Can the next US president roll back the Houthis' power in the Red Sea?

"This war has to end," US President Joe Biden declared in 2021, when he suspended US offensive military support for Saudi Arabia's war against the Houthis in Yemen. 

The war in Yemen subsided when Saudi Arabia’s Yemeni allies agreed to a UN-brokered truce with the Houthis in April 2022. No sooner were Houthi officials visiting Riyadh to talk about a permanent settlement to the war when they started attacking international shipping vessels in the Red Sea. Those attacks, in response to Israel’s war on Gaza, sparked an even thornier Yemeni conflict, drawing the US more deeply into the fractured country than ever before.

In October 2024, US B-2 bombers pummelled weapons storage facilities in areas of Yemen controlled by the Houthis. The strikes underscored the US’s deepening involvement in Yemen since the Houthis began attacking Israel and vessels in the Red Sea after the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel. 

Sanam Vakil, director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme, told Middle East Eye that the Biden administration was stuck trying to thread the needle between two opposing goals.

“Ending the war in Yemen and protecting freedom of navigation is somewhat contradictory because truly ending the war will further institutionalise the Houthis,” Vakil said.

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