This piece was originally published in The Free Press
Over the past week, Saudi Arabia has come under attack—on two fronts.
First, in Yemen, the Houthis seized the port city of Mocha on September 10 and advanced along the Red Sea coast toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital waterway for Saudi exports. Meanwhile, drones from Iraq struck Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, the roughly 750-mile artery carrying oil from the eastern fields toward Red Sea export terminals.
The attacks coincide with the Iraqi government’s September 30 deadline for nonstate groups in the country to disarm, and with mounting U.S. and Israeli pressure on the Islamic Republic that arms and sustains them.
They also come amid a much broader campaign against the regional proxy system that Tehran has spent decades building. Since the U.S. war with Iran began on February 28, Operations Epic Fury and Economic Fury have placed the Islamic Republic under severe military and financial strain, while the U.S. Treasury Department has targeted Iranian oil exports, shadow-fleet tankers, financial intermediaries, and foreign procurement networks.
Clearly, that pressure hasn’t dissuaded the Houthis. For months now, the Islamist militia based in northern Yemen has terrorized commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Efforts from international forces—including the United States—have failed to stop them, despite an extraordinary disparity in conventional military power.
The question—as Saudi Arabia finds itself under attack, rebuffed in its requests for U.S. aid, and caught in the middle of a U.S.-Iran war now dragging into its seventh month—is why? Why is this seemingly ragtag militia group so hard to beat? And, in the wake of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Monday meeting with the head of U.S. Central Command, what does the Houthis’ continued activity mean for the broader regional order?
First, some context. The Houthis originally emerged in the 1990s from the Zaydi Shi’ite heartland of northern Yemen, fought six wars against the Yemeni government between 2004 and 2010, and seized the capital city of Sanaa in 2014. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia led an Arab coalition in a major anti-Houthi military intervention—yet more than 11 years of warfare failed to dislodge them from the capital or much of Yemen’s densely populated northwest. Meanwhile, Iranian support for the Houthis helped transform a northern insurgency into a force capable of operating ballistic and cruise missiles, one-way attack drones, anti-ship weapons, and unmanned vessels. By late 2023, the Houthis could use that arsenal to disrupt international shipping across the Red Sea.
All of the countries that have tried to intervene against the Houthis over the past decade—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United States—had more money, better aircraft, and superior intelligence, plus precision weapons. They also killed Houthi commanders, destroyed missile sites, intercepted weapons shipments, and sanctioned financiers. But none of those advantages produced a Houthi defeat.
Four reasons explain why.
First, in 2015, Saudi Arabia fought under constraints that steadily narrowed its freedom of action. The kingdom entered Yemen with one of the most sophisticated militaries in the Arab world, but that concealed a difficult political equation: Riyadh had to defend oil fields, refineries, pipelines, airports, desalination plants, ports, and cities across more than 800,000 square miles, while the Houthis merely needed to hold Sanaa and preserve enough military capacity to threaten the kingdom. Cheap missiles and drones allowed the Houthis to impose costs far greater than the price of the weapons it launched.
U.S. policy added another constraint. The Barack Obama administration initially provided intelligence, logistical assistance, and other support to the Saudi-led intervention, then progressively reduced that support as civilian casualties mounted. After a coalition air strike hit a funeral hall in Sanaa in October 2016, the White House reviewed U.S. assistance and publicly warned that cooperation with Riyadh was “not a blank check.” Obama had already unsettled Gulf allies by arguing that Saudi Arabia and Iran needed to “share the neighborhood,” reinforcing Saudi concerns that Washington increasingly saw accommodation with Tehran as part of the regional balance.
The political pressure continued under Joe Biden. In February 2021, his administration ended U.S. support for offensive operations in Yemen and revoked the Houthis’ Foreign Terrorist Organization designation, citing the humanitarian consequences of the designation for a country dependent on imported food and fuel. Washington retained sanctions against individual Houthi leaders, but the broader change came while the Houthis continued launching attacks against Saudi territory.
All the while, reasons for Saudi Arabia to withdraw from the intervention were growing. Civilian casualties had damaged its standing in Washington, prolonged warfare had complicated its intended economic transformation, and Houthi missiles kept Saudi infrastructure vulnerable even when the coalition dominated the air. By contrast, continued control of Sanaa and the ability to threaten the kingdom allowed the Houthis to survive without achieving a conventional military victory.
Second, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were fighting the same enemy, but they were not fighting for the same Yemen. And as the war continued, their coalition developed political divisions. Riyadh wanted a Yemeni state capable of securing the Saudi border and preventing an Iranian-aligned military organization from dominating the country, while Abu Dhabi cultivated southern forces in Yemen, whose ambitions for autonomy or independence conflicted with Saudi priorities.
Internal competition spread. Anti-Houthi factions devoted resources to struggles over territory and political influence, while the Houthis consolidated their position in the north. Tensions between Saudi- and UAE-aligned forces again erupted into clashes in southern and eastern Yemen in late 2025 and early 2026.
Houthi cohesion gave the movement an advantage that conventional measures of military power missed. Its leadership maintained a comparatively centralized command while opposing factions fractured. Yemen’s terrain magnified those divisions: Aircraft could destroy missile depots and command centers, but ground forces had to secure mountain roads, ports, islands, border crossings, and cities. Disagreement over Yemen’s future repeatedly prevented battlefield superiority from producing lasting political control.
Third, sanctions constrained the Houthis without isolating them. For much of the war, sanctions failed to cut off the Houthis from the technology and financing required to replenish their arsenal. Iranian assistance had already given them the expertise to assemble increasingly sophisticated weapons inside Yemen, requiring the Houthis’ enemies not only to intercept complete missiles and drones but also to cut off the components used to build them.
