Stoking regional tensions to get Tehran to the negotiating table appears unlikely to have Trump's desired outcome, write Nader Itayim and Bachar Halabi
As US president Donald Trump's administration intensifies its military campaign against Yemen's Houthis, it has issued yet another stark warning to Iran and its leadership — end support for the rebel group or face "dire" consequences. The ultimatum is in line with the ‘maximum pressure' approach Trump has adopted to force Iran back to the negotiating table. But success looks far from certain.
This past week saw US forces carry out a series of air strikes against Houthi targets, soon after the rebel group said it would restart attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb strait and Gulf of Aden after Tel Aviv ignored a Houthi warning to resume the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The Houthi threat since late 2023 has severely curtailed international shipping lanes in the Red Sea, impacting the global economy. The Trump administration says its campaign has set out to put an end to that.
The US' "economic and national security has been under attack by the Houthis for too long", Washington says. And rising shipping rates, as a result, have probably increased global consumer goods inflation by 0.6-0.7pc, according to the White House. The diversion of oil and LNG flows has been stark (see charts). Trump's message to the Houthis is that their "time is up".
Although Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, also carried out air strikes against the group, observers say the latest attacks are not just more of the same. "Is this a different campaign? 100pc it is," says Mohammed al-Basha, founder of the US-based Basha Report security advisory. Some sites targeted in the Houthi-held capital Sana'a are "a first", he says, signalling that the Houthi leadership is now firmly in Washington's crosshairs for the first time since 2015, he says.
The current campaign is also more proactive than the strikes that took place last year, says general Joseph Votel, a former commander of US Central Command, which is overseeing the attacks. "Last year, our approach was more defensive, and focused on protecting ships passing through the area," he says. But this campaign is larger in scope, more geographically dispersed and more intense. Votel says the Trump campaign is more "counter-terrorism focused", which indicates a more targeted and sustained approach to degrade Houthi capabilities and put pressure on its network.
Also, there is a subtle change in the strategic messaging, according to Votel. While the Biden administration mostly focused on preventing an expansion of the regional conflict, the Trump administration is making clear that its focus is on "restoring freedom of commerce and navigation". While slight, this change "takes us from a defensive posture to an offensive one", he says.
Threats and opportunities
Arguably, the biggest distinction between the two strategies is the degree to which Iran, the Houthis' main backer, appears to have featured in the administration's calculations before launching this latest campaign.
"The hundreds of attacks being made by [the] Houthis… all emanate from, and are created by, Iran," Trump wrote via his social media platform on day three of the strikes, by which point the Houthis had claimed two retaliatory attacks on the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier in the Red Sea. "Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of Iran, and Iran will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!"
This kind of tough-talking rhetoric is in keeping with Trump's strategy of applying pressure on Iran's leadership to the point that it has no choice but to negotiate the future of its nuclear programme, and ideally, more than that.
"It's very clear the US wants to see sweeping concessions from Iran on the nuclear file, on the regional proxy file, and probably the missile and drone programme," says Gregory Brew, senior analyst at US consultancy Eurasia Group. "Trump ultimately wants a deal. But he also wants to look tough and push the Iranians into a deal that aligns with his maximalist view." After Iran's other regional proxies — Gaza-based Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah — saw their capabilities heavily degraded at the hands of Israel last year, the Houthis are one of the last remaining pieces in what Tehran calls its regional ‘Axis of Resistance'.
In a letter sent to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, earlier this month, Trump says he encouraged Iran's ultimate decision maker to "make a deal" or face military action. Iran has since confirmed receipt of the letter, but is yet to formally respond, with foreign minister Abbas Araqchi saying this week that its contents are still being evaluated. "Trump's letter is mostly a threat, but he also claims it has opportunities. We are evaluating it and paying attention to all points," he says. Iran's response "will not take long", Araqchi says. But the mood music coming out of Tehran over the past two weeks has not been positive.
"You've had Khamenei's tough rhetoric, laying out a tough line for everybody that [they] are not going to talk to the US," Brew says. But "Araqchi and others have clarified that what they are really pushing back against is the sense of talking under pressure. They don't want to appear as if they are succumbing to Trump's pressure. They do want to talk, but from a position of relative strength".
Carrot and multiple sticks
So long as Washington continues to turn the sanctions screw on Iran — just this week the Treasury for the first time imposed sanctions on a small Chinese refiner over its purchases of Iranian crude — prospects for de-escalation, or nuclear diplomacy, look slim. This raises the question — what next?
For now, Trump's inferred threats of military action against Iran look premature, says Arman Mahmoudian, a research fellow at the Global and National Security Institute, especially in response to Houthi actions. Trump seems to be "employing a Reagan-era ‘peace-through-strength' strategy… focused on demonstrating force, particularly by targeting the Axis of Resistance, which is currently in a fragile position", Mahmoudian says. "By launching the strikes, Trump is signalling he has both the capability and willingness to escalate if necessary. That said, I feel his ultimate goal is negotiations, not full-scale war."
Brew agrees, describing the Houthis as "an easy target". They "have been redesignated a terrorist organisation [by the US] and are in an entrenched position. So bombing them gives this administration the chance to look tough, and appear to be applying pressure on Iran, without having to take action directly".
But if Washington expects such military action against the Houthis to trigger a change in posture or behaviour from the Iranians, they might be disappointed. "The Iranians won't really care if the Houthis are getting bombed. [The group has shown] over the years that they can absorb these kinds of attacks," Brew says. "But also, Iran doesn't have the same influence over, or relationship with, the Houthis as it does Hezbollah or the Shia militias in Iraq." The commander-in-chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has suggested as much, insisting this week that the Houthis "make their own strategic decisions" and that Iran "has no role" in determining their policies or activities.
With both sides seemingly keen to talk, a return to negotiations in the not-too-distant future cannot be ruled out. But the sudden escalation of tensions in the Mideast Gulf region, following the collapse of the ceasefire in Gaza, will almost certainly make things more difficult than they already were.
