president Donald Trump’s The US airstrikes against Yemen’s Hooty extremists have been gaining praise as a potential breakthrough, and have doubts as to whether it will continue.
Trump in the oval office on Tuesday marked the formal end of Operation Rough Rider, a 50-day bombing campaign targeting more than 1,000 sites across Yemen.
“Houthis announced that he doesn’t want to fight anymore,” Trump said in a statement at the White House. “They say they won’t blow the ship any more. That’s what we were doing. So… we’ll stop the bombing.”
Omani’s foreign minister, Bad al-Busadi, who has been involved in peace negotiations, confirmed that the talks have led to a ceasefire agreement. “future, Neither side targets the other sideEnsures freedom of navigation and smooth flow of international commercial transport, including American ships in the Red Sea and Bab Al Mandaub Strait. ”
“Houthis announced they didn’t want to fight anymore,” Trump said. (AP photo)
While Trump portrayed the ceasefire as a simple military victory, experts say the path to this moment was built on purposeful diplomatic escalation. Their Iranian supporters.
“This was to link Houthi’s attack directly to Iran,” said Kasa Pogl, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “The Trump administration clearly signaled. Further attacks will have consequences for Tehran, which was the key to actual success.”
The origins of the March campaign followed a surge in Hooty attacks on international transport and dramatic escalation last weekend, when missiles from Hooty-controlled territory landed near Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport. This prompted retaliatory Israeli airstrikes at Sanaa’s major Yemen airport, and military officials say it crippled the air capacity of Hooty.
Lt. Colonel Eric Navarro, director of the Red Sea Security Initiative at the Middle East Forum, calls the ceasefire a “product of overwhelming pressure,” pointing to the exact US attacks of the Houthi Command-and-Control Infrastructure and Weapons Depots combined with Israeli air attacks.
“They saw it written on the wall,” Navarro said. “I argue that this is a pressure that needs to be applied over time. That’s not just the Housis, but also the Iranian regime.”
From a military standpoint, Trump’s campaign leveraged key assets, including a bomber flying from Diego Garcia and two US aircraft carriers operating in the region. Its power show combined with clear diplomatic signaling appears to have catalyzed a ceasefire, at least for now.
Trump says “Houthis claims they don’t want to fight” and we’ll stop the bombing campaign
Trump in the oval office on Tuesday marked the formal end of Operation Rough Rider, a 50-day bombing campaign targeting more than 1,000 sites across Yemen. (Reuters/Ra Miris/File Photo)
Still, not all analysts view Houthis as a serious threat or campaign.
“Whether or not the group stops targeting US vessels, Trump’s surprising announcement that the US will stop airstrikes on the Hoosys is the right decision,” said Rosemary Keranick, director of the Middle East Program for Defense Priorities. “The threat of Houthi has always been more hype than substance.”
Keranick argued that the group’s attacks on transport “although neither damaged the US economy nor contributed to inflation actually reduced during militant groups’ attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.” In her view, “Houthis’s biggest achievement was that the US had deceived it to waste roughly $7 billion in resources by bombing them.”
“Trump’s bold choices show that there is an off-ramp from the endless escalation of the Middle East,” she added.
The aircraft will be released by USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea before an airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen on March 15th. (US Navy via AP)
“Washington’s free and unauthorized strikes in Congress to target shipments in the Red Sea are typical of strategic malpractice, ignoring the origins of the conflict (war in Gaza) and not inhaling tax crowds,” said John Hoffman, a researcher in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute.
Military analysts are skeptical of Houthis’ long-term reliability.
“I’m always worried about groups like Houthis sticking to what they say,” Navarro said. “We need to stay vigilant… and will adopt a broader strategy that includes not only military tools but also economic and informational pressures, and support for local alternatives to Yemen’s Houthi Control.”
Still, the Trump administration is framing a halt as a strategic victory that shows how military force can produce concrete political outcomes when exercised with diplomatic clarity.
“A massive victory. President Trump promised to restore freedom of voyage in the Red Sea, and he used great American power to quickly save that promise.
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“If they can convey this,” Kasa Pogl said, “It’s going to be a big, big victory for the Trump administration.”
Whether a ceasefire is held or whether it has proven merely a lull in a long conflict remains to be seen. But for now, the bomb has stopped and Washington is claiming victory.
