the Houthis do not have to defeat the United States militarily to deter it. They only have to convince Washington that another war against them would cost far more than the United States is willing to pay.
https://x.com/citrinowicz/status/2098728575306285235
What Trump’s comments suggest is that the Houthis have, in practice, established a deterrence equation with the United States.
His remarks are reminiscent of his claim in 2025 that the Houthis had called and effectively begged for the fighting to stop, a characterization the Houthis themselves rejected. But whether such a call ever took place is almost beside the point. Washington today appears deeply reluctant to reopen a major military campaign against an organization that proved extraordinarily difficult and costly to suppress.
That reluctance matters because the administration is looking at the problem too narrowly. The Houthi advance cannot be separated from the broader confrontation with Iran. Tehran may not exercise direct command and control over the Houthis, and the current offensive does not need to have been ordered by Iran to serve Iranian interests. At precisely the moment when Tehran is trying to increase the economic cost of the confrontation with Washington, Houthi control and disruption around Bab el-Mandeb dramatically strengthens Iran’s strategic hand, and pressure at Bab el-Mandeb effectively creates a second front alongside Hormuz and increases pressure on global energy markets.
This is therefore a "two-bottlenecks" problem. Fighting only one side of the equation in the Strait of Hormuz while largely ignoring what is happening at Bab el-Mandeb does not solve the problem, it potentially makes the U.S. position worse. Saudi Arabia increasingly depends on the Red Sea as an alternative export route when Hormuz is disrupted, yet Houthi attacks have already severely constrained that option. Iranian leverage over Hormuz combined with Houthi leverage over Bab el-Mandeb is a huge strategic problem. One cannot disparate from the other.
There is also a broader credibility problem for Washington. If Saudi Arabia concludes that even under direct attack it cannot count on meaningful American military support, other U.S. partners in the region will draw their own conclusions. American advisers in Riyadh cannot substitute for a credible deterrence equation.
This leaves the administration in an extraordinarily difficult position. It may be generating severe economic pressure on Iran, but it has not found a way to prevent Tehran and its partners from imposing costs of their own through energy markets and maritime chokepoints.
There is no easy military exit, but there is no easy economic exit either. The fundamental problem is that pressure is being applied to Iran while Iran and the Houthis are increasingly capable of transmitting that pressure back into the global economy.
And that may ultimately be the most important lesson: the Houthis do not have to defeat the United States militarily to deter it. They only have to convince Washington that another war against them would cost far more than the United States is willing to pay.
#iran
#IranWar
posted by Satish Sharma at
17:05
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