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The Houthis in Yemen have been quiet lately, claiming that they wouldn’t be bombing Israeli targets, or shipping in the Red Sea, while the ceasefire holds in Gaza. But in the last week, they announced that because Israel had instituted a blockade of Gaza, they would resume their drone and missile attacks on both the Jewish state and on all shipping trying to enter the Red Sea. The Trump administration then ordered the Air Force to launch a series of preemptive attacks, raining down bombs on the Houthis in their hideouts their bases, their port at Hodeidah, and their capital at Sana’a. The American attacks are supposed to continue for many days to come. An Iranian general, Hossein Salami, has threatened to “respond” to the American attacks, but this is mere bluster. After all, Iran promised to launch devastating attacks on Israel after Israel’s October 26, 2024 attack on the Islamic Republic; now almost four months have passed, and there has still been no Iranian retaliation.
The latest series of attacks on the Houthis — which will continue, apparently, until the Houthis cease to fire on international shipping — is meant to accomplish two things. First, the Americans are destroying stores of weapons that would otherwise have been used against both Israel and the ships that try to enter the Red Sea. Second, and even more importantly, the Americans are sending a message to the Houthis’ backer, Iran, reminding the Islamic Republic that its last ally still standing in the region, the Houthis, can be taken down by a sustained bombing campaign, leaving Iran to face the Americans and the Israelis alone.
These attacks are also a potent sign of America’s determination to do whatever it takes to ensure that the Islamic Republic never acquires nuclear weapons. Just days before the attacks on the Houthis began, Trump sent a letter to Iran offering to start negotiations about that country’s nuclear program; the Iranians rejected it; the next step by America was to launch the attacks on the Houthis, in order to remind Iran of what tremendous damage the Americans can inflict on its Yemenite ally and, by extension, on Iran itself. More on the attack, and the message it was meant to convey, can be found here: “‘Message to Iran’: US launches large-scale strikes on Houthis in Yemen, officials confirm,” Jerusalem Post, March 15, 2025:
The United States struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday evening in a message to Iran, at a time when the administration is proposing to open negotiations on its nuclear program, a US official told The Jerusalem Post.
The strikes will last “days, possible weeks” an official told Reuters….
As of March 16, there were 32 Houthis killed in the ongoing strikes.
Now the airport at Sana’a has been hit, and, one assumes, damaged enough so that the Islamic Republic of Iran can no longer deliver weapons by air to the Houthis. By sea will also be difficult, because in July, September, and December of 2024, Israeli planes repeatedly struck the port at Hodeidah, each attack more deadly than the next.
In a week, or two, as the attacks against Houthi targets continue, we will see if the Houthis are able to lob a drone or two at shipping in the Red Sea, as a sign of their resilience against the “American aggression,” or if they will think better of it, and by saying and doing nothing at all, will be silently signaling that “we’ve stopped our drone-and-missile campaign. Now please stop the bombing.” And America will have won.
