Why the Saudi–Iranian channel survived the 2026 war: interests, attribution and restraint, March 2023–September 2026
ABSTRACT
The Saudi–Iranian diplomatic relationship restored through Chinese mediation in March 2023 did not break during the 2026 US–Iran war or the September 2026 attacks on Saudi territory. This piece explains that durability as the product of aligned interests rather than trust, comparing official attributions event by event: foreign-minister contacts in June–September 2026, Riyadh’s attribution of four attacks and Iran’s denials. Riyadh named Iran for the 8 August attack on an ADNOC tanker in Hormuz but assigned the attacks on its own territory to the Houthis and to Iraqi militias, and Tehran’s denials pointed to the same non-state actors. The channel prevented a direct Saudi–Iranian war; it did not stop the proxy attacks, whose cost Saudi Arabia absorbed.
1. A channel that held under fire
Saudi Arabia faced three distinct attacks in September 2026: Houthi strikes on southern energy facilities on 8 September; a drone attack launched from Iraqi territory on 10–11 September (the date varies by source) that shut the East–West pipeline for 11 days; and a drone directed towards Mecca, which Riyadh declared a “red line” (Yap et al., 2026; The Associated Press, 2026). Riyadh attributed none of them to Iran, and the two foreign ministers kept talking throughout. The problem addressed here is why a relationship re-established by the Beijing trilateral statement of March 2023 survived a period in which Iran was at war with the United States and Saudi territory was under attack. The argument is that durability came from a shared interest in avoiding direct war and from attribution choices that protected that interest, not from a deepening rapprochement. The channel worked as a conflict-prevention device and left the attacks themselves untouched. The analysis covers June–September 2026 and uses the 2023 statement as its baseline.
2. Proxy, deniability and attribution
Mumford (2013) defines proxy war as the indirect engagement in a conflict by third parties seeking to influence its outcome. Indirectness gives the sponsor deniability wherever public evidence cannot establish the link between attacker and state. Attribution, in this piece, means a government’s official naming of the perpetrator of an attack. Attribution also sets the obligation to respond: naming another state creates an expectation of retaliation against it, while naming a non-state group keeps limited options open and defers interstate conflict.
Juneau (2016) characterises Iran’s Houthi policy as a limited return on a modest investment and treats the Houthis as an autonomous actor with a local agenda. That finding gives Riyadh’s refusal to blame Tehran for Houthi attacks an empirical footing: if Iran’s control over Houthi decisions is limited, tying each attack directly to Tehran goes beyond the available evidence.
3. An institution without enforcement
The joint statement of 10 March 2023 committed China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to the resumption of diplomatic relations within two months and to the implementation of the 2001 security cooperation agreement and the 1998 general cooperation agreement between Riyadh and Tehran (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2023). Its Yemen dimension became visible the same year, when Saudi and Omani envoys met Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, in Sanaa on 8–9 April 2023 to pursue a permanent ceasefire (Aaj News, 2023). Because the statement carries no sanction mechanism, any durability in 2026 had to come from the parties’ continuing willingness to use the channel.
4. Ministerial contact as revealed interest
Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan welcomed the agreement ending military operations between Iran and the United States in a call with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on 15 June 2026 (Asharq Al-Awsat, 2026). After the Islamabad Memorandum unravelled (its collapse is dated variously to 7 July, 18 July or 17 August) and attacks on shipping in Hormuz resumed, the two ministers spoke by telephone on 2 August and 6 September about de-escalation and regional security (Ajel, 2026a, 2026b). The 6 September call took place two days before the Houthi strikes of 8 September.
According to Al Jazeera, joint Saudi–US strikes on 29 July hit Popular Mobilisation Forces headquarters in Iraq and killed more than 20 people (Shankar, 2026). The 2 August call came four days later. Riyadh used force against Iraqi groups close to Tehran while keeping its line to Tehran open, separating action against proxies from relations with their patron. No record in the sources examined shows these calls producing a concrete de-escalation outcome; continuity shows maintained contact only.
5. Riyadh’s attribution choices
| Event and date | Riyadh’s attribution | Counter-position |
|---|---|---|
| Attack on an ADNOC tanker in Hormuz, 8 August | Iran; “grave breach of international law and Resolution 2817” (Al Jazeera, 2026b) | The UAE attributed the attack to Iran |
| Attacks on southern energy facilities, 8 September | Houthis (Al Jazeera, 2026a) | Houthi spokesman claimed the attacks (Al Jazeera, 2026a); Pezeshkian: the Houthis are responsible for their own actions (Reuters, 2026) |
| Drone attack on the East–West pipeline, 10–11 September | Iraqi militias (Yap et al., 2026) | Per Gulf and Iraqi officials, Iran denied responsibility and pointed to Iraqi Shia groups (Alhurra, 2026) |
| Drone towards Mecca, reported 16 September | Houthis | The Houthis denied it (The Associated Press, 2026) |
Two rules emerge. Riyadh named Iran in Hormuz, where Iran was the direct actor and the target a third country’s ship. For attacks on Saudi territory, the named perpetrator was always a non-state actor; in the pipeline case Riyadh blamed Iraqi militias and directed no responsibility at Tehran.