China became especially important. The Treasury Department has traced Houthi procurement networks to Chinese companies supplying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) components, missile-guidance electronics, and chemical precursors used in ballistic missiles and explosives. Yiwu Wan Shun Trading Company, for example, coordinated large-scale purchases of UAV components from Chinese suppliers beginning at least in 2021. Other firms concealed dual-use equipment inside ordinary commercial shipments. The scale of China’s industrial market made replacing a sanctioned supplier far easier than eliminating Houthi access to the underlying technology.
Beijing’s role went beyond supplying components. In April 2025, U.S. officials accused Chang Guang Satellite Technology, a Chinese company with links to the country’s military-industrial sector, of providing satellite imagery that helped the Houthis target U.S. warships in the Red Sea. Washington raised the issue with Beijing, yet U.S. officials said the assistance continued. China was also buying the overwhelming majority of Iran’s exported oil, providing Tehran with revenue while Chinese companies appeared repeatedly in Houthi procurement networks.
For years, this left the Houthis room to recover from sanctions and military losses. A company could be designated, a shipment intercepted, or a weapons depot destroyed without depriving the Houthis of access to the markets behind them. Today, Operation Economic Fury is making that recovery more difficult by tightening pressure on Iranian oil revenue and the shipping and financial networks that keep it moving. That means the Houthis’ ability to continue replacing what they’ve lost now depends increasingly on a system under pressure of its own—though that pressure is still not sufficient to neutralize them.
Fourth, previous U.S. policy tried to contain the Houthis without weakening Iran first. For much of the war, Washington treated Yemen and Iran on separate diplomatic tracks. Obama backed the Saudi intervention initially, but his administration progressively reduced that support as civilian casualties mounted. He then pressed Riyadh toward a negotiated settlement, even as the White House pursued the nuclear agreement with Tehran. Biden pushed the separation further, seeking renewed nuclear negotiations with Iran while distancing from Saudi Arabia.
That approach left the kingdom confronting a movement whose military development remained closely tied to Iran. Years of training and technology transfers had given Houthi engineers greater capacity to assemble and modify missiles and drones inside Yemen, while Iranian revenue and procurement networks kept the wider system functioning. Every improvement in local production made the Houthis harder to weaken through air strikes and interdiction alone.
The limits became clear as U.S. military involvement expanded. Even the intensive U.S. campaign from March to May 2025, which inflicted substantial damage, couldn’t destroy the Houthis: An Oman-brokered agreement halted Houthi attacks on U.S. vessels, allowing the group to remain in power and retain the capacity to threaten other shipping.
Which brings us to today. Operations Epic Fury and Economic Fury start from a different premise than previous interventions. Rather than fighting the Houthis while leaving much of their strategic depth intact, the current campaign coincides with severe pressure on Iran itself. Tehran must now absorb military losses, defend its revenues, and rebuild capabilities at home while its regional partners continue to demand money, weapons, and technical support. For the Houthis, a weaker Iran changes something that previous bombing campaigns rarely could: the reliability of the system they counted on to recover.
Houthi behavior already points toward greater concern over relying exclusively on Iran. They have expanded contacts across the Gulf of Aden, including coordinating with the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab on weapons smuggling, training, and drone expertise. UN investigators recently received information that nearly 100 Somalis linked to al-Shabaab traveled to Houthi-controlled Yemen for military and ideological training, while Houthis reportedly traveled to Somalia to train al-Shabaab members in explosives, drone adaptation, and weapons maintenance. For a movement whose rise depended heavily on Iranian weapons, expertise, and protection, the search for alternatives is significant.
This all said, Saudi Arabia may still struggle to turn the present circumstances into a military victory. The Houthis control substantial territory, command experienced forces, and have spent more than a decade adapting to air strikes, sanctions, and interdiction. Yemen remains exceptionally difficult terrain for any force seeking a decisive outcome.
But everything around the Houthis has changed. Iran is weaker; its finances are under heavier pressure; its military institutions have suffered damage; and the networks that supplied the Houthis face greater scrutiny. Tehran also finds its hands increasingly tied elsewhere.
In Iraq, the government’s upcoming deadline to bring weapons under state control threatens the autonomy of Iran-backed militias and the political and economic structures that have allowed them to operate as extensions of Iranian power. Tehran has responded by courting Baghdad and Iraqi public opinion. During a visit to Iraq in August, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared that relations between the two countries were at their highest level and argued that true victory “begins when you win the hearts of the people before the battle starts.” The message was revealing. By stressing the need to win over the Iraqis, Araghchi implicitly acknowledged that Iran can no longer rely on armed networks alone.
Lebanon adds another source of pressure. Israel-Lebanon talks are testing the future of Hezbollah and the military autonomy that made it Iran’s most powerful Arab proxy. The negotiations may ultimately lead nowhere, but the process itself places Hezbollah’s weapons, territorial position, and relationship with the Lebanese state under sustained political pressure.
Combined, these developments amount to a broader campaign of political and psychological war against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) revolutionary system, all while it faces immense economic hardships at home.
Previous campaigns against the Houthis asked Saudi Arabia to defeat them while many of the conditions sustaining them remained intact. Riyadh does not face that problem to the same degree today. That hardly guarantees a Saudi victory, but wars often turn when the assumptions that sustained one side cease to hold. Saudi Arabia may be on the outs with the United States and suffering under a two-front war, but since 2015 the Houthis could count on their opponents tiring before the system behind them did. That calculation rested on an Iran capable of replenishing weapons, protecting allied militias, and sustaining several theaters simultaneously. For the first time, the Houthis can no longer make that assumption.