Seizing opportunity amid the war in Iran, the Houthis have launched a major new bid for military dominance in and around Yemen. On Tuesday, the Iranian-aligned group unleashed a wave of drones and ballistic missiles strikes on Saudi Arabia, setting fire to oil facilities in the country’s south and injuring more than 70 people. Then on Thursday, after days of heavy fighting along key frontlines inside Yemen, the Houthis routed Saudi-backed government forces along the Red Sea coast and captured the strategic port of Mokha. And on Friday, the Yemeni government reported that the Houthis had seized Perim Island at the mouth of the Bab el Mandeb Strait, the narrow waterway that connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. The takeover marks a profound shift in the balance of power in Yemen, with potential consequences for the entire region.
Until this week, Mokha had been home to a vital part of the anti-Houthi coalition and served as a bulwark against the rebels’ advance. With this offensive, the Houthis have shattered a status quo along the coast, upended a truce that had largely held since 2022, and set the stage for further consolidation of their control of the north. But the victory is also Iran’s, since Houthi control of both Perim Island and Mokha, which lies less than 50 miles from the Bab el Mandeb, will allow the rebels to establish themselves as the power brokers of the strait and more easily harass shipping.
The timing of the Houthis’ escalation, which began with attacks on Saudi interests in July, is especially significant, given that the Red Sea has become a crucial alternative to the Strait of Hormuz for Saudi oil during the Iran war. Even as Houthi leaders frame their actions in local terms, their alignment with Tehran appears to have tightened. By attacking Saudi shipping and Saudi Arabia itself, they have effectively opened a second front in the Iran war, broadening that conflict and placing further pressure on global energy and financial markets. Iranian officials have said that reaching a deal with the United States will require ending the blockade of Yemen—a shorthand for Saudi Arabia’s lifting all transit restrictions on Houthi-held territories, including the capital, Sanaa, and ending support for the Yemeni government. In this evolving regional order, Iran and its partners are trying to establish a new status quo by controlling the Middle East’s most critical maritime checkpoints.
Options for addressing the Houthi challenge are moving from bad to worse. While the frontlines will likely continue to evolve, a few hard realities have been laid bare. A decisive military solution to Houthi threats is not credible. For all their public bluster, Yemeni government forces remain internally fragmented. During this week’s offensive, their backer Saudi Arabia also failed to provide close air support and other necessary assistance, suggesting continued poor coordination between the anti-Houthi coalition and Riyadh. Moreover, the Houthis’ gains also undermine the prospects for a negotiated settlement. The militant group is now likely to be even more maximalist in its demands and in its ambitions to assert control across the Red Sea.
There are no easy solutions. For now, the priority for Saudi Arabia, the United States, and their Yemeni allies must be protecting other key frontlines from Houthi advances and hindering Houthi efforts to consolidate control over northern Yemen and the Bab el Mandeb. But beyond that, the anti-Houthi coalition must finally address the fissures that continue to tear it apart and agree on a credible political vision for resolving the Yemeni conflict. If it does not, there is a real risk of greater upheaval on the government side and expansion of the Houthi threat across the region.
FROM THE STRAIT TO THE SEA
For nearly five months after the Iran war began in late February, the Houthis mostly stayed on the sidelines. That relative calm gave way in mid-July, when the Iranians flew a Houthi delegation from Tehran to Sanaa, challenging the Yemeni government and Saudi-led coalition’s control of Yemen’s airspace. To prevent the aircraft from landing, Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government bombed the Sanaa airport’s sole runway. Although the plane landed at the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeidah instead, the Saudi action gave the Houthis a pretext for abandoning the 2022 truce. It was at that point that the group began their bold escalation against Saudi interests and launched their new offensive against coalition forces in Yemen.
The Houthi campaign is clearly designed to exploit new Saudi vulnerabilities. As Iran has throttled the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea has become a lifeline for the Saudi oil industry. But since the Houthis resumed their attacks in July, Saudi oil exports through the Bab el Mandeb have plummeted 95 percent. Now, by targeting infrastructure and ships near the Red Sea port complex of Yanbu, the Houthis are threatening the transit of oil exports northward through Egypt as well.
Meanwhile, the U.S. war with Iran has given new fuel to the Houthis’ maximalist goals in Yemen itself. The group became frustrated by the “no war, no peace” situation that prevailed after the truce, and they blame Riyadh for slow walking a formal political settlement to the 12-year-old civil war. In reality, such a deal was obstructed by the Houthis themselves. In 2023, the UN helped negotiate a road-map agreement that would have allowed the Houthis to pay all public-sector salaries and obtain a share of oil and gas resources in return for a permanent cease-fire and the launch of a political process. It would have been a good outcome for the Houthis, who control none of the country’s hydrocarbon resources and have been shut out of the international economy. But instead of taking the offer, they began attacking Red Sea shipping to show their support for Hamas in the Gaza war—all the while assuming they could return to the table when they were ready.
