Timidity has never been a successful Mideast strategy, which is why Israeli jets struck the Yemeni port of Hodeidah Saturday, igniting a Houthi stronghold whence the Iranian-backed terror organization gets most of its arms and conducts lucrative oil smuggling. Operation Long Arm, 1,100 miles away from Israel, is the opposite of America’s pin-prick strikes on the Houthi chokehold on Red Sea shipping. They have become a “clear failure.”

That is what the American Central Command’s General Michael Kurilla reportedly wrote to Defense Secretary Austin this week following a visit to Israel. America’s response to the Houthis “has been a clear failure,” he wrote, according to an open-source intelligence website, Osint. The general cited Washington’s “escalation fears,” adding that strategies must change or “American service members will die.” Then the Houthis struck. 

A Tel Aviv resident was killed early Friday morning as an Iranian-made Samed-3 drone exploded fewer than a 100 yards from an American embassy annex. The Houthis took responsibility for the long-range attack, and on Saturday Israel responded. Hodeidah is no “innocent port,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said, adding that arms that arrive there are used by the Houthis to attack Israel and block “one of the world’s most important shipping lanes.” 

In 1805 President Jefferson dispatched troops to end piracy at the Barbary Coast, which the Marines anthem calls “the shores of Tripoli.” Keeping global sea lanes open has been a tenet of America’s national security ever since. Yet, now America is all but absent as the Houthis — a fanatic sect that after a decade of war is yet to capture all of Yemen — is halting 80 percent of Red Sea shipping, through which sails 20 percent of all world commerce. 

“We gave the international community many chances, but they’ve failed, taking only defensive measures,” an unidentified Israeli official said, according to Kan television. A Saudi-owned pan-Arab channel, al-Arabiya, initially reported that Saturday’s strike at Hodeidah was a joint American, British, and Israeli operation. It later quoted a Washington official, who insisted America was not involved and perhaps not even informed. 

“The Houthis are an arm of Iran’s axis of evil,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a televised statement following  the Israeli strike. He thanked America and others for helping to defend Israel from hundreds of Houthi missile and drone attacks. Yet, he added, the Iranian axis “threatens the entire world — and Israel expects the international community to accelerate its efforts to block Iran’s aggression and to defend freedom of navigation.” 

Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to land at Washington today and address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Unless things get too hot at home and force him to stay, he will likely reiterate his challenge and call on America to stand up to the Houthis, and to close ranks around the need to stop Iran’s ever-growing proxy war. Will America heed his call? Since October 7 President Biden’s guiding principle has been to warn “all sides” against escalation. 

Hoping to deter Israel and America, the ubiquitous Houthi spokesman, Yahyah Sarie, threatened further escalation in retaliation for Saturday’s Israeli attack. “We will not hesitate to hit vital targets in Israel. The Jaffa area is an unsafe area,” he said, referring to Tel Aviv. Friday’s deadly attack by the Houthis seemed to target the American embassy there. Is it time for America to take sides, rather than warn Israelis against further provoking its enemies?

The Islamic Republic-inspired Houthis’ motto reads “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam.” No matter how well-armed, however, fearing a sandal-shod desert cult is no way to confront such threats. Since October 7, the more the White House kept up its “don’t” finger-wagging, the more the Iranian proxies attacked. As General Kurilla warned, the only product of worrying about Mideast escalation is further escalation.