Washington has been convulsed over the past week by the question of how a prominent journalist was invited into a private Signal chat between senior Trump administration officials over an impending military action and why that conversation was happening on Signal at all.
But the actual topic that these officials were discussing — a strike on the Houthis, an Iran-backed militant group that controls Yemen’s capital and much of its territory — has gotten somewhat lost.
There’s been remarkably little discussion about why an administration that pledged to reduce US military commitments is now conducting nearly daily airstrikes on a country in the Middle East and what these strikes might accomplish.
Here’s how we got here.
The Houthis have been carrying out missile and drone attacks on shipping through the Red Sea since shortly after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. This has had a disruptive effect on international shipping, forcing container ships to make the long trip around the Southern tip of Africa rather than the much shorter voyage through the Suez Canal. However, the shipping industry has largely adapted to the change.
In response, the US, under the Biden administration, along with several European countries, launched a military operation to protect shipping and, at the beginning of last year, began direct airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen. This did not stop the attacks.
The Houthis only scaled back their attacks on shipping after an Israel-Hamas ceasefire went into effect this January, but shipping companies have been cautious about returning to the route. The Houthis have also not been entirely quiet: They’ve launched attacks on US naval vessels in the Red Sea and downed several US drones.
In early March, the Houthis threatened to resume attacks on Israel-linked shipping in response to Israel blocking aid into Gaza. Since Israel restarted its war in Gaza on March 18, the Houthis have launched a series of missile attacks on Israel.
On March 15, the Trump administration began its own airstrikes against the Houthis. Near-daily airstrikes have continued since then.
Aside from just being generally more extensive and intense, President Donald Trump’s strikes are different from Joe Biden’s in that they appear to be targeting senior Houthi leaders personally, rather than weapons sites or command-and-control targets. (Former Biden officials say “persona strikes” were considered but not carried out before they left office). These strikes have succeeded in killing a number of senior Houthi leaders, though the group has been cagey about admitting which ones.
In the Signal chats published by the Atlantic, national security adviser Mike Waltz refers to the killing of the Houthis’ “top missile guy.”
“We had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed,” Waltz wrote. I asked several experts on Yemen, and none knew who this “top missile guy” was or what specific strike this referred to. The US struck a number of buildings that night, and more than 30 people were killed, according to local authorities.
Some commentators have suggested that Waltz may be describing a war crime here: leveling an entire building with civilians inside to kill one target. This is difficult to judge: The legality of civilian casualties in war depends on the military value of the target and whether reasonable precautions were taken to protect civilians. That’s hard to determine here without more information. But it does appear that the Trump administration has a higher tolerance for risk when it comes to civilian casualties, which would be consistent with policy moves made at the Pentagon by Secretary of State Pete Hegseth.
There’s also the question of whether these strikes — and Biden’s before them — violate the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which requires the president to report to Congress on the reason and legal authority for military action and imposes a 60-day time limit on hostilities conducted without congressional authorization. It is generally accepted that the president, under Article II of the Constitution, does have the legal authority to launch military action to repel sudden attacks without action by Congress, but an ongoing operation like this one is a stretch.
Beyond legality, there’s the question of whether these strikes can actually accomplish their objectives. Trump officials have described the rationale for the strikes as ensuring freedom of navigation through the Red Sea and “reestablishing deterrence.”
In remarks at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said “the Houthis want peace because they’re getting the hell knocked out of them,” but vowed to continue the strikes until the group ceases its attacks on shipping. “They want us to stop so badly… They’ve got to say, ‘No mas,’” Trump said.
Trump has also said he holds the Houthis’ main international supporter, Iran, responsible for the attacks and threatened “dire” consequences for the Iranians. That threat came as Trump is dialing up pressure on Tehran in hopes of negotiating a new nuclear deal, but has also not ruled out using military force.
Will any of this actually stop the Houthis’ attacks or hurt Iran? There’s evidence the Houthis have sustained heavy damage and a number of high-ranking casualties and are changing their operations in response to the strikes.
But the group also endured years of heavy airstrikes from Saudi Arabia, using US weapons. Resisting western military power is their main claim to legitimacy (The group’s official motto is “God is great, death to the US, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam.”) and as with Hamas in Gaza, they’re willing to endure heavy casualties to themselves and to civilians in the name of their cause.
All that means that they’re unlikely to buckle quickly and that like every other presidential administration this century, Trump’s second term may involve more military action in the Middle East than he was planning.
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