The United States has been in a shooting war with Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who control roughly 30% of Yemen, including its capital, Sanaa, for well over a year, ever since the Houthis began to attack commercial shipping in the heavily transited Bab el Mandeb strait that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden in November 2023.

The missile and drone launches were supposed to show solidarity with Hamas militants and Palestinian civilians in Gaza who were dying in the massive Israeli military response to the horrific Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, when Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,200 innocent Israelis, took 250 people hostage, and are still holding dozens captive.

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One day before President Donald Trump took office in January, the Houthis pledged to end their targeting of ships on one of the world’s busiest trade routes, ostensibly because of the ceasefire negotiated between Israel and Hamas.

But, according to the Defense Department, the Houthis have not kept their word.

“Four months ago, when we sent a ship through, it was shot at 17 times. Ships haven’t been able to go through for over a year without being shot at,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an appearance on Fox News, blaming former President Joe Biden’s administration’s ineffective military response.

“When you talk about the Houthis, they were allowed for over 100 times to shoot at U.S. ships, to shoot at commercial shipping,” Hegseth said. “We’re sitting on four years of deferred maintenance from Joe Biden.”

More recently the Houthis claimed that they had targeted the USS Harry S. Truman carrier group with missiles and drones, which the Pentagon could not confirm.

“Quite frankly, it’s hard to tell because while we’re executing precision strikes, they missed by over 100 miles,” Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich told reporters at a Pentagon briefing on the first wave of new strikes ordered by President Donald Trump on March 15.

“The initial wave of strikes hit over 30 targets at multiple locations, degrading a variety of Houthi capabilities,” Grynkewich said. “These included terrorist training sites, unmanned aerial vehicle infrastructure, weapons manufacturing capabilities, and weapons storage facilities.

“The operation continues. And it will continue in the coming days until we achieve the president’s objectives.”

In that sense, the new offensive is not that different from the campaign waged by the coalition assembled under Biden, which included ships and planes from the United Kingdom and, on several occasions in 2024, delivered punishing air and missile strikes against similar target sets.

And while the new Trump offensive is touted as “unrelenting,” it’s not intended to be endless.

“I want to be very clear: This campaign is about freedom of navigation and restoring deterrents,” Hegseth said. “The minute the Houthis say, ‘We will stop shooting at your ships, we will stop shooting at your drones,’ this campaign will end.”

There are some differences, both tactical and strategic.

“The U.S. strikes against the Houthis likely surprised the Yemen-based group,” said Joe Truzman, the editor of Long War Journal, a Foundation for Defense of Democracies publication. “Under the Biden administration, American military responses were largely reactive and failed to deter the Houthis from targeting commercial shipping and military vessels. In contrast, President Trump sought to change this dynamic with preemptive punitive strikes.”

This time around, U.S. operational commanders have been given broader authority to go after a wider range of targets, without having to run everything by the Pentagon.

“That allows us to achieve a tempo of operations where we can react to opportunities that we see on the battlefield to continue to put pressure on the Houthis,” Grynkewich said.

Meanwhile, on a strategic level, Trump has made it clear that while he’s ordered a large-scale attack against the Houthis, he holds Iran responsible.

“Let nobody be fooled!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform announcing the open-ended military operation. “Iran has played ‘the innocent victim’ of rogue terrorists from which they’ve lost control, but they haven’t lost control. They’re dictating every move, giving them the weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated Military equipment, and even, so-called, ‘Intelligence,” he said, throwing in a not-so-veiled warning to the mullahs in Tehran.

“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!” Trump concluded.

“This is the president showcasing leadership from the Oval Office and, frankly, bringing moral clarity back to the United States of America,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said. “We know who the enemies of this country are, and the enemies of a free world are, and President Trump has put them on notice.”

“This is long overdue,” says retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at the FDD. “The United States has spent almost $2 billion on a largely defensive campaign, but it’s time to go on the offensive.”

It does appear that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is getting the message that this is not just the Biden strategy redux.

“The IRGC has quickly responded by distancing itself from the Houthis’ actions, indicating that they’re aware these strikes are a warning to the Islamic Republic,” FDD research analyst Bridget Toomey said. “The Houthis are Iran’s strongest remaining proxy. By targeting the group with a large-scale operation, the Trump administration is sending a message to the Iranian regime that it will no longer be allowed to foment terrorism with impunity.”

Four days into the operation, Trump himself noted the change of tune from a chastened Iran, which has already seen its so-called “Ring of Fire” proxy forces in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza decimated.

“Reports are coming in that while Iran has lessened its intensity on Military Equipment and General Support to the Houthis, they are still sending large levels of Supplies,” he posted on Truth Social. “Iran must stop the sending of these Supplies IMMEDIATELY. Let the Houthis fight it out themselves. Either way they lose, but this way they lose quickly.”

“The United States needs to hold Iran accountable for their support to the Houthis,” Montgomery said. “To truly complete this effort would require some more challenging strikes against the group’s patrons in Iran, and that means U.S. attacks on Iranian spy ships and logistics lines that enable Houthi attacks.”

“What do you do with a group that attacks your Navy 174 times or this group that attacks commercial shipping 150 times?” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Guy Benson’s Fox News Radio show. “You just leave them there, you let them keep attacking? No, I think the answer everyone would say is you’ve got to take them out, and that’s what we’re doing. … We’re doing the world a favor by doing that because it’s not just our ships that they’re attacking. But they’re attacking us more than anybody else.”

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Trump is already declaring the campaign a success.

“Tremendous damage has been inflicted upon the Houthi barbarians, and watch how it will get progressively worse,” he posted. “It’s not even a fair fight, and never will be. They will be completely annihilated!”