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Reported US-Iran Talks Explain Saudi Sitting Out Red Sea Operations
People gather near burning Israeli and US flags, as supporters of the Houthis rally to denounce air strikes launched by the US and Britain on Houthi targets, in Sanaa, Yemen, Jan. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Wafic Safa, a top Hezbollah official, is on an unprecedented visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country that classifies the Iran-backed Lebanese militia as a terrorist organization.
The visit came less than a week after The Financial Times reported that Bret McGurk, a senior Biden official, had held secret talks with Iranian counterparts in Oman about attacks in the Red Sea.
In December, America invited Saudi Arabia and the UAE to participate in Operation Guardian Prosperity, which was designed to defend international shipping lanes in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden against Houthi attacks originating from Yemen.
Under the Biden administration’s strategy of “regional integration,” America’s Arab allies — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt — are members of Combined Task Force (CTF) 153, whose mission is to guarantee the security of the Red and the Arabian seas. Yet when Yemen’s Houthi forces started targeting ships, these Arab countries passed on Washington’s invitation. Some believe this was because Riyadh and Abu Dhabi correctly calculated that Biden might change course midway and quit, leaving them facing renewed animosity from Tehran and the Houthis.
With McGurk’s reported meeting to ask the Iranians to rein in the Houthis, the Saudis and the Emiratis were proven right. They likely see this as evidence that Biden is an unreliable ally, and that if he thinks that diplomacy is the way forward, Saudi Arabia and the UAE can reach out to Iran, and its proxies, on their own.
Consistency is key to successful foreign policy. The Biden administration has not shown this.
In February 2021, the administration took Yemen’s Houthi militia off the US State Department’s List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), despite objections from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In January, the administration reversed its position, re-listing the Houthis, not as an FTO, but as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” group, whatever that means, attesting to the administration’s obsession with word acrobatics at the expense of substantive policy.
Inconsistency has also marred the way Biden has dealt with Israel’s reaction to Hamas’ October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis. A week after the massacre, Biden said that Hamas must be eliminated. Less than six months later, as Israel prepared for a sweep of Rafah designed to deal the Palestinian group the final blow, Biden warned Israel against invading Gaza’s southern town, saying that Rafah was a “red line” if the Israeli action there didn’t meet his specifications.
Biden’s position on Saudi Arabia has also been confused. Originally, candidate Biden had promised to turn Saudi Arabia into a pariah state. As president, Biden visited Riyadh and asked the Saudis for favors, mainly to pump more oil to lower global prices, and foreign policy help. When Biden is not applying pressure on Riyadh to raise its production levels, he and some in the Democratic Party spend their time bashing Gulf countries for their energy production, and blaming them for global warming, even though America has been leading the world in global crude oil production, while China leads the planet, by a mile, in carbon emissions.
Then there is the erratic policy of arms sales to allies. Hardware contracts are long-term and require servicing, maintenance, recalls, and upgrades. It is almost impossible to integrate systems from different countries together. This means that countries that buy US arms, and therefore help boost the American economy and create jobs, have to stick to American arms.
But Biden — and the Democrats in general — politicize arms sales and supply, whether to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, or other clients. No army wants to find itself begging for resupplies mid war. That’s exactly what America did to the Arab coalition that was fighting the Houthis in Yemen: Washington prohibited the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia.
Gulf countries eventually decided to coexist with the rogue Houthi militia on their borders, only for America to come begging the Saudis and the Emiratis to join the coalition to protect the Gulf of Eden and the Mandib Strait.
All of a sudden, the Biden administration declared that it was planning to lift the ban on sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. Riyadh said thanks, but no thanks, your war with the Houthis is not ours, just like our war with them was not yours. For Riyadh, it was payback time. Anyone who knows the Arab society knows the importance it places on loyalty, between individuals as well as between nations. With Biden and the Democrats, the Saudis and the UAE have been having a hard time in this department.
America went to war on the Houthis alone. Only the UK effectively participated.
In Iraq, America responded to attacks of pro-Iran militias on Iraqi bases housing US troops by killing half a dozen senior militia leaders. Tehran and its Iraq loyalists got the message: America was not playing games and was serious in inflicting harm on the militias. The attacks on Americans in Iraq stopped, for now.
In Yemen, however, Houthi leaders enjoyed safety despite American strikes. Had America taken out a few senior leaders, it would have raised the cost of war for the militia significantly, forcing it to change its calculus.
Washington, instead, has reportedly decided to reason with the same Iran regime that has proven, time and again, that it is not interested in deals with America, only in defeating it, its allies, and ejecting it from the Middle East.
Military regional integration is a great idea, but if not backed up with a clear political vision, will, and strategy, it accounts for little. Gulf states were right to stay away from Biden’s confused policy on Yemen. Now they are reaching out to Iran and its militias, on their own. Soon, America could be out of the Middle East, both militarily and diplomatically. Washington should be careful what it wishes for.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. X: @hahussain
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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