Multiple current and former leaders believe the United States needs to target Iran to stop the Houthi attacks targeting commercial vessels sailing in the previously highly trafficked waterways off Yemen’s coasts.
These attacks began on Nov. 19, 2023, and the Houthis have said they’re doing so in solidarity with Palestinians affected by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and they have attacked or threatened U.S. Navy and commercial vessels 190 times from then until June 13, according to a U.S. defense official.
U.S. officials have long accused Iran of supplying the Houthis with weapons as one of Tehran’s proxy forces in the region. With the Houthi attacks ongoing and showing no sign of abating, former defense officials argue the department needs to focus on Iran to stop the Houthi attacks.
“We haven’t effectively put the pressure on Iran to stop this behavior, whether that means ratcheting up the pressure on them. I’m not necessarily suggesting we should be going downtown Tehran bombing, but there are some things we have to do to create pressure on them,” retired Gen. Joseph Votel told the Washington Examiner.
The U.S. has carried out several iterations of strikes targeting Houthi launchers and depots, though it has not been enough to either destroy the Houthis arsenal or deter them from continuing the attacks.
“Unfortunately, this has not gone deep enough,” the former U.S. Central Command commander added. “And what I mean by going deep enough is we haven’t really taken the steps to really cut off the supply that is coming from Iran, and maybe perhaps some other Iranian line groups here may be supporting this that have allowed them to be resourced over a long period of time.”
The Houthis have targeted more than 60 vessels in their campaign, which have killed a total of four sailors, and they have seized a ship and sank two others.
Similarly, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Examiner, “At some point we have to deal with the source, and that’s Iran.”
At least 29 major energy and shipping companies have altered their routes to avoid the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and as of mid-February, container shipping through the Red Sea had declined by approximately 90% since December 2023. They have their vessels sail around the southern tip of Africa instead of navigating through the Red Sea between Africa and the Middle East. The new route is about 11,000 nautical miles longer and adds one to two weeks of transit time and approximately $1 million in fuel costs for each voyage.
Shipping companies have had to reevaluate whether it should have vessels sail through the Red Sea given the threat from the Houthis. Prior to this ongoing situation, about 10-15% of international maritime trade travels through the body of water.
“The bigger issue, ultimately, goes back to Iran. It’s Iran that’s sustaining and supporting these groups. And we believe that certainly Iran is sustaining the Houthis with weapons, but we also believe that Iran is helping them with targeting and other things,” former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told the Washington Examiner.
He also raised the issue of the resources being used by the U.S. military to thwart these attacks.
“This conflict has been going on for some time,” he said. “So, I have a bigger concern about the ability of our defense industrial base to produce the munitions we need for other fights in other places.”
“Well, the challenge is you can shoot a missile like an SM-3 and within a matter of seconds and minutes, it knocks down a target and completes its mission. But it takes well over 12 months or so to replace that missile, and if we get into a bigger conflict with a different adversary somewhere else, say in the Indo-Pacific, then those are fewer missiles that we have in our inventory. And that’s my concern,” he said.
Iran’s network of proxies have all acted against U.S. or Israeli interests since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel that has proved to be a catalyst for instability in the region. Hamas, which is based in Gaza, gets Iranian support, as does Hezbollah, a more sophisticated terror group based in Lebanon that is engaged in a limited conflict with Israel.
The ongoing exchange of rocket and missile fire over their shared border in Israel’s north and Lebanon’s south has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians on both sides.
McCaul, who met with Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant this week, said Gallant described Iran as “the octopus and the tentacles, are the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas,” and the lawmaker added, “They’re getting very provocative and then even with our own military ships in the region, [the Houthis are] slowing down commercial activity in the Red Sea.”
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The possibility for a widened conflict between Israel and Hezbollah appears more likely than at any other point during the war given escalating rhetoric from the leaders of both. A major conflict between the two of them would be highly destructive and would likely include heavy casualties on both sides.
“The question is, what does Iran do, particularly if the fate of Hezbollah is threatened,” Esper said.
