To stop the Houthis, America should ramp up pressure on Iran

Since the onset of the Israeli war with Hamas, Iran has mobilized its clients in an effort to widen the conflict throughout the region, or at least pressure Jerusalem to bring a halt to its incursion into Gaza.

Iranian-backed militias have stepped up their attacks on American forces in Iraq and Syria. Hezbollah has been firing rockets into northern Israel, forcing some 20,000 Israelis to move south. And during the first three weeks of November, Yemeni-based Houthis hijacked the Galaxy Leader, an Israeli-linked merchant ship, taking 25 crew members hostage. The Houthis also launched ballistic missiles at Israel and fired drones at American warships.

On December 3, the Houthis fired on three more commercial ships in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The group falsely claimed they were linked to Israel. The Houthis also launched a multiple-drone attack on the American Navy destroyer Carney. The warship shot down three drones.

The attacks pose a major dilemma for the United States. On the one hand, Washington is deeply concerned about preventing the spread of the Israel-Hamas war. In particular, the Biden administration is reluctant to retaliate against the Houthis, given the relative quiet that has reigned in Yemen over the last year, as well as ongoing Saudi-Houthi negotiations to bring the Yemeni civil war to an end.

On the other hand, the administration cannot remain passive in the face of ongoing Houthi attacks on commercial ships in international waters — as well as drone attacks on American warships. The longer the U.S. delays a response, the more likely the Houthis will conclude that they can continue their attacks with impunity.

In the aftermath of the attacks, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that Washington was not planning to act alone. Rather, he averred, the United States would take “appropriate action in consultation with others,” meaning America’s allies and friends, and would “do so at a time and place of our choosing.”

Moreover, he made it clear that he held Iran equally responsible for the Houthi attacks. As he put it, the Houthis “are the ones with their finger on the trigger but … the weapons here are being supplied by Iran, and Iran, we believe, is the ultimate party responsible for this.”

Sullivan did not define what he meant by “appropriate action,” nor did he indicate whether that action would be directed at the Houthis or Iran. Any action would disrupt the tenuous balance that currently reigns in the Gulf/Arabian Sea/Red Sea region. Doing so would create new tensions with the Saudis in particular, who have made it clear that they oppose upsetting that balance.

Yet inaction is not a viable option either. If the Yemeni Houthis are not to be the target of American retaliation, that would leave Iran as the logical substitute to be on the receiving end of Washington’s response.

Sullivan pointed to America’s military buildup in the region, but the increase in force presence has not deterred the Houthis or Iran’s other proxies from launching missile and drone attacks. Nor is the threat of additional sanctions on Tehran likely to impress the mullahs. Washington has already reversed its effort to release to Iran $6 billion currently frozen in South Korean banks. And the Biden administration not only has continued to apply Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” on Iran but in mid-October announced new sanctions on Tehran’s missile and drone programs.

If Washington is to dissuade Iran from supporting what Iran terms the “axis of resistance,” it will have to apply new forms of coercion on the Tehran regime. It could, for example, reimpose restrictions on Iran’s oil exports, which the Biden administration loosened in the hope of reaching a new nuclear deal the mullahs. Should Iran continue to encourage its proxies to attack American forces and international shipping, Washington could work jointly with key allies to launch one or more cyberattacks on strategic Iranian oil facilities. Should such an attack target Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal, it would constitute a serious blow to Iran’s petroleum exports.

Whatever form the American and allied response to the recent Houthi and militia attacks ultimately takes, it should be directed in a manner that sends a clear message to Iran. Either Tehran should cease and desist its destabilizing activities in the region, or it will find that the cost of those activities will continue to increase — until the mullahs find that cost to have become completely unbearable.

Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.