The aftermath of US air strikes in Yemen, March 15, 2025. Vleckie Hone for Airwars
It’s telling that Americans discussing the March Signal leak detailing plans for the US air strikes on Yemen have focused more on White House emoji choices than the death tolls. This is what “over-the-horizon” warfare means for Americans now: it is not just that destruction rains down on distant peoples with no risk to American troops, but that war itself becomes abstract and even absurd as the public dwells on the national security adviser and vice president exchanging flag and fire glyphs as if they were in middle school.
The Signal leak was unprofessional, but no level of professionalism could change the fact that Operation “Rough Rider” was merely murderous political theater. At least nine children were killed alongside dozens of other civilians in the attacks of March 15–16, and more than 100 civilians have died in the hundreds of US air and sea strikes since.
The White House dismisses these civilian deaths as “collateral damage,” but neither Trump nor the other three presidents who have waged war on Yemen have presented any evidence that twenty years of US-Saudi cooperation to pummel and starve Yemen into submission has achieved anything. If 25,000 air strikes and the deaths of 9,000 civilians have not succeeded in “fixing” Yemen, why continue?
The real scandal here is not the boorish Signal chat, but that the goal is to exploit the terrorism narrative to persuade Americans that the Houthis, or Iran, or Islamist extremists are the volatile factors destabilizing the region, not opposition to US-funded slaughter in Gaza. And by continuing to do the Saudis’ dirty work in Yemen, Trump hopes to literally win Saudi buy-in for US goals.
The US Has Been at War in Yemen Since 2002
In 2002 the US carried out the first-ever targeted assassination by drone in the Yemen front of the War on Terror. Despite the addition of CIA and Special Operations ground units and high-profile kills—such as the 2011 drone executions of US citizen and Al Qaeda member Anwar al-Awlaki, and later two of his children, likewise US citizens—counterterrorism was failing. US violence was actually spurring increased anti-American extremism in Yemen, as well as keeping the corrupt but pro-Saudi Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in power.
The actors changed in 2012 when President Saleh was ousted by Arab Spring protests, and Saudi Arabia intervened to attempt to reinstall a compliant government. Over the next ten years the Saudis brought in mercenary troops from Egypt and Sudan, bombed its opponents, and blockaded the key Red Sea port of Hodeidah to starve the population into submission.
Saudi frenemy the United Arab Emirates (UAE) occupied the southern port of Aden and encouraged a secessionist movement. Amid the chaos, the Houthi movement, a regional group from the marginalized highlands that opposed the Saudi goals in Yemen, took over the capital Sanaa in 2015.
The Houthis are certainly not boy scouts, but neither are they proxies of Iran. Most importantly, however, whatever the level of Iranian support to the Houthis, it pales in comparison to the deadly contribution of the US to the war in Yemen. The UAE employed US defense aid and US mercenaries to run detention centers and engage in targeted killings; the Saudi blockade relied on US naval support; and the Saudi bombing campaigns required US intelligence, technical assistance, and a steady stream of ordnance. Although Congress revoked the war powers authorization for US actions in Yemen in 2019, US support rolled on, hidden behind a “Saudi coalition” that functioned only courtesy of US support.
In 2021 the UN estimated that the war had caused nearly 400,000 deaths, seventy percent of which were of children. The US bears the responsibility for these deaths, not Iran.
Striking Yemen to Silence Opposition to the Gaza War
The White House claims that air strikes on Yemen are countering lawless Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping and Israel, but the Houthis are not the only group violating international law. As a UN member Israel had the right to national defense after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, but its response has been to extinguish life in Gaza with air strikes, large-scale displacement, and starvation tactics for more than a year. The US has not only vetoed UN efforts to end the Israeli war but has flouted the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza by hosting him at the White House. Rather than pressure Israel to end the war crimes, the US became complicit in them by increasing aid to Israel from $3 billion annually to nearly $18 billion over the past year.
The US could choose to use its aid leverage to push Israel to end the war crimes in Gaza, but instead it has chosen to silence Houthi denunciation of the war crimes. It dismisses the Houthis and their actions as evidence of terrorist sympathies and antisemitism. Not surprisingly, these are the same charges used against those opposing the Gaza war within the US, as if only antisemites and terrorists would object to the bloodshed that has cost the lives of over 50,000 in Gaza so far.
It’s Not About Iran, It’s About Saudi Arabia
The misleading but often-invoked label “Iran-backed Houthi militia” combines a basketful of discreditations popular with the American public, but hides the real motivation for US bombing in Yemen. Flattening Yemeni villages may send a message to Iran, but the real goal here is to assure the Saudis that the US will continue to do their dirty work in the region if they stay quiet on the horror in Gaza.
For the last twenty years the US has supported Saudi objectives in Yemen with direct and indirect military action, often linked to other goals. The US refueled Saudi bombers over Yemen and ignored the Saudis’ use of child mercenaries in 2014–15 to win acquiescence for the Iran nuclear deal. In 2017 Trump tore up the deal and increased the drone strikes on Yemen as a favor to his new business allies in Riyadh. The Gaza war created another inducement for the US to serve as Saudi’s proxy in Yemen, and in January, 2024 Joe Biden reinitiated direct US airstrikes. Even Biden admitted that the airstrikes were ineffective in ending Houthi attacks on shipping, but the attacks continued.
Trump’s goals build on both this history and his own priorities. The $600 billion of possible investments in the US the Saudis dangled in front of Trump in January, 2025, were another powerful incentive for the US to bomb its way into Riyadh’s heart. And Trump is intent on winning the Saudis over to the Abraham Accords, which is not so much a peace deal as a pact between current signatories (Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco) to ignore human rights abuses among friends and pursue trade and access to Israeli surveillance technology. Bringing the Saudis on board will do little to resolve the injustice fueling anger in the region, but it might help Trump find the validation he wants in a Nobel Peace Prize. Trump flattered the kingdom in his first term by making it the destination of his first overseas trip. He is repeating the honor by again making the kingdom the inaugural destination in his second term. Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia is scheduled for May, and we can anticipate heavy bombing in Yemen until then.
Yemen’s Children Join Those of Gaza as Collateral Damage in this War
Trump, Netanyahu, and the Saudi monarchy all win with the US bombing of Yemen. It allows Trump to look like a statesman to Americans familiar with the “Iran-backed Houthi terrorist” branding. But the only strategy here is to silence critics of failed US policies in the region, whether those critics are found in the UN, on college campuses, or on the shores of the Red Sea. Most importantly, for those collateral damage victims at the other end of “over-the-horizon” warfare, it still feels like death.
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