During the final phase of the war in Gaza, Israel and the United States caused significant military and economic damage to Houthi strongholds in Yemen. In the spring of 2025, the Trump administration undertook more than 1,000 airstrikes during Operation Rough Rider; a few months later, the Israelis targeted Houthi infrastructure and assassinated the group’s de facto prime minister and its military chief of staff. Yet these campaigns appear to have emboldened the group. By attacking global shipping, the Houthis bolstered their importance within Iran’s axis of resistance. And by engaging with these powerful militaries, the group reinforced its self-image as a major regional player that was uniquely capable of liberating the Muslim world from corrupting American and Israeli influence.
Since then, the organization has intensified its effort to acquire new and more powerful military capabilities. During the Gaza war, Russia had provided the Houthis with intelligence to assist its targeting of ships. It considered providing the Houthis with advanced weapons as well, although it was ultimately dissuaded by Riyadh. Today, as described in a recent analysis in Foreign Affairs, the Houthis are harnessing diversified supply chains and shadowy financial networks while building up domestic production capacity. As a result, they have been able to strengthen their arsenal—even without direct arms transfers from Iran.
Now the Houthis think they can get the Saudis to offer them even better terms than the 2023 UN-backed road map, including war reparations. As their military offensive progresses, those demands will likely continue to rise. The Houthis also face significant pressure at home to pay long-promised public-sector salaries and address increasingly desperate living conditions. More than half the population of Yemen is experiencing acute food insecurity, with six million people facing “emergency” levels of deprivation bordering on famine.
RIYADH’S REDLINE
Given Saudi Arabia’s heightened dependence on the Red Sea, the Houthis may have calculated that the kingdom would quickly concede to their demands. Instead, Houthi actions seem to have steeled Riyadh’s resolve to confront the group. While Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have preferred de-escalation, or at least postponing a confrontation until a U.S.-Iranian deal reduced his kingdom’s dependence on the Red Sea, the Houthis have not given the Saudis leeway to wait.
With an unpredictable administration in Washington, Saudi Arabia has been preparing for confrontation by diversifying its security partnerships. On July 30, Riyadh announced a 14-country naval defense coalition for the Red Sea that included Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan and Djibouti. A week later, the crown prince signed a mutual defense agreement with Turkey and Pakistan at a ceremony in Mecca with the leaders of both countries at his side. The military value of these accords is unknown, and indeed, Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia are a first test for the latter agreement. Thus far, the results have been lackluster. According to Reuters, Pakistan warned the Iranians to rein in their Houthi allies shortly before the Houthis’ dramatic takeover of Mokha. Neither Turkey nor Pakistan has directly entered the fight in Yemen, and Islamabad has confirmed that the Mecca accord has not been invoked in response to the Yemen war. Still, for Saudi Arabia, diplomatic support is important, given the criticism Riyadh faced over a military intervention in Yemen in 2015.
The Saudis have also continued to solicit support from the United States. Axios has reported that Washington gave Saudi Arabia the green light to strike the Sanaa airport, and the kingdom has asked for further U.S. support. On July 28, Riyadh teamed up with Washington to strike Iranian-backed Iraqi militias that have aligned themselves with the Houthis, a hint that Washington might join Riyadh in its military effort against the Houthis if the conflict continues to grow. Yet U.S. involvement is far from assured. Amid the demands of the Iran war, the administration has been keen to maintain a bilateral truce with the Houthis that has been in place since May 2025; many of its military assets in the Middle East are bogged down in the Strait of Hormuz, and expanding the war would be unpopular at home.
While the Houthis’ seizure of Mokha and Perim Island puts greater pressure on Washington to respond, the Trump administration may be more concerned about avoiding new military entanglements ahead of the midterm elections: Axios reported that Trump declined Saudi requests to launch airstrikes against the Houthis after their advances on Thursday. Riyadh’s efforts to bolster the Yemeni government, meanwhile, have had decidedly mixed results. In January, Saudi Arabia pushed aside its longtime ally in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, when UAE-aligned separatist forces led by the Southern Transition Council (STC) tried to assert control over all of south Yemen. Since then, the Emiratis have withdrawn from Yemen entirely, allowing Riyadh to unify government military forces under its direct command. But the Houthis’ rapid capture of Mokha raises large questions about the strength and cohesion of these forces. In battle, the unified command did not produce effective cooperation between different government-affiliated groups. As government troops from Mokha withdrew, there were even reports that they had clashed with southern forces who refused to let their northern allies enter the south with their weapons. In particular, the absence of the UAE and the dissolution of the STC have alienated an important southern constituency in the anti-Houthi coalition and deprived the coalition of a militarily capable external backer. If the Houthis are able to consolidate their gains in and around Mokha, the losses of territory could deal a powerful blow to morale among government-affiliated troops and stoke further division.
