US Senator Lindsey Graham lambasted Saudi Arabia on Monday for not attacking Iran and threatened “consequences” against other Gulf countries if they do not join the US-Israeli war on Iran, which the kingdom has opposed from the outset.
“It is my understanding the Kingdom refuses to use their capable military as a part of an effort to end the barbaric and terrorist Iranian regime who has terrorized the region and killed 7 Americans,” Graham wrote on X.
“Should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?” he added.
Graham’s post effectively confirms what a US official told Middle East Eye previously: that Riyadh has prevented the US from accessing its bases for offensive operations.
US Central Command said on Monday that a seventh American soldier died from wounds he sustained on 1 March in an Iranian strike on a US military base in Saudi Arabia.
Iran attacked the US’s Prince Sultan Air Base in the kingdom and also hit the CIA’s section of the US embassy in Riyadh.
Graham lobbied forcefully for the war on Iran, which began on 28 February.
MEE revealed that his trip to Saudi Arabia last month was an attempt to bring Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on board with the attack. Graham confirmed the purpose of his visit to The Wall Street Journal over the weekend.
Graham’s statement was widely viewed by analysts as adding fuel to a fire. The Gulf states have complained they are not receiving interceptors from the US, and officials in the region are angry over what they see as their security concerns being ignored by the Trump administration.
The UAE’s ambassador to the United Nations told journalists on Monday that the Gulf state would not participate in offensive operations against Iran despite being one of the hardest hit countries and a relatively close partner to Israel.
“We were one of the countries that constantly called for the need for a negotiation, the need for diplomacy, the need for de-escalation,” Jamal al-Musharakh said in Geneva.
“And we have constantly informed that our territories would not be used for any attacks against Iran. Yet we are being targeted, frankly, in a very unwarranted manner.”
Widening rift
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states lobbied US President Donald Trump not to launch a war on Iran because they feared the very attacks now unfolding on their energy-rich kingdoms.
However, the Gulf states’ diplomacy did not afford them protection. The UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar have been the hardest hit by Iranian drones and missiles, but Saudi Arabia has also come under attack.
“Hopefully Gulf Cooperation Council countries will get more involved as this fight is in their backyard. If you are not willing to use your military now, when are you willing to use it?” Graham said.
“Hopefully this changes soon. If not, consequences will follow,” he added.
The Gulf region is wary of inviting further attacks, including on critical assets such as water desalination plants and energy infrastructure. Iran has demonstrated its ability to conduct sophisticated strikes.
While Gulf states are angry over the Iranian assaults, experts say they will be unwilling to enter a war they do not think the US can win. As the conflict enters its second week, the Islamic Republic and its institutions remain intact, with no signs of internal strife or an uprising as the US had predicted.
On Sunday, Iran’s Assembly of Experts announced Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country’s new supreme leader, in a direct rebuke to Trump’s call for Iran’s total surrender.
The war is already straining ties between the US and Arab Gulf states. Trump said last week that the devastating strikes on the US’s richest partners had been his “biggest surprise”.
“Unbelievable,” a former US intelligence official told MEE previously, in response to Trump’s comment.
“It’s as if the US was operating and planning in a bubble for the last year. This is what Trump was warned of in conversations with Gulf rulers, and presumably his own intelligence briefings,” the person added.