<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-top-anchor"></div>
<div id="gmail-toolbar" class="gmail-toolbar-container">
</div><div class="gmail-container" lang="en-US" dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header gmail-reader-show-element">
<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://mondoweiss.net/2025/03/the-real-reason-donald-trump-is-bombing-yemen/?ml_recipient=149487200281560207&ml_link=149487134859855604&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-03-21&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation">mondoweiss.net</a>
<div class="gmail-domain-border"></div>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The real reason Donald Trump is bombing Yemen</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Mitchell Plitnick</div>
<div class="gmail-meta-data">
<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">March 20, 2025</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div>
<p>Just two days before Israel resumed the full scale of its genocide in
the Gaza Strip, the United States began a bombing campaign in Yemen. </p>
<p>The U.S. aggression is a significant part of the recipe for endless
war and devastation of the Middle East that Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump are cooking up. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-846195">Israel</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/18/israel-informed-us-before-new-gaza-strikes">the U.S.</a>
clearly communicated about these operations, each country has presented
its actions as independent of, but cooperative with, the other. Of
course, this is partially an attempt to obscure the reality that Israel
cannot pursue its relentless genocide in Gaza without the material
support it gets from the United States.</p>
<p>But there’s another piece for Trump. He prefers to present his and
Netanyahu’s approach as one of independent, if allied, countries acting
in their own perceived interests. He likes to present an image of Israel
charting its course and the U.S. pursuing its own interests, an image
that crumbles the moment Trump wants Israel or anyone else to act
according to his wishes.</p>
<p>U.S. attention is focused not on Gaza, but on Yemen, allowing
Netanyahu to resume his full-scale genocide, to which Trump is
indifferent. Yet, while Trump can fantasize all he wants about lounging
repulsively on Gaza’s beach with Netanyahu, there are American
businesses that have a stake in preventing Ansar Allah (often called the
Houthis) from acting in defense of and in solidarity with the
Palestinians. </p>
<p>Trump’s motivations are always a bit of a muddle, and that is as much
by design as it is the result of his impetuousness, ignorance, and
short attention span. But the U.S. clearly has an interest in stopping
Ansar Allah’s attacks on Red Sea shipping, and there is still an
absolute refusal in Washington to do the one thing that is certain to
accomplish that: force Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza. These
realities seem to have been part of the calculus in the U.S. attacks on
Yemen, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/19/trump-warns-yemens-houthis-will-be-completely-annihilated">which are ongoing</a>. </p>
<h2><strong>It’s about Iran</strong></h2>
<p>In the bigger picture, it is, as always, also about Iran. It is not a
coincidence that the attacks first on Yemen and then on Gaza came in
the wake of Trump <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/03/07/trump-iran-nuclear-deal-letter">sending a letter</a> in early March to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for new talks on a nuclear deal. </p>
<p>On Wednesday, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/03/19/trump-letter-iran-nuclear-deal">it was reported</a> that in that letter, Trump gave Iran a two-month deadline to reach a new deal. Iran <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/03/16/iran-trump-nuclear-program-houthi/">already said</a>
they were not going to be threatened and bullied into new talks. That
statement came in response to Trump threatening war if Iran did not come
across. </p>
<p>“We are down to final strokes with Iran. We are down to the final
moments. We can’t let them have a nuclear weapon. Something is going to
happen very soon. I would rather have a peace deal than the other option
but the other option will solve the problem,” <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/03/07/trump-iran-nuclear-deal-letter">Trump told reporters</a> on March 7.</p>
<p>The two-month deadline also seems to line up with a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/12/israel-iran-us-intelligence/">U.S. intelligence assessment</a>
developed in the last days of Joe Biden’s administration and supported
by an early Trump administration assessment, that Israel would attack
Iran’s nuclear facilities sometime during the first half of 2025. </p>
<p>If that is part of Trump’s thinking, he would not need to carry out his threat directly but simply support Israel in doing so. </p>
<p>This possibility also clarifies why Trump has gone out of his way <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/17/trump-warns-iran-will-be-held-responsible-for-houthi-attacks-from-yemen">to blame Iran</a> for Ansar Allah’s activities. Most informed <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/03/new-us-attacks-houthis-will-not-bring-iran-negotiating-table-could-provoke-worse-violence">experts</a> <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/1/yemen_strikes">agree</a>
that Iran and Ansar Allah have a friendly relationship and that Iran
