Bombing a stop gap, regime change a must - Supporting the anti-Houthi Yemeni people in the south and Iranian minority groups could help bring change in both countries.

By: Joseph Puder

May 11, 2025

The Houthis in Yemen crossed the red line last week, as far as Israel is concerned. They targeted Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport with a ballistic missile that caused a crater near the entrance to the airport.

As the Houthis touted their major “achievement,” foreign airlines canceled flights to and from the Jewish state, a cowardly step that only encourages more such attacks.

Israel retaliated immediately by striking the strategic port of Hudaydah in Yemen using 20 aircraft. Coordinated with the United States, “Operation Port City” targeted the port, a concrete plant and cargo docks, and it led to the destruction of concrete structures.

Despite weeks of American aerial attacks on Houthi targets, it was not enough to stop the Houthis from continuing to fire missiles at U.S. ships and targets in Israel.

The radical Islamist regimes of ayatollahs in Iran, Houthis in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza are not deterred by the destruction of their economic resources or their civilian infrastructures. Nor does the loss of civilian life deter them from continuing their terror campaigns. The Houthis, in particular, care little about the welfare of their civilian population and know that the Islamist fanaticism of their uneducated masses will continue to support their regime.  What matters to these regimes is their survival, and, therefore, the only solution is regime change.

The regime in Iran is largely immune to American sanctions. They might cause pain to the general Iranian population, but not to the governing elites. The Iranian regime has managed to endure mass demonstrations in the streets of the country’s large cities, largely because of reprisals, such as imprisoning or outright killing those who led such anti-regime demonstrations. The regime’s survival is all that matters to the ayatollahs and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Yemen is among the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world. The country is divided between the Iranian proxy group Zaydi-Shi’ite Houthis in the north and the government of the Republic of Yemen in the south. The Houthis maintain control of the capital city, Sana’a, while the anti-Houthi Yemeni groups hold the key port of Aden, and much of the southern and eastern parts of the country. Providing them with more sophisticated arms, while employing American and Israeli air support, could potentially eliminate the Houthis from Sana’a and end their power in Yemen.

For now, the Houthis are sustained by Iran, which supplies them with sophisticated ballistic missiles and drones. Tehran’s strategy against the United States and Israel is to use the Houthis to paralyze international shipping, costing the trading nations and their Western allies billions. Yemen’s strategic location at the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial maritime route for global trade and oil shipment, has enabled the Houthis and Iran to intimidate and create chaos against primarily Western maritime transport.

U.S. President Donald Trump authorized airstrikes on Houthi targets on March 25, declaring that the terror group “fired missiles at U.S. aircraft, and targeted our troops and allies. Their piracy, violence and terrorism cost billions and put lives at risk.”

Those strikes came to a halt on May 6, when the president announced the end of the bombing campaign, saying the Houthis had said that they would stop targeting U.S. ships. “We will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated,” said Trump, “but more importantly, we will take their word … . ”

Significantly, Trump left missile attacks on Israel out of this equation.

Moreover, how can the United States trust the words of a terrorist group? Trump has, in essence, left Israel to deal alone with the Iranian-backed terror group.

It seems that while negotiating with the Iranians on the nuclear project, a separate deal was concocted between the Trump administration and the Iranian negotiators to end the Houthi attacks on American and Western shipping. It is doubtful that the Iranians would have included an end to the Houthi attacks on Israel, or that the Houthis would have been ready to do so independently, given their support for Hamas in Gaza. True, the weeks-long American attacks on Houthi targets might have prompted them to seek a truce, but the Iranian regime is, nevertheless, the main arbiter insofar as the Houthis are concerned.

It is no secret that removing the “snake’s head,” the Islamic Republic of Iran, is the ultimate solution to relative peace in the Mideast. Western powers, including the United States, have never seriously supported the many rebel groups in Iran, including the various minority groups, such as the Kurds, the Baloch and Ahwazi Arabs, and the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.

Such support, combined with economic pressure and the Iranian people’s contempt for the ayatollahs’ regime, could very possibly usher in serious regime change in Iran and Yemen.