We’ll Never Beat the Houthis

0:03 Hello, this is John Meersheimer. As you know, uh, I am now answering questions from channel members. And today I have a question uh that comes from someone who self-identifies as Ed Hod6465. And Ed Hod AP6465 asked me this question: Should we go to war against the Houthis, not Iran? In general, do you think damaging the Iranian proxies in the region is a worthwhile strategy?

0:47 Let me start by just describing to you what I think the basic situation is in the region with regard to the United States, the Houthis, and the Iranians. The United States is obviously at war with the Houthis. Excuse me, the United States is obviously at war with Iran, but it's very important to understand that the two sides are not shooting at each other at the moment.

1:16 There's no fighting taking place at the moment between the Iranians on one side and the Americans on the other, but we are at war. There's just a lull in the fighting. With regard to the Houthis, the United States is not at war with the Houthis. And the United States is not fighting against the Houthis.

1:39 The Houthis are fighting against Saudi Arabia and those people in Yemen who are associated or allied with Saudi Arabia. So in a very important way, we have two different wars taking place here. One is a war between Iran and the United States, and the other is a war between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia.

2:07 Now, very importantly, you want to remember that after President Trump came to office in January 2025, he said that he was going to defeat the Houthis in ways that would take them out of the fight in the Middle East. So what happens in March of 2025, a few months after President Trump is back in the White House, is he starts a fight with the Houthis.

2:37 By May of 2025, roughly two months later, President Trump ends the war. He declares victory, of course, but the fact is we don't win. We were incapable of defeating the Houthis. This cannot be emphasized enough. So the point I'm making to you is that when you think about fighting against the Houthis today, you want to understand that the United States went up against the Houthis once before in Trump's second term in office, and we effectively quit that fight because we were losing that fight.

3:13 So the question that I'm being asked to address is whether the United States, which is already at war with Iran, although we're not fighting with the Iranians at this juncture, whether we should also go to war against the Houthis. And what this means, given that the Houthis and the Saudis are fighting each other, is whether or not we should join with the Saudis against the Houthis.

3:41 Now, there's no question that the Houthis are very important strategic actors in the Middle East, and they are a threat to the United States. And the principal reason is that the Houthis, because of the damage they can do to Saudi Arabia and the fact that they control the Bab al-Mandab Strait, puts them in a position where they can throttle the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.

4:14 So it's very important to understand that the Houthis are a threat to the United States. But again, the question on the table is whether we should go to war against the Houthis. My response to that is no. The fact is that the United States has no way of defeating the Houthis militarily. We went to war against the Houthis once before.

4:42 We couldn't beat them then, and we certainly can't beat them now. You want to remember that one of the principal reasons President Trump ended the war with the Houthis in May of 2025 is because he felt that we were expending too many precious munitions fighting against the Houthis in what was ultimately proving to be a lost cause.

5:03 Well, today, after this long war with Iran that has been going on since February 28th of this year, we have even less munitions available to fight against the Houthis than we had back in the spring of 2025. So if we pick a fight with the Houthis, two things happen. One is we don't win, and number two, we expend more precious munitions.

5:34 So you see, in a very important way, the reason that we're not fighting against the Iranians today, we're at war with the Iranians for sure, and at some point down the road, the shooting may start again, but we're not engaged in a shooting match with the Iranians at the moment because we have no way of militarily defeating the Iranians, and furthermore, we have a huge shortage of precious munitions.

6:02 Well, the same basic logic applies to the Houthis. We don't have the munitions that we need to attack the Houthis and produce victory. We also don't have the munitions we need to defend our allies, and here we're talking mainly about Saudi Arabia, if the Houthis retaliate. So we have no war-winning strategy against the Houthis.

6:29 But to make matters worse, it's very important to understand that the Houthis have the ability to hit critically important targets in Saudi Arabia. In fact, there are reports today that Saudi Arabia's principal oil line that goes from the eastern side of Saudi Arabia to the western side of Saudi Arabia, where oil is then put in the Red Sea and shipped to global markets, that that pipeline has once again been shut down by the Houthis.

7:07 Now it's not absolutely certain that that's the case because one can never be certain about news reports coming out of the Middle East these days, but there is good reason to believe that the Houthis have shut down this pipeline. All of this tells you that the Houthis have the ability to do significant damage to critical Saudi infrastructure.

7:33 So the point I would make is that if we up the ante against the Houthis, we try to defeat them once again, we're not likely to succeed. And furthermore, we're likely to make a bad situation worse because the Houthis will retaliate against targets in Saudi Arabia that matter enormously in terms of the flow of oil out of the Gulf and into world markets.

8:03 I'd make one final point on this. If the United States, working with the Saudis, is successful at damaging the Houthis' military capability, and it looks like the Houthis are on the ropes. In other words, if I'm wrong that, well, I say that I don't think the United States can bring the Houthis to their knees, if I'm wrong, I believe that what would then happen is that the Iranians would join the fight with the Houthis against the United States.

8:36 The Iranians have a deep-seated interest in making sure the Houthis don't lose. So if we are moving in a direction where it looks like we're going to be successful against the Houthis, I think the Iranians would then come in. And we're back to square one because the United States does not have the military capability to defeat the Iranians.

8:58 And it would be almost impossible for us to prevent the Iranians from doing significant damage to Saudi oil infrastructure. All of this, in conclusion, is a way of saying that the United States has no winning strategy in the Middle East or in the Persian Gulf region. It has no winning strategy against Iran, as should be manifestly clear at this point in time.

9:27 Remember, the war started on February 28th. At most, it was supposed to last three or four weeks. Here we are many months later, and the United States is not on the verge of achieving victory. If anything, the United States is in desperate straits vis-a-vis the Iranians. And the idea that we can now pick a fight with the Houthis, and due to the Houthis, what we have been unable to do with regard to the Iranians, I think is a pipe dream.

9:56 And in fact, as I've said, we fought the Houthis once before and the Houthis won. And I think that would happen again. But even if I'm wrong, I don't think that solves our problem because I think the Iranians would come to the rescue of the Houthis. That's really all I have to say on this sad situation.

10:16 Once again, it becomes manifestly clear that the United States has gotten itself into a whale of a lot of trouble in the Middle East, and it has no easy way out. In fact, I think it has no way out, period. Thank you very much for listening to this episode, and I look forward to answering the next question from a channel member.