Letting the Houthis Control the Red Sea Coast Would Be a Gift to Tehran

Foundation for Defense of Democracies | Bridget Toomey

American officials met with a Houthi delegation in Oman following the group's September 11 seizure of strategic territory along the Bab al-Mandeb strait. Houthi forces advanced along Yemen's west coast to enforce a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia, threatening critical Red Sea energy corridors. President Donald Trump refused Saudi requests for military airstrikes, aiming to concentrate resources on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, drone strikes by Iranian-backed Iraqi proxies disabled Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline, pushing Brent crude prices above $105 per barrel. Tehran treats Bab al-Mandeb as strategically equivalent to Hormuz, using the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to coordinate proxy operations across multiple theaters. Oil markets remain vulnerable to this pressure. To restrict Houthi capabilities without direct military intervention, Washington must sanction front companies procuring dual-use technology, target illicit financial channels, and compel Oman to sever Houthi banking access in Muscat.

Comment

Washington's decision to treat the Red Sea corridor as secondary to the Persian Gulf exposes a fundamental friction in sea-lane interdiction defence. By decoupling the Bab al-Mandeb choke point from the broader containment of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, US operational policy allows Iran-backed forces to shift pressure points dynamically across the Arabian Peninsula. The suspension of Operation Rough Rider left Western naval assets unable to protect commercial shipping while leaving Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline vulnerable to proxy attack.

This defensive bifurcation mirrors the operational dilemmas faced by the Royal Navy during the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War patrol duties, where localised non-intervention protocols allowed hostile forces to interdict vital Mediterranean trade routes without triggering direct fleet engagements. In the current theatre, restricting American offensive action to the Strait of Hormuz effectively surrenders initiative along the maritime flank, ensuring that tactical containment in one waterway simply redirects commercial disruption to another.

Strategic Question for Discussion

Which factor carries greater operational weight when planning sea-lane security in the Arabian Peninsula — the geographic concentration of naval assets in the Strait of Hormuz or the interdiction of proxy land bases along Bab al-Mandeb — and how does prioritizing one weaken defense of the other?

The available evidence points toward geographic concentration in the Strait of Hormuz creating severe vulnerabilities along secondary maritime chokepoints. While air and naval forces can secure open transit through Persian Gulf waters, failing to neutralize proxy land positions along Bab al-Mandeb allows asymmetric forces to leverage low-cost strike capabilities against commercial traffic. This operational imbalance suggests that isolating sea-lane defense to a single body of water inevitably cedes theater-wide maritime initiative to Iran-backed proxies.

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