There are two prevailing interpretations of the recent Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
The second interpretation of these attacks rests on the desire to harm Israel by disrupting shipping to and from Israeli ports. While the Houthis may well desire to attack Israel as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, their local fight for territory and influence in Yemen, against Saudi proxies, is surely their first priority. Firing missiles at Israel, Saudi Arabia, and at international shipping invites reprisals from powerful Western enemies.
There is a third interpretation that brings the situation into clearer focus: Prior to the events of Oct. 7, 2023, an alliance between Israel and the Arab states, against Iran, was emerging. The Gulf states desperately need Israeli technology, expertise, and capital in order to move their economies off of a hydrocarbon base. Israel is potentially a significant exporter of LNG, following discoveries in the Leviathan natural gas oil field, which aligns Israeli economic interests with other energy exporters. Hamas, an Iranian proxy, shattered that emerging alliance.
Overall, the Iranian strategy appears to be one of encirclement of Jordan, Kuwait, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. In addition, Iran seeks to destabilize Jordan and the West Bank in Israel—given their large Palestinian populations—through a continuation and intensification of the war in Gaza. For Iran, the attack on Egypt’s economy by shutting down revenue from the Suez Canal opens the possibility of undermining Egypt’s relationship with Israel. A glance at a map of the region reveals that breaking the Egypt-Israel detente is a grand prize in this strategy of encirclement.
Meanwhile, Israel faces its own Iranian effort at encirclement. The war on Hamas in Gaza, the strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the attacks on Iranian-backed militias in Syria are all aimed to break this localized Iranian strategy. Obviously, Israel’s military efforts serve the objective interests of the Saudi and Gulf State elite, though they cannot publicly admit it.
To the north of the Fertile Crescent, Turkey reaps as many benefits as possible by being an economic middleman for Putin’s Russia. Erdogan’s anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism remain, for the moment, largely performative; other than making provocative comments about Israeli genocide directed at the Palestinians, Erdogan has kept Turkey out of the recent conflict in Israel.
Now the Arab Gulf states are in an incredible bind: Their leaders know that they need Western support against an Iran that is likely to go nuclear in the near future, and some of them can see the value in at least a quiet alliance with Israel. But their people—and many of their leaders—hate the Jews and have been indoctrinated over generations to seek the genocide not just of the Jews in Israel, but also worldwide. Any overt alliance with Israel is out for the foreseeable future, since any such move would endanger their regimes. Iran has successfully driven a wedge between their adversaries.
One thing is clear: While the West must support Israel to achieve a decisive victory in Gaza, by securing the death or unconditional surrender of both Hamas’ leadership and their supporters, this is only one small piece of a much broader war. Israel will need strong Western support against an all-out attack from the north by Hezbollah. How this may be accomplished is open to question. The United States just announced the withdrawal of the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group from the Eastern Mediterranean, thereby reducing the American presence once again in the Middle East. By withdrawing this naval presence from the Eastern Mediterranean, the current administration in Washington is inviting Iran to intensify its proxy wars against Israel while signaling to the Saudis a fecklessness that endangers American interests throughout the region.
Furthermore, stopping the attacks in the Red Sea will require an ongoing naval and airborne commitment to protect shipping, combined with both direct attacks on the Houthi forces and renewed support for Saudi proxies in Yemen. And most importantly, if the United States and its European allies want to see an end to these proxy attacks on freedom of the seas, Western interests, and Western allies, it will be necessary to show the leaders of Iran that the kinetic consequences will not be limited to their proxies and catspaws.
These consequences should start with strong Western sponsorship for insurgencies, within Iran, by ethnic minorities including (but not limited to) the Kurds, the Azerbaijanis, and other disaffected religious and ethnic groups. In addition, a serious economic price needs to be extracted through attacks on the oil terminals that the Iranians are using to dodge international sanctions. Punitive strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities, as well as critical infrastructure and missile production hubs, are certainly called for. Such punishments are beyond the capacity of the Israelis and will require resources from the United States. If the Iranians can use proxies to attack Western interests and allies, surely the United States can facilitate attacks by proxies of our own.