Middle East braces for chaos as Iran and West square up

“Saudi Arabia has had one objective, which is to prevent this from escalating into a wider regional war,” said Tobias Borck, an expert on Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute. “It has attempted over the last few years to bring its intervention in the war in Yemen to a close, including through negotiations with the Houthis and actually from all we know from the outside, [they] are reasonably close to an agreement.”