With Iran’s most potent proxy army, Hezbollah, now crippled, the Houthis in Yemen — aided by Tehran and now Moscow, too — are emerging as a growing danger to America’s interests. The group is bound to pose an early challenge for President-elect Trump. 

The Houthis may be but a cog in a growing anti-American coalition, but with Russia recruiting Yemeni mercenaries to fight in Ukraine, the Yemeni group is due to receive new, sophisticated arms capable of wreaking havoc on the economies of Europe and America. 

Backed by Iran and Russia, the Houthis’ crippling of commerce in the Red Sea, a key shipping route, can become a potent weapon for a growing coalition intent on weakening and replacing America’s global leadership.      

Intensifying ties between parts of that coalition may demand decisive action elsewhere, in order to deter other parts of the axis. The Mideast is “a key component to resolving the Russia Ukraine conflict,” Trump’s national security adviser nominee, Representative Mike Waltz, told CNBC this week. 

Renewing Trump’s “maximum pressure” Iran policy, Mr. Waltz added, “not only will help stability in the Middle East, but it will help stability in the Russia-Ukraine theater as well, as Iran provides ballistic missiles and literally thousands and thousands of drones that are going into that theater.”

For now, Russia’s aid to the Houthis is “mostly with intelligence, but I assume it includes talks of arms too,”  a Yemen watcher at Israel’s Open University, Inbal Nissim-Louvton, tells the Sun. As Iran will now invest in rebuilding Hezbollah, it might want to take part in the Russia-Houthi deal, she adds. 

When it agreed to a cease-fire this week, Hezbollah dropped its previous demand to stop the fighting only after a Hamas victory. Not so the Houthis. “The axis of resistance and the fronts of support in Yemen and Iraq will intensify their operations to back Gaza,” the leader of the Yemeni group, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, said in a speech Thursday. 

While declaring that these “operations” will harm Israel, the Houthis have so far failed to significantly damage a country 1,400 miles away from Yemen — though they have affected Israeli and global trade, as ships now must extend routes to avoid sailing the Red Sea. “The enemy’s navigation in the Arabian and Red Seas is now halted at 100 percent,” Mr. Al-Houthi boasted. 

Shortly after the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, that launched the Mideast war against Israel, the Houthis started attacking maritime traffic in the Red Sea, through which up to 20 percent of global commerce sails. Traffic in the strategic waterway is now interrupted, leading to increased inflationary pressures around the world. 

In the last decade the Islamic Republic has turned a ragtag Yemeni terrorist group into a heavily armed and well-trained army, fighting Saudi Arabia on behalf of Tehran. Now, as Russia is recruiting Yemeni mercenaries to fight in Ukraine, Moscow is also planning to upgrade Houthis weapon systems, including with sophisticated anti-ship missiles. 

“We know that there are Russian personnel in Sana’a helping to deepen this dialogue,” the American special envoy to Yemen, Tim Lenderking, told the Financial Times, which first reported on the Russia-Houthi deal. “The kinds of weapons that are being discussed are very alarming, and would enable the Houthis to better target ships in the Red Sea and possibly beyond.”

So far, America and its allies have been ineffective in confronting the Houthi assault on global freedom of navigation. Israel “attacked forcefully the Hudeidah port,” while the American-led coalition “has not done so to this very day,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said Tuesday. 

Last week the USS Abraham Lincoln left the region after a Houthi attack. The Mideast is now without an American air carrier strike group. While the Pentagon speaks of this as a routine rotation of forces in the region, the Houthis perceive it as a sign of weakness.

“For the first time in the history of the U.S. Navy aircraft carriers have been removed from the equation,” Mr. al-Houthi boasted in his Thursday speech. “The British colonial era offers important lessons, as Britain, despite its capabilities, was defeated and expelled.” 

The Houthis are “going to become more important within Iran’s axis of resistance after Hezbollah’s losses,” the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Jason Brodsky, tells the Sun. “They are a worthy target for America, and are also an easier target than, say, Russia and Ukraine.”

Washington also needs to “start targeting the archers in Iran, not only the arrows in Yemen,” Mr. Brodsky says, adding that taming the Houthis could serve as a strong global signal: “If we are reluctant to confront Iran and the Houthis, what does that say about our readiness to defend our interests with respect to Russia, China, and other theaters?”