Nadwa Al-Dawsari, Casey Coombs, Ibrahim Jalal, Kenneth M. Pollack, Baraa Shiban, and Katherine Zimmerman
Once again, the United States confronts an unexpected threat in the Middle East—this time, from the Houthis of Yemen, who have chosen to take their war against the government of Yemen out into the Red Sea to try to strangle the 12 percent of global shipping that flows through the Bab el-Mandeb. 1 The Houthis are ostensibly doing this in support of Hamas, but in reality, it is in pursuit of their wider ambitions in Yemen and the region and on behalf of their Iranian allies.
Once again, Americans are asking what is the least we can do to address this threat. Unfortunately, as we should have learned over the past 45 years, trying to do the least in the Middle East often means we end up having to do the most. A smart, feasible middle course isavailable to the United States and its allies, but it will require us to recognize that the United States has a real stake in the outcome of the Yemeni civil war and that that interest lies with ensuring the Houthis do not prevail. While it will require important changes from how we have tackled the problem so far, the best news is it should not require American boots on the ground in Yemen and is likely to be welcomed by most Yemenis and all of our allies in the Middle East.
Washington warned, punished, and warned the Houthis again against drone and missile attacks on vessels transiting the Red Sea. Instead of stopping after joint US-UK strikes on Houthi targets in January, the Houthis escalated, including by launching one of theirmost complex attacks to date and increasingly focusing on US-owned vessels.2 They vowed to respond to a third round of joint US-UK strikes on February 3 that targeted “deeply buried” Houthi military capabilities.3 The Houthis remain undeterred and, in fact, are emboldened in the face of international pressure to back down.
Continued strikes targeting Houthi weapons caches and military sites are unlikely to change the Houthis’ behavior or the power imbalance; they weathered years of Saudi and Emirati air strikes and emerged the strongest power in Yemen. Since by all appearances the joint US-UK strikes on Houthi sites seem unlikely to stop the Houthi attacks, Washington will have to do more and better.
The Houthis’ ability to disrupt commercial shipping through an essential maritime choke point and therefore hurt the global economy threatens US national security interests. Operation Prosperity Guardian, the multinational maritime task force announced on December 18 in response to the Houthi threat, seeks to protect ships from attacks by increasing the presence of naval assets in the waterway to better aid and defend commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea. Yet even with the patrols, the Houthis continued to launch attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea and then expanded their attacks to the Gulf of Aden.4 Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles struck the M/V Gibraltar Eagle in the Gulf of Aden on January 15 and the M/T Zografia in the Red Sea on January 16, and a Houthi one-way attack drone struck the M/V Genco Picardy on January 17 in the Gulf of Aden.5 The Houthi attacks have driven many major commercial shipping companies to divert their cargo ships around the cape of Africa, delaying delivery and increasing costs.
Yet while Washington prioritizes stopping Houthi attacks on shipping in and around the Bab el-Mandeb, the Houthis also present longer-term challenges to US strategic interests through their destabilizing role in Yemen and actively growing role in Iran’s Axis of Resistance. The Houthis’ power grab in September 2014 sent Yemen spiraling toward civil war and sparked the Saudi and Emirati military intervention in Yemen in 2015. The Houthis have exploited UN and other mediation efforts to further extract concessions from their adversaries, be it the internationally recognized Yemeni government or Saudi Arabia, while giving up little to nothing in exchange. Moreover, their relationship with Iranand its regional proxies has only deepened, expanding Iran’s malign influence. Even if repeated strikes targeting Houthi military sites were to stop their maritime attacks today, the Houthis will remain a strategic threat so long as they are a significant power in Yemen.
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