For years, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have mounted drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, forcing thousands of ships to abandon their main maritime route between Europe and Asia through the Suez Canal, diverting them around the African coast, adding costly travel time and impacting global trade. The Iranian mullahs openly backed and directed the attacks, citing the Houthis, an extremist Shi’ite movement, as part of their so called ‘Axis of Resistance’ against U.S., Saudi and Western influence in the Middle East. Heavily armed and trained by the Quds force, the extra-territorial wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Houthis targeted Israeli, British and American ships in the Red Sea, with seeming impunity.
That has all come to a sudden stop. The Iranian regime’s proxy allies such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, have been effectively decapitated by Israel during the ongoing conflict triggered by the Hamas-led terrorist onslaught on Israel on October 7, 2023. The Israelis also mounted a retaliatory air strike on October 26, 2024, targeting Iranian military sites, including air-defense batteries, a kamikaze drone factory, and missile production facilities. The strikes crippled the mullahs’ missile production capability and exposed the vulnerability of their air defense systems.
The collapse of the Iranian regime’s key ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and the arrival of President Trump’s second term in office in the White House, simply added to the mullahs’ woes. President Trump ramped up further tough sanctions on Iran and warned in a letter to the Supreme Leader, the enfeebled 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that his regime must comply with orders to completely dismantle its clandestine nuclear program. Trump also warned that Iran must end all uranium enrichment, end further weaponization and missile development and end sponsorship of terrorist groups like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shi’ia militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen.
Warning that there would be dire consequences if his threats were ignored and that the next step would involve “bombing,” Trump went on to advise Khamenei that he would hold him personally responsible for any further Houthi drone or missile attacks launched from Yemen on commercial shipping in the Gulf. The U.S. approach marked a notable departure from the Biden administration’s previous strategy. Shortly after taking office in 2021, former President Joe Biden removed the Houthis from the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list, reversing a Trump-era designation. President Donald Trump has since reinstated it, signalling a return to maximum pressure tactics against Iran-backed groups in the region. To underline the seriousness of his threats, Trump deployed six B-2 stealth bombers to the Indian Ocean. These bunker-busting bombers are capable of carrying out long-range precision strikes and have been positioned in the region as a stark reminder to the mullahs of how military action will follow quickly if diplomacy fails.
Next, the U.S. commander-in-chief ordered a blitz of more than 100 precision air strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, destroying command and control facilities, weapons manufacturing facilities, and advanced weapons storage locations. The U.S. also confirmed the air strikes had led to the death of several Houthi leaders, without providing additional details on who exactly was killed. The crushing of the Houthis has effectively wrecked the last remnants of the mullahs’ ‘Axis of Resistance’ and the theocratic regime is now in its weakest state since the 1979 revolution that brought them to power.
The top U.S. military general for the Middle East, Gen. Erik Kurilla, met with senior Yemeni military officials last week during a trip to Saudi Arabia. Kurilla and his Yemeni counterparts discussed the ongoing U.S. campaign against the Houthis, “designed to restore freedom of navigation,” according to the United States Central Command (CENTCOM). President Trump’s Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, warned on April 14 that the American campaign, costing an estimated $1 billion so far, is far from over. “It’s about to get worse,” he said, describing intensified operations ahead. In a further show of force, Hegseth ordered additional squadrons and air defense assets to the region. A second aircraft carrier was redirected from the Indo-Pacific to bolster the U.S. presence in the Middle East, alongside deployments of Patriot missile batteries and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. Although the enhanced military posture has primarily targeted the Houthis, officials say it is also meant to send a clear signal to Iran.
Against this background, the U.S. and Iran are expected to hold direct talks imminently in Oman, to discuss the decommissioning of Tehran’s nuclear program. There are signs that for the first time in decades, the mullahs may be paying rapt attention. Ahead of the talks, Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), arrived in Tehran on April 16. Grossi was meeting with the Iranian regime’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as well as Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran’s nuclear energy agency. The IAEA chief has warned that the mullahs have continued to increase their stockpile of enriched uranium, much of which is now at 60 percent purity, a hair’s breadth away from weapons grade. Grossi claims there has been no progress in resolving outstanding safeguard issues. The mullahs have always denied that they are seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, but repeated intelligence supplied to the West by opposition Resistance Units have exposed this falsehood. The coming talks in Oman may prove to be the last chance saloon for Tehran.
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