NBC News reported Wednesday that the U-turn on Project Freedom came after Saudi Arabia, a key regional ally, was angered by the operation and moved to suspend the US military from using its bases and airspace. On Thursday afternoon, The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have lifted those restrictions and that the Trump administration is now back to full access.
The suspension lasted less than 24 hours. But the fact that it happened at all is one of the most significant unreported stories of the entire Iran war.
Why Saudi Arabia Was Angered
Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the Iran war is complex. It broadly supports a resolution that denies Iran nuclear weapons and restores normal Gulf security dynamics. But it also hosts the US military on its soil — a relationship it has managed for decades with careful attention to how those forces are used and whether Saudi Arabia appears to be co-sponsoring US military operations against its neighbours.
Project Freedom was launched without Saudi consultation. It produced an immediate Iranian response — attacks on the UAE and US Navy ships in Hormuz — that threatened to escalate the conflict into Gulf state territory. For Riyadh, the prospect of being seen as a staging ground for an operation that provoked Iranian attacks on a Gulf neighbour was politically and diplomatically untenable.
Iran has yet to react publicly to President Trump’s announcement of a pause in Project Freedom, which prompted the first Iranian attacks on vessels in the strait and against US Gulf allies in almost a month.
Saudi Arabia’s move — however quickly reversed — is the clearest public signal that Washington’s Gulf allies have red lines on how the Iran war is conducted from their territory. They will host US forces. They will share intelligence. They will align diplomatically. But they will not be the unacknowledged staging ground for military operations launched without their consent that produce Iranian retaliation against Gulf territory.
What It Means for the Deal
The Saudi suspension — and its rapid reversal after US assurances — also reveals something about Riyadh’s role in the Iran negotiations. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was named by Pakistan’s PM Sharif as having urged Trump to pause Project Freedom and pursue diplomacy.
Saudi Arabia’s economic interest in Hormuz reopening is enormous: its oil exports transit the Gulf, its East-West pipeline has been running at near-capacity, and its long-term economic development plan — Vision 2030 — requires the kind of stable regional environment that the Iran war has destroyed.
MBS is quietly aligned with the MOU framework — he wants a deal that reopens Hormuz, denies Iran nuclear weapons, and ends the active combat phase that is producing Iranian attacks on Gulf infrastructure. The Saudi airspace suspension was a message: pursue that deal through proper channels, not through unilateral operations that drag us into the fight without consultation.