The mutual fit of the two narratives sustained the channel. Alhurra, citing Gulf and Iraqi officials, reports that Iran sent messages denying responsibility for the pipeline attack and suggesting Iraqi Shia factions were behind it; a Gulf diplomatic source told it that US mediation postponed Saudi retaliation, and Tehran has not publicly confirmed the messages (Alhurra, 2026). Tehran’s denial and Riyadh’s attribution pointed at the same third party. Because the narratives did not clash, neither government had to bear the domestic and diplomatic cost of holding the other directly responsible.
6. Alternative readings
The first alternative holds the attributions followed evidence, not strategy. The pipeline case supports it: Alhurra reports that the drones were launched from Iraq’s Maysan province (Alhurra, 2026). The Mecca case discriminates between the two readings. The Houthis denied the attack, yet Riyadh still named them (The Associated Press, 2026). Where evidence was ambiguous, attribution still went to a non-state actor and away from Iran, so evidence was not the only determinant of Riyadh’s choice.
The second alternative is that China, as guarantor of the 2023 statement, held the channel together. The sources do not support this. China’s visible role in this period was limited to supporting a revival of the June memorandum (AFP, 2026), and no record of direct Chinese mediation between Riyadh and Tehran appears in the sources examined.
The third alternative is that Iran controls the Houthis and Riyadh’s attributions are a convenient fiction. Juneau’s (2016) account of limited Iranian control cuts against this reading, and the argument here does not depend on settling it: the channel needed only that both governments preferred the non-state attribution.
7. The price of durability
Under this arrangement proxy attacks imposed no diplomatic cost on Iran. Pezeshkian’s statement of 25 September separated Iran from Houthi actions (Reuters, 2026). In the same days, Araghchi’s seven-day plan listed an end to regional conflicts, Lebanon and Yemen included, among the conditions for reopening Hormuz (AFP, 2026). Iran disclaimed the Yemen front while using it as a bargaining item with Washington, although Juneau’s (2016) finding on limited control makes Tehran’s capacity to deliver a Yemen ceasefire uncertain.
For Riyadh, the channel prevented a direct war with Iran and did not stop the attacks. Houthi strikes continued after the 6 September call; according to the Houthis’ own unverified statement, dozens of missiles and drones were launched at Saudi targets on 24 September (Reuters, 2026).
8. Outlook: Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and the World
For Saudi Arabia, the channel’s survival rests on two conditions: that attacks remain attributable to non-state actors, and that any Saudi retaliation against groups in Iraq does not trigger a direct Iranian response. The US mediation reported by Alhurra (2026) shows that the retaliation decision was deferred, not closed. According to Reuters’ sources, full repair of the East–West line will take 6–8 weeks from the 22 September restart (Yap et al., 2026); a new Iraqi-launched attack in that window could be the first test of attribution discipline.
The October 2026 diplomatic calendar centres on Araghchi’s seven-day plan and US–Iran contacts; his meetings with Witkoff and Kushner had produced no immediate result as of writing (AFP, 2026). A Hormuz arrangement with a Yemen clause could turn the channel into a Yemen negotiating track, as in the 2023 Sanaa talks; without one, it keeps maintaining contact without producing outcomes.
For Türkiye, an open Saudi–Iranian channel lowers the likelihood that the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement is activated against Iran. Faisal bin Farhan’s calls on 21 September with the foreign ministers of Kuwait, Egypt and Türkiye on de-escalation (News On AIR, 2026) place Ankara among the interlocutors of this de-escalation diplomacy.
Globally, the channel has so far kept the two largest Gulf producers from targeting each other’s territory. The main risk into 2027 is the exhaustion of attribution ambiguity: an attack tied to Iran by clear public evidence would end the channel’s present function.
9. Conclusion
The 2023 Beijing channel survived the war without any deepening of rapprochement. It rested on a shared interest in avoiding direct war and on an attribution pattern that protected that interest. Riyadh named Iran only for the direct attack in Hormuz; Iran’s denials matched its non-state attributions, and US mediation deferred Saudi retaliation. The outcome is a limited but working conflict-prevention mechanism: direct Saudi–Iranian war was avoided, proxy attacks continued, and Saudi Arabia carried their cost. Two limitations apply: the calls are known only from official readouts, and the pipeline attacker remains disputed.
SOURCES
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Furkan Mahmut Tameroglu