Bloomberg reports Wednesday that the United States is currently in talks with Saudi-supported Yemeni forces (who have long fought the Houthi rebels) to cobble together a possible new land offensive to send against the Shia militant group which is allied to Iran.
“Yemeni forces opposed to the Houthis are in talks with the US and Gulf Arab allies about a possible land offensive to oust the militant group from the Red Sea coast, according to people involved in the discussions,” Bloomberg writes.
The report follows with, “The conversations come about a month into a US-led aerial assault against the Houthis ordered by President Donald Trump, an operation yet to achieve its aim of ending the Iran-backed group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, a vital trade route, and Israel.”
And The Wall Street Journal first reported Monday that the US is considering a ground assault, given the Houthis have proven impossible to dislodge merely through airstrikes, which have been intense and ongoing since March 15.
The group in question is the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) of former Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The PLC is the ‘internationally recognized’ government, but which is now based in Saudi Arabia (in exile), given the Houthis have de fact control over most of the country.
The Saudi-UAE-US coalition had already waged an aerial as well as proxy ground war from 2015 to 2022, which killed hundreds of thousand of people and blocked vital resources for the starved population, but the whole campaign did nothing to oust the Houthis – in fact quite the opposite as they became entrenched in the most important strategic sites.
The prior WSJ report mentioned that US mercenaries are already being used to coordinate with anti-Houthi factions on the ground:
Private American security contractors provided advice to the Yemeni factions on a potential ground operation, people involved in the planning said. The United Arab Emirates, which supports these factions, raised the plan with American officials in recent weeks, the U.S. and Yemeni officials said.
The U.S. is open to supporting a ground operation by local forces, the U.S. officials said, while noting that a decision on whether to back the effort hasn’t been made yet. The U.S. isn’t leading the talks for a ground operation, the officials added. The discussion involves empowering the local factions allied with the internationally recognized government in Yemen to take charge of the country’s security, they said.
But again, this has been tried before and utterly failed. This time the Houthis are even more emboldened given they possess ballistic missiles and drones capable of reaching both Israel and US warships deep in the Red Sea.
And throw in private American contractors to the mix, attempting to do what the US-Saudi coalition in Yemen couldn’t accomplish for a half-decade, and you have a half-baked plan which is sure to be a mess, quagmire, and losing proposition.
👉Buzz about US supporting another proxy ground war in #Yemen is getting louder. @stavroulapabst https://t.co/BLCNFHCCBn
— Kelley B. Vlahos (@KelleyBVlahos) April 16, 2025
The US should also look back on its experience in Afghanistan. But this is no doubt why it is mulling greater use of proxies and mercenaries, and not regular US forces. Even if committed to a ‘limited’ ground operation using proxies, there’s always the potential for serious escalation which leads to direct Pentagon boots on the ground. The whole Yemen campaign seems a ‘no win’ situation, and is ultimately to the greater benefit of Israel – and not necessarily Washington.
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