Washington engage Iran diplomatically, strike it militarily, and attempt to reopen the Strait Iran controls, and they have responded at each stage by hedging rather than committing.

The compounding effect is damaging. Iran retains control of the Strait and has now seen that Gulf partners can be leveraged to constrain American operations, without firing a single missile at an American base. That is a significant discovery for Tehran’s strategic planners. Every future American initiative in the Gulf will now be evaluated through the lens of whether Saudi Arabia or another partner can be pressured or persuaded to withhold the permissions on which the initiative depends. Iran has learned that it has a veto it can exercise at one remove.

The Strait remains closed. Iran retains its leverage. And the United States and its allies now have clearer evidence than before that the Gulf’s stated alignment with American strategic objectives has limits that Tehran knows how to find. Addressing that gap, through sustained pressure on Gulf partners to honor their commitments when it counts, is not optional. It is the precondition for any strategy that actually works.

Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx