Donald Trump called off airstrikes against the Houthis at the last minute — reportedly as bombs were being loaded onto aircraft — after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally implored him to intervene. The reversal gave Houthi fighters a free window to advance on strategic mountain terrain in Yemen's Taiz province that, if held, would sever the Red Sea coast from government-held territory and the southern port city of Aden. The Houthis' ground offensive has been rapid and consequential. The Iran-aligned group now controls much of Yemen's Red Sea coast and has pushed to areas adjacent to the Bab al-Mandab strait, a chokepoint Saudi Arabia has relied on as an alternative oil export route since disruption began in the Strait of Hormuz. Fighting has centered on the Al-Wazi'iyah district and Ras al-Ara along the Indian Ocean coast, with Houthi forces aiming to secure the rear of their positions around the strait by taking the Kahboub mountains. Trump's signals to Riyadh have been incoherent. He told reporters in Ireland that the Houthis "called us, and they don't want to fight us" and were "allowing ships to pass" the strait. He dismissed the conflict as limited to "one country" — meaning Saudi Arabia — and promised to "take care of fixing that." Days later, he ordered the Pentagon to prepare strikes after MBS's call, then reversed again. Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi spoke to Trump on Sunday and received no direct pledge of military support. Saudi Arabia has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Houthi mountain positions in recent days with little discernible impact on the advance. The Houthis claimed Saturday to have fired on Riyadh itself, where columns of smoke were visible near the main airport. The UN reports at least 125,000 people displaced since September, with Taiz city absorbing up to 86,000. The deeper structural problem is the erosion of America's Gulf security compact. Washington bombed the Houthis for two months in early 2025, then stopped after a ceasefire and has stayed out since. With midterm elections looming and the broader US-Israeli campaign against Iran widely regarded as a failure — Trump's approval sits at record lows with falling support for the Iran war — the administration's revealed priority is securing some oil flow through Hormuz while avoiding new entanglements. That calculus produces a specific long-term risk: Gulf states concluding that Washington's defense umbrella is performative. Saudi Arabia already views the US as an unreliable ally. If the security-for-oil understanding breaks down, the architecture of energy markets and Middle Eastern alignment that has held since the 1970s begins to decompose. The Houthis seizing the Kahboub mountains is a tactical development. The US refusing to defend the arrangement that underpins its own energy security is a structural one. The immediate question is whether the Houthis can consolidate their mountain positions before Saudi airstrikes or a second Trump reversal changes the equation. Every day of indecision is a day of fortification. The terrain, once held, becomes vastly harder to retake — and the diplomatic damage from the flip-flop is already done.
