Despite President Donald Trump description of America’s military involvement in the Middle East as “the worst decision ever made” and his vowing to “end these endless wars.”, at the same time, the his administration has quietly enmeshed US forces in yet another open-ended conflict in the Middle East, one that risks turning into exactly the sort of draining, distracting quagmire that Trump had pledged to avoid, according to an article written by y Joshua Keating, a senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy and world news .
Keating added that the ongoing strikes against the Houthi rebels military sites in Yemen are “the first operation of this scale that the US has conducted against Houthis, and they really are on their back foot right now,” Peter Nguyen, the National Security Council’s director of strategic communications, told Vox.
Responding to criticism directed at Pete Hegseth, the embattled defense secretary, over the use of a personal device to conduct sensitive government business, Trump recently told reporters to “ask the Houthis how he’s doing.”
With the exception of the accidental leak of the administration’s war plans via Signal last month, the operation has gotten little public attention or debate, which is fairly remarkable given its scale.
Undoubtedly, the Houthis are sustaining damage, but the group’s resources and equipment are scattered and hidden across a wide area, making them difficult to target. The record of superpowers defeating insurgent groups with airpower is not inspiring.
“With air strikes alone, you’re not going to be able to defeat the Houthis,” Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemeni defense analyst, told Vox, pointing out that the group had survived eight years of a punishing air campaign by a Saudi-led military force supplied by the United States.
US officials say the goal is not to wipe out the Houthis, but for them to stop their attacks on shipping through the Red Sea, which virulently anti-Israel, Iran-aligned group began in response to Israel’s war in Gaza.
Vox report asked if the US is on the verge of entering another Middle East War, and answered: A little more than a month in, it’s still too soon to declare a quagmire.
But the resources devoted to the conflict have been significant. The Pentagon has moved a second aircraft carrier group to the region to join one already there. It has also relocated at least two Patriot missile batteries as well as a THAAD missile defense system — one of the most advanced systems in the US arsenal — from Asia to the Middle East.
The strikes are not just about the Houthis. They are also widely seen as a demonstration of strength toward the group’s main patron, Iran.
Assuming the Houthis don’t say “no mas” in the immediate future, the question becomes how long the US will sustain the operation.
This week, the White House released a legally required report to Congress on the operation, stating that the strikes would continue until the “Houthi threat to United States forces and navigational rights and freedoms in the Red Sea and adjacent waters has abated.” But the Wall Street Journal has also recently reported that officials are considering winding the strikes down.
That’s a scenario that worries Basha, the Yemeni analyst. The Houthis, until recently a fairly obscure group outside its region, have already taken Yemen’s capital, survived a years-long war by the Saudi-led coalition, and — since October 7, 2023 — proven themselves arguably most capable and resilient of Iran’s proxies in the Middle East.
“If they’re not curtailed or defeated or weakened by this, they’re going to be able to say, ‘We defeated Trump, the strongest military in the world. We’re unstoppable,’” Basha said.
As for restoring shipping through the Red Sea, transits through the strategically vital waterway were up slightly last month, but still well below the levels from before the Houthi attacks began in October 2023. It will likely take a long period of calm for shipping companies — and more importantly, the companies that insure them — to assume the risk has abated.
The alternative could be the US becoming even more deeply involved in the conflict.
Most analysts and officials say American troops participating in ground operations in Yemen is highly unlikely, but even more limited support for a ground operation would still be another case of the US backing armed groups in a messy Middle Eastern civil war — exactly the sort of situation Trump has blasted previous administrations for falling into.
It’s still possible the US could simply move on from Yemen quickly, but judging by recent history, it would not be a surprise if the promised American pivot away from war in the Middle East was once again put on hold.