Forget about winter: The Red Sea just got hotter overnight. In the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, Houthi rebels aimed a pair of anti-ship missiles at unnamed merchant targets in the southern Red Sea. U.S. Central Command forces identified the launch pads, in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen, and destroyed the missiles before they were launched.

According to the U.S. Central Command, the incident occurred at approximately 2:30 a.m. After it was determined that the missiles “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and the U.S. Navy ships in the region,” American forces “subsequently struck and destroyed the missiles in self-defense.”

The military added in a statement that “this action will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy vessels and merchant vessels.” 

The question, though, is whether that is true. 

The American response to hostile acts by Houthis and other terrorist teams friendly to Tehran throughout the Middle East is becoming more complex. As a demonstration of that, Wednesday’s events followed a bigger round of strikes earlier in the week. On Monday night the American and British militaries bombed multiple targets in no fewer than eight locations used by Houthis.

That marked the second time the two countries coordinated retaliatory strikes on the rebels’ missile-launching sites. In that response, according to officials, the American and British forces used warship- and submarine-launched Tomahawks and fighter jets to take out Houthi missile storage sites, drones, and launchers.

Wednesday’s preemptive strike could be seen less as escalation and more as continuation of the hostilities that have disrupted global shipping in the shadow of Israel’s ongoing war to dismantle Hamas. Speciously or not, the Houthis claim they are attacking ships in the Red Sea as a way to show their support for Palestinian Arabs, few of whom have even seen the strategically situated body of water. 

Washington clearly wants to up the reaction to Houthi aggression, both through counterstrikes and interdiction of arms supplies directed to the Yemeni crazies. Monday’s operation was a complex one, setting off a robust discussion in the House of Commons and raising questions about whether President Biden is doing enough to shore up the deterrence factor. 

Probably not, as the enemy is highly organized and well funded by the mullahs of Tehran. So, the Pentagon could be compelled to deploy an increasingly greater number of resources to tackle the threat. One toolbox is  preventive actions to foil the missile launches at the point of origin. That is what happened Wednesday. 

This is not all they are doing. It is no secret that the rebels are on the prowl for new weaponry. According to some European press reports, the Houthis have already laid naval mines around Hodeida — that’s Yemen’s main port fronting the Red Sea. That’s bad, though seen as a defensive move by the Houthis. According to the laws of physics, some of such ordnance could drift, potentially blowing up cargo ships and oil tankers. 

Recently there has been an uptick in chatter about Tehran’s dedicated support for its ragtag Houthi brethren. It is said to include intelligence and technical activities to facilitate anti-ship attacks; command and control coordination with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and even Hezbollah advisors at Sanaa — Yemen’s official capital — and coordinated efforts to replace and replenish radars and rockets destroyed in Western attacks like the ones that occurred this week. 

Tehran publicly minimizes its connection with the Houthis and downplays its ability to influence the malign activity that it bankrolls. Some make the argument that as Israel allegedly strikes some enemies beyond its borders, Iran moves in shadowy parallel. The big American and British guns, though, are coming out, and things are getting less shadowy. Without clearer resolve, by day or by night, the Red Sea now risks turning into an unfortunate red swamp.