Experts said US President Donald Trump has confronted the Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen with a new reality in wake of the airstrikes Washington has launched against them over the weekend.
Trump launched the strikes on Saturday to deter the Houthis from attacking military and commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the overnight US strikes killed at least 53 people, including five women and two children, and wounded almost 100 in the capital of Sanaa and other provinces, including the northern province of Saada, the Houthi stronghold.
The White House announced on Sunday the killing of major Houthi leaderships in the attacks. The Houthis have yet to comment.
The Houthis have repeatedly targeted international shipping in the Red Sea, sinking two vessels, in what they call acts of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel has been at war with Hamas, another Iranian ally.
The attacks stopped when a Israel-Hamas ceasefire took hold in January — a day before Trump took office — but last week the Houthis said they would renew attacks against Israeli vessels after Israel cut off the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza this month.
There have been no Houthi attacks reported since then.
The Houthis on Sunday claimed to have targeted the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group with missiles and a drone.
Washington and the Houthis have vowed escalation.
In the first official remarks by the government since the US strikes, deputy Foreign Minister Mustafa Numan said the militias believed their own delusions that they could confront the entire world.
“Instead, they have brought catastrophe to our country and innocent people,” he lamented to Asharq Al-Awsat, adding that the Houthis cannot wage this “reckless” war.
He recalled the concessions his government had made to end the war and move forward towards peace. The Houthis, however, dismissed all of these efforts, “stalled and rejected Saudi attempts to end the war.”
“The Houthis have crossed all red lines and brazenly defied the international community by promoting attractive slogans that are in effect useless,” Numan said.
Senior Fellow at the Washington Center for Yemeni Studies Sadeq Al-Wesabi criticized the Biden administration for lacking the will to understand the nature of the Houthis and how they operate.
“Trump has now come along to address the Houthis the only way they know well: force,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.
President of surprises
Trump took the world by surprise when the announced the launch of the attacks on Saturday.
Trump, in a post on social media, promised to “use overwhelming lethal force” and ordered Iran to “immediately” cut its support.
“Your time is up, and your attacks must stop, starting today. If they don’t, hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before,” he said in a statement on Truth Social, his social media site.
“I have ordered the US military today to launch a decisive and powerful military operation against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen,” he said, adding that Washington “will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective”.
Co-founder of the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies Maged al-Madhaji said the strikes will push the Houthis towards two options, either seek calm and make a weak gesture after the attacks, or resort to major escalation in the Red Sea.
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he said the US strikes marked a major shift in position towards Yemen. He noted that the strikes were preceded by Washington re-designating the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, in a sign that it wanted to inflict damage on the militias, not just contain them.
Motives and messages
The balances of power in the region have been upended since Hamas launched its deadly attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. Iran’s proxies in the region, namely Hezbollah and Hamas, have been severely weakened by Israel and Iran itself was targeted twice by Israeli attacks.
Tehran is being confronted with Trump who is again applying his “maximum pressure campaign.” It is now in an unprecedented and weaker position should it return to negotiations over its nuclear program.
President of Girton College at the University of Cambridge Dr. Elisabeth Kendall said the US strikes are driven by three factors: protecting international shipping, preempting any Houthi attack and intensifying the pressure on Iran.
The Biden administration had frequently said that it wanted to target Houthi capabilities, not its members. But Trump is making it clear that he is targeting both, in a direct message to Iran.
Kendall told Asharq Al-Awsat that the strikes may be a precursor to a direct attack on Iran.
With Hamas and Hezbollah weakened and the ouster of Iran-ally Bashar al-Assad from Syria, the Houthis are Tehran’s only remaining powerful group.
A weakening of the Houthis’ military capabilities will limit Iran’s retaliation options should the US and Israel carry out direct strikes against it to prevent it from pursuing its nuclear ambitions, Kendall explained.
Al-Madhaji noted that the Houthis have limited options in which to respond. They can no longer rely on Hezbollah for backup. The Houthis are effectively the last remaining Iranian proxy that can spark any escalation in the region.
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Mark Kimmitt predicted that the Houthis will retaliate to the strikes by targeting more ships in the Red Sea.
The conflict in Yemen will not end until the Houthis realize that their war has not achieved its goals and that they have run out of ammunition, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Houthi narrative
It has taken the US and western powers ten years to realize that the Houthis do not want peace, said a Yemeni source who chose to remain anonymous.
In 2018, Asharq Al-Awsat reported on how the Saudi-led Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen had waged an unprecedented battle in the southern Red Sea to protect global shipping from the Houthis.
The militias responded by sending messages to the world that they do not harbor hostile intentions, all the while the Coalition was neutralizing booby-trapped Houthi vessels and escorting vessels in the vital waterway.
The coalition had repeatedly warned that the Houthis must not be allowed to acquire sophisticated weapons from Iran. The world ignored the warnings and is now grappling with the Houthi threat to international marine navigation.
The West had long believed the Houthis were a local Yemeni problem and that their influence will remain confined to the country. It believed that the militias were not closely tied to Iran and that they actually wanted to take part in resolving the Yemeni conflict through political means.
This was the narrative that the Houthis and Iran and its “Resistance Axis” sought to promote to the world, said a senior Yemeni official on condition of anonymity. This narrative was dashed as the Houthis escalated their attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and threatened international trade and western interests.
Will strikes succeed?
The question remains: Will the US strikes have any impact on the Houthis who have withstood western strikes before?
In a post on the X platform, Hannah Porter, a senior research officer at ARK Group, said: “I don't know how many times this needs to be repeated, but if airstrikes were enough to stop the Houthis, the group would have been defeated many, many times over the past decade.”
She told Asharq Al-Awsat that there was a very real chance that the Houthis – who thrive in times of war – may not be defeated by military force.
The Trump administration is hoping that its attacks and terrorist designation will lead to the defeat of the Houthis, but the militias have demonstrated over the years their ability to withstand a lot of pressure, she added.
She expected that the Houthis will almost certainly respond to the strikes with escalation, either by attacking ships or American interests or the interests of its allies.
Al-Wesabi stressed that the current US strikes are more intense and accurate than the limited ones launched by the Biden administration.
Their success, however, hinges on whether they take out the top Houthi leaders which would be a blow to the militants’ morale and pave the way for the legitimate government forces, which are on alert, to act.
Failure to take out these leaders will only prolong the conflict, he warned.