supports the Yemeni group, but that Ansar Allah does not act on Iran’s
orders or under Iran’s control. Iran’s reported request on Monday that
Ansar Allah tone down their confrontation with the U.S<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/yemens-houthis-wont-dial-down-under-us-pressure-or-iranian-appeals-2025-03-18/">. was rebuked</a> in no uncertain terms, hardly the behavior of a proxy. </p>
<p>Ansar Allah has vowed that they would maintain their attacks in the
Red Sea until Israel ends their blockade of Gaza. This has been their
position since they began their attacks in solidarity with the
Palestinians, and they did, in fact, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/01/29/nx-s1-5270518/with-gaza-ceasefire-yemens-houthi-rebels-halt-attacks-on-ships-in-the-red-sea">suspend those attacks</a> during the so-called “ceasefire” in Gaza, even though Israel <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-israel-violate-gaza-ceasefire-new-escalation">repeatedly violated it</a>. They only resumed when Israel reinstated its complete blockade of Gaza.</p>
<h2><strong>What is Trump hoping to accomplish in Yemen?</strong></h2>
<p>Ansar Allah’s attacks in the Red Sea have had a profound effect on
shipping in the region. Where ships could once travel from Asia and
eastern Africa along the Red Sea and through <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/07/houthi-attacks-red-sea-shipping-wipe-2b-suez-canal-annual-revenue">the Suez Canal</a>
to the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, many now sail south,
all the way around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa and back up
north. That significantly increases shipping expenses on all manner of
goods, and, when added to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/red-sea-insurance-costs-soar-houthi-shipping-threats-loom-sources-say-2024-09-19/">rising insurance costs</a> due to Ansar Allah attacks, has had a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/business/houthi-red-sea-attacks-shipping-lanes-africa.html">significant economic impact</a>
on the shipping industry and the export and import of goods that goes
far beyond the loss of ships and merchandise in the attacks.</p>
<p>That economic impact is the most significant material cost that
anyone has managed to impose on Israel’s genocidal behavior. Of course,
it has not deterred Israel or the United States.</p>
<p>But Ansar Allah has accomplished what even the combined efforts of
Hezbollah, Iran, and various other armed militias have not by imposing
some cost on Israel’s genocidal activities. The fact that, aside from
these attacks and a handful of drones and missiles, Ansar Allah is
obviously no match for the United States militarily means Yemen meets
the criteria for Trumpian bullying by a cowardly but physically strong
state.</p>
<p>Trump’s overall preference is to be able to issue orders and diktats
and have them obeyed, whether out of respect or fear. He knows that one
thing many of his supporters want to avoid is another foreign war. Thus,
he’d prefer to threaten Iran into abandoning their nuclear capacity,
and whatever other conditions he might seek to impose on them. Failing
that, he is likely to strongly consider offering the necessary support
to Israel for it to attack Iran. </p>
<p>Given that such an action could cause major problems for Saudi
Arabia, the UAE, and the rest of Trump’s Gulf Arab allies, it’s not his
first choice. It is also true that those states will have the leverage
and influence in Washington to potentially convince Trump that an
all-out Israeli attack on Iran is a bad idea. Regardless of what the
American intelligence assessment says, Israel cannot carry out a major
attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities without American help.</p>
<p>Since that is a complicated road, Trump is using force against
helpless people as a means to his ends. Trump’s plan, as it was with
Ukraine, is to make it clear that the people he is dealing with have no
realistic options. Ansar Allah has said they would “meet escalation with
escalation,” but while they can attack more ships, and possibly even
launch some rockets at U.S. allies in the region, they have no hope of
actually harming American targets to any significant degree. Thus, Trump
hopes, he’ll be able to force Ansar Allah to back down, and he also
hopes that will create a sense of hopelessness in Tehran. </p>
<p>It’s a plan that is unlikely to work, for all the same reasons that
Israel, with all of that U.S. backing, has been unable to defeat Hamas
in Gaza even after all this time and all this murder and carnage. Iran
is trying to do all it can to avoid more confrontation with the United
States, but it’s not going to simply bow down to Trump’s diktats. </p>
<p>Ansar Allah has greatly enhanced their own reputation in the region, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/13/yemens-houthis-emerge-from-gaza-war-emboldened-and-with-more-enemies">and in Yemen</a>,
where many oppose them. Their support for the Palestinian cause gives
them a big boost and is overwhelmingly popular, even among their
opponents. They’re not likely to back down, and Trump is not likely to
try to invade Yemen, which is probably the only military option he has
to stop the attacks. Instead, he is likely to intensify the bombing of
major Yemeni cities, devastating an already devastated country and
driving up an already appalling body count. </p>
<p>All of that just to avoid allowing the people of Gaza some food, water, medicine, and shelter.</p>
</div></div></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div></div>
</div>
<br></div>