By Kamel Alkhatti

Several vital installations in Saudi Arabia were subjected to Houthi attacks with missiles and drones on Friday, March 25, 2022. This is not the first time and will not be the last if the global community does not bear the responsibility for securing energy sources.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its leadership and people, know how to deal with these attacks on every level, but energy, which is the most sensitive commodity to hostile movements, does not belong to the Kingdom alone. Rather, every country in the world that imports energy is directly affected by any shortage in supplies.

The increase in the dose of Houthi insolence is a result of the American rush toward the completion of the nuclear deal, even if this requires the United States and some of its European allies to make concessions that would expose the security of the Gulf region, specifically the energy sources in the Gulf region.

The technologies needed to produce this type of weapons are Iranian, and therefore the Houthi attacks on energy sources are Iranian, but they were carried out by one of Iran’s regional agents.

The United States knows this, but its knowledge of this matter has not been translated into practically any action. Since the legitimate demands of Saudi Arabia were not taken into account in the provisions JCPOA, the Kingdom believes — and is right in what it sees — that the Gulf region’s security file should be placed on the negotiating table in Vienna.

The administration of US President Joe Biden is interested in completing the deal in order to ensure the flow of one million barrels of Iranian oil into the global energy market.

Observers know that energy supplies have been greatly affected by the war in Ukraine, which resulted in Western countries imposing a new package of qualitative sanctions against Russia, but it immediately turned to the Arab Gulf region, especially to the Kingdom, to compensate for the shortage in energy supplies. The Western world knows very well that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a trusted ally, but the Western world must realize that this trusted ally has legitimate demands to protect its security and the security of the region.

The Kingdom is an ally, not a follower who implements the orders issued to him, and the Saudi leadership is the one who determines the Saudi national interests, and the countries that consider themselves allies of the Kingdom must show the necessary interest in the Saudi national interests to the extent those countries want the Kingdom to show toward their interests. That is the meaning of alliances, and if the relationship between the allies did not take this form, then it is not a relationship of alliance, but rather a relationship of subordination, and subjugation is something that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not accept on itself.

In fact, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, despite the enormous funds that it provided in the form of aid and support to brotherly and friendly countries, has never worked to confiscate decision-making freedom from any countries that benefited from Saudi aid.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia represents the mainstay of the stability, growth and security of the region, and political realism requires the international community to respect this position that God has bestowed on the Kingdom, because the Kingdom, its leadership and people, are responsibly aware of this fact and are working to maintain and preserve this position by peaceful means, but the peaceful approach what the Kingdom is pursuing does not mean, in any way, the Kingdom’s reluctance to effectively deal with the sources of threats to its national security.

The Kingdom did not start aggression against anyone. Rather, its military dealings with the Houthi militias that threaten the security of the Kingdom and the safety of its civilian objects is nothing more than self-defense, and despite that, the Kingdom has not stopped humanitarian work in Yemen, nor has it stopped proposing initiatives that seek to bring peace, but the terrorist Houthi militia is working to sabotage every initiative, and this sabotage is due to the fact that Its decisions are not made in Saada, but in Tehran, and if the Iranian interest requires escalation, it issues its order to the terrorist agents that are fighting on its behalf.

May God protect the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its leadership and people.