DOUBLE CHOKEPOINT
Iran’s greatest leverage against the United States has been its ability to shut the Strait of Hormuz. For much of the war, Saudi Arabia has been exporting three to five million barrels of oil per day via its Red Sea ports in what has become a crucial backstop for Riyadh and global oil markets. Through the Houthis, Iran can now restrict those exports as well. Tehran’s longer-term aim is to establish a daunting status quo: Houthi control over the Bab el Mandeb alongside Iranian control of Hormuz. If it could be sustained, such a strategy would make Iran and its regional partner de facto gatekeepers for trillions of dollars’ worth of trade each year.
Although Tehran does not exercise command and control over the Houthis, it exerts enormous influence on the group. Iran’s decision to send the flight to Sanaa in July, setting off the current Houthi escalation, suggests the many ways that Tehran can stoke the Yemen conflict for its own ends. In turn, the Houthis’ decision to enlist Iraqi militias in their attacks on Saudi Arabia has further entangled the Yemen conflict with the Iran war. The Houthis’ growing alliances with armed groups in Somalia, Sudan, and elsewhere across the Horn of Africa also suggest the extent to which their current escalation could quickly spill over into the broader region.
In the decade after Yemen’s civil war broke out in 2014, its effects reverberated into Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and finally the Red Sea. With the Iran war, the Houthis’ expanding regional ambitions and partnerships, and their combined ability with Iran to affect the global energy trade, the stage is now set for a more dangerous conflagration. This time, it could be much harder for the Houthis to preserve their earlier autonomy from Tehran. The war in Yemen has long been a battlefield for regional powers. But the latest stage could see expanding involvement from Israel, Russia, Turkey, and the United States. Rather than a battleground for regional influence, Yemen could become a platform for major-power competition centered on a critical maritime chokepoint.
KNOCKING HEADS OR THROWING BOMBS
Now that a dangerous cycle of escalation has started, much will hinge on what happens next. Saudi Arabia may use the recent Houthi advances to rally international support for a major campaign against the Houthis, potentially involving the United States and its new partners in the Mecca agreement. But such a response could expand the conflict without addressing the fundamental weaknesses of the anti-Houthi coalition fighting on the ground. Such an open-ended escalation is likely to favor the Houthis and further Iran’s strategy of controlling the Middle East’s chokepoints. A sustained Yemen war could also complicate U.S. efforts to reach a settlement with Iran. Alternatively, if the Saudis capitulate to the Houthis after their battlefield gains, it could deal a damning blow to the anti-Houthi coalition and further inflame Houthi regional ambitions.
Yet there is still a narrow window of opportunity to prevent uncontrolled escalation and return to the negotiating table. To do so, Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government—together with other regional and international partners—will need to agree on a credible plan for securing a political resolution to the Yemen conflict. The plan must address the divisions in the anti-Houthi coalition and settle the political questions that continue to tear that coalition apart while avoiding maximalist military objectives.
Getting to such a settlement now will require both Saudi Arabia and Yemeni government forces, with support of regional and international partners, to apply effective military pressure to stem the Houthis’ advances and persuade them to accept a deal. Indeed, the Houthis themselves are under considerable economic pressure at home and stand to benefit from such talks, if they can be convinced that they cannot impose their will militarily. For a political settlement to deliver stability in Yemen, the Houthis will also have to agree to terms that address core regional and Yemeni government concerns and set out a viable governance structure.
An earlier approach taken by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen is instructive in this regard. In 2021, the Houthis walked away from negotiations and launched a major new ground offensive. The Saudis and Emiratis responded by mounting a coordinated operation that focused on getting the Houthis back to the table rather than aiming at total victory. Ultimately, the campaign helped bring about the truce months later. Any new campaign by the Saudi-led coalition today should be similarly focused on getting the Houthis to take part in negotiations. But success will first require preventing further losses on the ground and making an immediate effort to bridge divisions within the anti-Houthi coalition.
It is well past time to end the failed strategy of addressing Yemen’s problems through short-term military escalation and pressure campaigns. Reviving a political settlement will not be easy or happen immediately. But the alternative is far worse: stumbling into a renewed, protracted, and increasingly regional war that, as with the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran, could prove much easier to start than to end.
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