Following the Iranian missile and drone strikes on Saudi oil depots, desalination plants, and the US Embassy in Riyadh, the Saudi Kingdom is now standing on the precipice of open war against Tehran. According to leading Middle East experts, while Riyadh has long sought to avoid direct confrontation, the nature of the Iranian barrage has crossed a critical "red line" that makes a Saudi military response not just possible, but likely.
However, the Saudi leadership balances its fury over the violation of sovereignty against the realization that it might be being baited into a conflict with no clear exit strategy.
Bernard Haykel, Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, told The Jerusalem Post that the Saudi calculus has shifted fundamentally because Iran targeted vital civilian infrastructure.
The Saudi red line
Haykel explained that Riyadh had previously communicated a specific warning to Tehran: if Saudi Arabia remained neutral during a US-Israel conflict with Iran, its infrastructure must remain off-limits.
"The Iranians did tell the Saudis that if they faced an existential attack by Israel and or America, that they would attack Saudi Arabia," Haykel said. "And so the Saudis said, if you do that and we're neutral, we will join forces with the Americans and attack you."
The fact that Iran struck the energy and water sectors seems to have met the condition.
"The Saudi red line was that if Civilian installations, oil installations, water desalination installations, electricity generation, or communications were attacked, the Saudis would attack Iran, and that's what's happening now," Haykel stated. "Now the Saudis are thinking about what to do and whether they should counterattack".
Michael Ratney, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and currently a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), says that the strikes might have been a deliberate provocation.
"My sense is the Iranians either implicitly or on purpose, and I don't know which, seem to be goading the Saudis into getting into the fray," Ratney said.
While confirming that the strikes on the US Embassy and other locations have "violated Saudi sovereignty" and that "it deeply angers them," Ratney suggested the Kingdom’s response might be tempered by the fear of uncontrollable chaos.
"I think they're going to be cautious about their own retaliation because they know that means an unknown level of escalation that they would have to deal with," Ratney told the Post. "I think they knew that this was a possibility (Iranian strikes), I don't think they're shocked so much as they see this as always having been one of the big risks of a military confrontation with Iran."
The hesitation to launch a full-scale counter-strike stems from Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation plans, which rely heavily on stability to attract tourism and foreign investment - plans that are currently imperiled.
"Given where they are economically, given the vulnerability of their energy infrastructure, given the message this is sending to international investors and tourists, I think that they fear that instability, violence, uncertainty the most," Ratney noted.
The Saudi Kingdom cannot stand alone
However, the strategic reality of the Gulf suggests the Kingdom cannot stand alone. Haykel noted that despite "structural" tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the current crisis will force the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states into a unified defensive posture.
"They will pull together, of course, because they have a common enemy," Haykel said. "They're being attacked by the same people".
Ultimately, the experts agree that while Saudi Arabia may feel compelled to retaliate to restore deterrence, they are terrified of the endgame. Unlike Israel, which views the collapse of the Islamic Republic as a security victory, Saudi Arabia views it as a demographic nightmare.
"They worry about a failed state," Haykel explained. "They don't want a failed state with 92 million people next door. That seems to me quite normal when you are next to Iran, whereas Israel is a thousand kilometers away, it doesn't care."
Ratney echoed this, highlighting that Riyadh’s restraint - even in the face of attacks on its oil depots - is driven by the lack of a post-conflict plan from its Western allies.
"They're nervous about what comes next," Ratney said. "And I think that's particularly true because it's not clear that either the United States or Israel has a clear vision for what comes next."