The Houthi Conundrum
Trump's bombing campaign failed to bring down the rebel movement running north Yemen, showing once that the permanent rumors of their demise are premature
(updated on 30 May 2025, from this Elcano Royal Institute article)
The Trump administration’s bombing campaign in Yemen was barely operational for a few weeks before the diminished returns became apparent; by early May it was all over after Trump made a sudden, obscure deal to end it. The US president wanted to stop the Houthi movement that has controlled north Yemen since 2014 from attacking shipping vessels passing along Yemen’s Red Sea coast belonging to countries allied with Israel in its war against in Gaza. Of course, the Houthis say they are acting to protect Palestinians against Israel’s genocidal violence, but the Western countries backing Israel are having none of it. When the Israelis restarted their bombing in March, the Houthis said their Red Sea campaign would jump back to life.
The observable damage from daily assaults indicated that the United States was trying to destroy Houthi military capacity by striking at apparent underground bases, especially in the Houthi stronghold of Saada in Yemen’s far north. The US was also trying to take out senior Houthi leaders in an effort to replicate Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon last September. But the campaign was failing on this front, clearly lacking the information to target leaders but resorting to vague murderous strikes that killed dozens of civilians in the hope of getting some militarily or politically significant. with what success isn’t clear – one compilation had listed only 101 non-civilian deaths by April 7, four weeks in.
Trump’s aims were hard to pin down. He used the language of death and annihilation, giving the impressing he wanted to crush the Houthi movement entirely. His officials also said the military action would stop if the Houthis would just stop threatening maritime trade. But Trump linked the campaign to his efforts to coax Iran into talks with his administration over Iran’s nuclear energy program — efforts that finally bore fruit with an initial April 12 meeting in Oman between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff.
Another likely reason for Trump giving up was financial: US media had begun to report astronomical financial costs, over $1 billion, as well as the loss of expensive fighter jets and drones shot down by the Houthis. Two F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft were lost in the days before Trump threw in the towel, a CNN report said on May 6. Houthi leader Abdelmalik al-Houthi was able to emerge with a victorious rhetorical line, in line with Kissinger’s famous maxim that a non-conventional army loses if it does not win. The US campaign “failed miserably”, he said in a speech on 9 May, crowing over US financial losses.
Another factor that could have influenced Trump’s decision was his Gulf trip. Houthi politburo head Mahdi al-Mashat said in a brief statement on May 7 that the Houthis had warned the Americans that Trump’s upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia could come under attack. “We told the Americans indirectly that the continued escalation would impact the criminal Trump’s visit to the region. That’s the only thing we told them,” the Houthi news agency Saba quoted him as saying. The comment seemed in part intended to justify the Houthis backing down in the face of US attacks.
But Saudi Arabia also seems to have hinted at Houthi attacks on Saudi territory in its own push to get Trump to end the Yemen campaign. A Middle East Eye report on May 6 quoted US officials saying Saudi Arabia pressed them heavily to avoid “playing with fire” by hitting Yemen during Trump’s visit. The implication was that the Houthis would spoil the visit by firing missiles at Riyadh. Of course, Saudi Arabia has been concerned about Houthi ability to cause physical and reputational damage since 2022 and that concern underpins its current policy towards Yemen.
Well-Entrenched Movement
Yet again, exorbitant plans to take down the Houthis, or Ansar Allah as they are known, are foiled. Why should this be? One reason is the complex topography of north Yemen in particular which gives the group inordinate space to hide weapons stores. But more important perhaps is the militarized, ideological society the Houthis have crafted since the 1980s when they began to evolve as a Zaydi Shia revivalist movement, responding to the republic’s supersession of the Zaydi state overthrown in 1962 and the encroachments of anti-Shia Salafi Islam from Saudi Arabia.
In the shadow of the war launched by Saudi Arabia in 2015, the Houthis have managed to reach into every neighborhood through bringing the tribes under their control, summer courses and other means of religious indoctrination, a ramped-up tax system including religious levies, and a political structure of government supervisors and neighborhood monitors, operating above the formal structures of governance. This extensive, diffuse form of government makes serious challenge to Houthi rule extremely difficult. Though there is certainly increased disaffection considering ongoing UN sanctions, new import restrictions because of the Red Sea attacks, and Trump’s recent reimposition of Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) status, the movement is still able to organize mass protests in an instant.
The group’s main challenge now is how to maintain its domestic position and manage continuing Israeli strikes in response to Houthi hits on Israel — an issue that was left as a separate issue in the Trump-Houthi deal to end mutual hostilities. So far the group has two protectors: one well-known, Iran, the other not so much, Saudi Arabia. There have been reports of Tehran removing advisors from Yemen to reduce the risk of confrontation with US forces amassed in the region’s waters; such a situation of reduced support could continue during a protracted period of US-Iran talks, as looks likely, leaving the group to some degree exposed.
As for Saudi Arabia, its approach to taming the Houthis has shifted 180 degrees. Now it is not through war but by holding close to the Houthis as their new best frenemy that Riyadh hopes to neutralize the threat to its south. As key elements of its $1.3 trillion Vision 2030 come online in the coming years – including hosting the 2027 Asian Winter Games in the mountain resort of Trojena, the 2030 World Expo in Riyadh and the 2034 football World Cup — Saudi Arabia is on a foreign policy drive to improve relations with as many neighbors as possible, including the Houthis.
The Gaza war and Houthi Red Sea attacks spoiled Saudi plans to secure a normalization deal with the group after which a peace process between the Houthis and the beleaguered government in Aden would take place. The fate of the Saudi-Houthi talks is now in the balance. Neither party has renounced them, but over the past year there has been increased US pressure to control the terms, which Sanaa hopes will see a flood of Saudi-led reconstruction money as well as a Saudi agreement to pay years of unpaid salaries to government employees.
War Drums Go Silent
The government had hoped that US campaign would give it a chance to relaunch the war, which has been in a state of fragile ceasefire since 2022. The UAE-backed militias were waiting for the signal to restart frontline operations, hoping to retake the Houthi Red Sea port of Hodeida and even topple the group in a replay of the Syrian rebel triumph in December. For the government — a dysfunctional patchwork of UAE and Saudi-backed military leaders and politicians who spend most of their time abroad — this would offer the chance of at least rejigging the balance of power.
But Saudi Arabia, despite beefing up its own militias inside Yemen, seems focused primarily on securing a deal with Sanaa, unimpressed by government incompetence, corruption and division. Saudi Arabia has already forced the Presidential Leadership Council under its ally Rashad al-Alimi to accept the basic principles of a Saudi-Houthi normalization and to live with an effective Houthi blockade of southern ports until the Houthis and government agree to talk. The central bank in Aden tried last year to force banks to quit Sanaa for Aden until Saudi Arabia ordered the government to stand down after a threat from Abdelmalik al-Houthi to target Riyadh again.
It’s almost impossible to see a new military campaign on the key frontlines (e.g., Hodeida, Taiz, Marib) taking place without Saudi approval. This would be to risk the Houthis firing missiles and drones at the kingdom again and blowing up three years of playing nice. Columnists in Saudi media outlets slam the Houthis and Abdelmalik slams the Saudis in his speeches, but neither party seems willing to throw away the relationship now that it’s a going concern. The list of domestic and external parties to the Yemen conflict who desperately want to see the end of Houthi rule is long. But when you do the math, the calculations at this juncture say they will have a long wait.