Strike on Riyadh Airport Kills 12, Injures More Than 300

Start with the dead. Twelve people were killed at an airport terminal in Riyadh, among them Bangladeshis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, Palestinians, Sudanese, Saudis and an American. Those are the faces of the Gulf economy: workers, travelers and families passing through a domestic terminal. More than 300 were hurt. A missile that hits a civilian terminal is indefensible, whoever fired it. Nothing that follows softens that.

But grief should not be allowed to rush us into another war, and that is where this story is heading. Within hours of the strike, President Trump said the United States was weighing whether to join Saudi military operations against the Houthis. Washington has heard that sentence before.

First, caution about what we actually know. Saudi officials blame the Houthis, and the Houthis have claimed earlier strikes on this airport, but they have not claimed this one. That does not exonerate them. It does mean the most consequential decision in the story is being discussed on the strength of a belligerent's own attribution.

Second, the State Department's condemnation of an "attack on civilian infrastructure" is correct and awkward. Yemenis have lived under exactly that for years. The Saudi-led coalition's air campaign, supplied and refueled with American help for much of it, hit hospitals, markets, water systems and, in 2018, a school bus in Saada carrying children, with a U.S.-made bomb. The blockade of Yemen's ports and airport helped push millions toward famine. The UN has estimated hundreds of thousands of deaths from the war's direct and indirect effects. Saying so does not justify what happened in Riyadh. It explains why Yemenis and much of the world will hear Washington's outrage as selective, and why that selectivity makes America a weaker broker and a bigger target.

The serious counterargument deserves an answer. Deterrence matters. A state hit repeatedly by missiles has every right to defend its people, and standing aside might invite more attacks. Fine: helping Saudi Arabia intercept missiles is one thing. Joining an offensive campaign is another. And we have run that experiment. A decade of Saudi bombing, with American logistics behind it, did not dislodge the Houthis. It hardened them, and it left them with a missile arsenal that can reach Riyadh. The one stretch that actually reduced violence was the 2022 truce, which was negotiated rather than bombed into existence.

Third, and this is non-negotiable: the Constitution gives Congress the power to take the country to war, not a president musing about it on a day of mourning. America has no treaty obligation to defend Saudi Arabia. If Trump wants U.S. forces in combat against the Houthis, he should ask for a vote and defend the request in public. Congress already passed a Yemen war powers resolution once, in 2019, and Trump vetoed it. Lawmakers who spent years complaining about forever wars owe voters a fight now, not a statement.

There is also the question nobody in the White House wants asked: whose interests are we weighing? Trump's ties to Riyadh run through arms deals worth tens of billions and through Saudi investment in his son-in-law's fund. A president with that much personal and commercial exposure to the Saudi government should not be the sole judge of whether American service members risk their lives for it.

The dead in Riyadh deserve justice and a real attempt at an end to this war. Another round of bombing, ordered without a vote and justified by an ally's say-so, would deliver neither.