Since the beginning of the Iran war, Saudi Arabia has been grappling with how best to respond to the expansion of Middle East conflict.

Having issued condemnations of Tehran’s strikes on the kingdom – and other Gulf states – in response to the initial US and Israeli action in late February, Saudi Arabia has since reportedly initiated more direct action.

Indeed, in May, speculation mounted that the kingdom had engaged in “covert” attacks on Iran, opening the door to the possibility of a wider regional war. The reports were based on briefings given by anonymous US and Iranian officials.

But what is actually known about sentiment within Saudi Arabia for military action against Iran, long seen as the kingdom’s regional rival?

Polling inside the authoritarian kingdom is rare. Those trying to conduct survey research suffer significant headwinds resulting from the restrictive political environment.

We are political scientists who study the Middle East. For the past few months we have been tracking public opinion in the Gulf state. Based on our polling, we believe the Saudi public is strongly divided over military action against Iran – a division that presents Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, and his advisers with a difficult calculus.

Since March 2026 we have fielded a survey of Saudi nationals, examining whether they think the kingdom should pursue a stronger relationship with the United States and whether it should conduct strikes against Iranian launch sites.

To recruit respondents, we employ a custom social media targeting platform that we have used since the mid-2010s to conduct surveys in countries around the region. To adjust for online sampling biases, we use Bayesian statistical adjustment techniques to match the sample to age and geographic and gender proportions in the Saudi census.

Our data collection is ongoing, and we currently have more than 300 responses from across all Saudi regions. Although online samples have limitations, our Bayesian adjustment methodology is designed to account for these biases and, crucially, fills a near-total vacuum of independent polling inside Saudi Arabia.

Neither hawks nor doves

In response to a question about whether they think Saudi Arabia should have a stronger relationship with the US, roughly three-quarters of respondents to our survey fall in the “agree” and “strongly agree” categories.

This is particularly relevant given that the surveys were conducted after the US attacks on Iran on February 28.

Conventional wisdom has it that regional escalation initiated by an ally should weaken support for alignment. Yet the opposite appears to be happening, according to our data.

Iran’s aggression toward Gulf states seems to have reinforced Saudis’ support for an alliance with the US, even if they consider that alliance imperfect.

Views on military escalation against Iran, however, reveal a much more divided public: 49% of respondents said they would support Saudi strikes on Iranian missile launch sites, while 51% opposed them.

Our survey data also show that views on both questions are reinforcing; that is, respondents who view the US alliance positively are more likely to support attacking Iran, and vice versa.

Furthermore, support for aggressive military action is highest among middle-age Saudis (61%) and somewhat lower for young Saudis (45%). Support for military action is higher among men (54%) than women (43%).

Despite the uncertainty that war has brought to the wider Gulf region, Saudi Arabia is not yet fully polarized into hardened groups of hawks and doves. Only 15% of respondents strongly support military action, and 16% strongly oppose it.

Most respondents cluster uneasily in the middle, reflecting ambivalence rather than ideological conviction. This suggests that Saudi respondents appear to distinguish between strategic US security commitments and support for more military action.

Competing incentives

So, how do our findings play into what is known – or reported – on Saudi Arabia’s actions in the Iran war?

According to reports, the Saudi air force carried out multiple airstrikes on Iranian soil in May. Assuming the reports are true, the attacks mark a significant departure from Riyadh’s traditional reliance on the US security umbrella. Since World War II, the US-Saudi relationship has constituted a cornerstone of American policy in the Middle East.

But Washington’s decision to strike Iran without meaningful consultation with its Gulf allies has meant that the kingdom has had to absorb retaliatory Iranian strikes on its infrastructure and oil facilities.

The conventional reading portrays Riyadh as worried about the cost of escalation to the kingdom, which has long sought to “de-risk” the region.

Yet, in addition to covert strikes, media reports suggest that Crown Prince Mohammed privately urged US President Donald Trump to continue military pressure on Iran, framing the conflict as a “historic opportunity.”

Our survey data helps explain this apparent contradiction. Authoritarian regimes are not indifferent to domestic political constraints. Lacking accountability from the ballot, they remain acutely sensitive to the political costs of going against widely held preferences.

Our surveys suggest that Saudi leaders are operating under competing incentives: sustaining the credible deterrent that the US alliance brings and signaling resolve against Tehran, while simultaneously limiting the domestic costs of overt war.

Seen in this light, Saudi Arabia’s public posture of restraint alongside reported covert support for degrading Iranian power appears to be a deliberate effort to satisfy external security objectives without absorbing the domestic costs of escalation.

Robert Kubinec is assistant professor of political science, University of South Carolina and Alexis Montambault-Trudelle is postdoctoral fellow in international studies, Université Laval

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.