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Iraq and Saudi Arabia, two countries where the United States has strong ties and significant investment, are not the closest of friends. But the Obama administration has long tried to bring them together on the basis of a shared concern over terrorism and an interest in Middle East stability.

The difficulty of that task was brought home Wednesday when Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, visiting the U.S., criticized Saudi Arabia’s military operation in Yemen. He said it had no “logic” and expressed concern that it could help trigger a wider sectarian war in the region.

Asked in an interview with a small group of journalists whether President Barack Obama, with whom he met with Tuesday, agreed with him that the Saudis had gone “too far” in Yemen, Abadi said he did not want to speak for the administration. But “I think that we agreed on this issue,” he said.

The Saudis quickly responded. Asked about Abadi’s remarks at a news conference, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, said Iraqi officials should concern themselves with “what’s going on in their own country,” where he suggested that minorities were still struggling for “inclusion.”

For its part, the administration politely rebutted Abadi. Neither Obama nor Vice President Joe Biden, in separate meetings with Abadi, had criticized Saudi actions in Yemen, said National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey in an e-mail.

“We firmly support” the Saudi operation, he said, “which is why we have been providing … intelligence and logistical support” for Saudi airstrikes in Yemen.

The three-way exchange threatened to overshadow Abadi’s efforts, on his first official visit to this country, to enhance his image as the leader who can defeat the Islamic State and bring inclusive governance to Iraq. It also threatened to dilute the Saudi narrative that its Yemen operation was taken only reluctantly, to restore stability in a neighboring state.

Lurking beneath both story lines is the issue of Iran. In Iraq, the U.S-backed efforts of Abadi’s Shiite-led government to vanquish the Islamic State, a Sunni organization, have been aided by Shiite-led Iran.

Saudi Arabia, a Sunni monarchy, charges that the Houthi tribes it is fighting in Yemen are part of Iran’s efforts to exert hegemony over the entire region. U.S. officials have said they think Iran has sent arms and provided advice to the Houthis but that Iran is not the instigator.