In a move which should have surprised no-one, President Donald Trump has authorised a series of strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, carried out this weekend, using only US assets on this occasion. The American attacks were launched after the Yemeni rebel group threatened to resume attacks on Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea, prompted by Israel’s total blockade of the Gaza Strip which is now in its third week. Trump announced the start of the operation early on Saturday, warning the Houthi attacks against commercial shipping and warships needed to stop or “hell will rain down upon you.” The US campaign of strikes could last days and possibly weeks according to Reuters.
It’s not the first time, of course, that the USA and its allies – including the UK – have hit back at the Houthis. The rebels’ campaign against international shipping in the aftermath of the Israeli retaliation in Gaza started in November 2023, just weeks after the Hamas outrage of October 7 that year.
In the period since then, the rag-tag terrorist movement has lobbed numerous cruise missiles, drones, and ballistic missiles at ships passing their shores.
These attacks now number in their hundreds and two ships have been sunk, but the major impact has been on many shipping companies avoiding transit of the Suez Canal and Red Sea and opting for going round the Horn of Africa instead. This is expensive in time and money.
And now it looks like the Americans have had enough and want to shut down the Houthis for once and for all. They are the last of the triumvirate of Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthis, Iran’s proxies for the long-term conflict with the USA and its main ally in the Middle East, Israel.
Hamas and Hezbollah have been effectively dismantled by the Israelis and now it’s the Houthis’ turn. They must have known it was coming.
Trump has so far resisted the urgings of the hawks around him in Washington and in the Israeli government to cut the corner and just go straight for Iran. His pre-election pitch militated against getting the USA involved in any more foreign wars and he’s keen to stick to that by all accounts.
On the other hand, and as I have said many times previously, Iran is the fount of all that is evil in the region and it will have to be dealt with sooner or later.
This has become somewhat more pressing recently with the news that Tehran has probably got sufficient enriched uranium now to make at least one nuclear warhead and might be able to do so quite quickly.
Some commentators reckon they could do so in as little time as a week. We know that the Israelis will never let the Iranians possess nuclear weapons, and the way to destroy the Iranian nuclear manufacturing capabilities lies wide open after Tehran’s air defence systems, such as they were, were eliminated by IDF air strikes when responding to Iranian missile attacks against Israel last year.
And the USA will hardly stand in Israel’s way if it chooses this course of action, quite the opposite I would suggest. However, a diplomatic solution to the US/Iran/Israel stand-off will always be the preferred option, and hinges on the hope that economic sanctions plus a population increasingly tired with its mediaeval and theocratic rulers might lead to regime change in Tehran.
But this needs to happen before the USA and its allies lose patience and decide to take matters into their own hands. If and when the Houthis are rendered ineffective then Iran’s main proxies will be gone and it will be itself in the sights of its enemies.
Nobody wants to see yet more conflict in the Middle East, but unless Iran pulls in its horns and ceases to encourage and fund the various groups it still does, who have murder and mayhem against Israel and others in mind, then Tehran may well find itself in the firing line.
At the moment none of the protagonists want to go down this road, but sometimes it seems to have the air of inevitability about it. Let’s hope wiser heads will prevail.
Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a political and defence commentator and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk