Right, so Saudi Arabia's response to the NCC MASA being hit in the Red Sea and sustaining minor hull damage, with the crew unharmed and the vessel still able to continue its journey, was to resume bombing Yemen. Not a ship sunk. Not a crew killed. Not a port knocked out. A damaged vessel that kept moving, and then Riyadh decided the next step was to call in the air force. Just double down again, well, that’s bound to go well. As such, not long after, this was the view over Saudi Arabia's own coast. The Houthis had announced retaliation against Saudi oil facilities after their strikes on Hodeidah, and the Aramco complex at Jizan was then hit, with footage showing smoke rising from the site.

So there is no longer any question about whether the attack reached the Saudis. The Houthis will always respond in kind; frankly, I find it hard to believe anyone doubts that at this point. It did.

At Yanbu, where the Saudi East-West pipeline terminates, the Saudis' little back-door to get their oil around the Strait of Hormuz, as that is, the situation remains unclear. Saudi sources report that two ballistic missiles and a drone were intercepted before they could reach the oil facilities. The Houthis, however, assert that the site was actually hit. So Riyadh bombed Yemen, told the world a story about 'proportionate' action to protect shipping, and then had to scramble around its own oil ports when the boomerang it threw came back at high speed. Saudi Arabia's attempt to fix Yemen made the Houthi threat even bigger. Their oil escape route, which they were depending on, was suddenly part of the fight. So with one particularly stupid move, therefore, Riyadh managed to narrow its choices down to a selection of 'bad' and 'catastrophic ', with a side order of disaster. Top marks all round.