President Trump wants the Houthis to be “completely annihilated.”
He has ordered several rounds of air strikes across Yemen, killing dozens of people. But the military campaign has done little to deter the Yemeni group, which appears to have intensified its missile attacks on Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza.
Beyond the efficacy of the offensive, Trump is facing bipartisan opposition from Republicans and Democrats over the bombing spree.
The US president has campaigned on the promise of bringing peace to the region and the world and ending American military interventions.
So, Trump’s rush to bomb Yemen under the slogan of “freedom of navigation”, citing the Houthis’ Red Sea attacks as his predecessor Joe Biden did, has irked some of his Republican supporters.
Republican opposition
“I have not heard a single American say they want another war in the Middle East or anywhere else. Not one,” Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a close Trump ally, wrote on X.
“All I’ve heard is a loud cry demanding our government and its leaders ‘PUT AMERICA FIRST!’ I don’t support going to war on behalf of other countries.”
The suggestion here is that Trump is targeting the Houthis on behalf of Israel.
Republican Congressman Thomas Massie also criticized the administration over renewing the bombardment.
“We’re being conditioned to forget everything we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan. These are not our wars,” he said.
Even Vice President JD Vance seemed to have some reservations about the campaign, calling it a “mistake”.
In a text conversation between US officials on Signal that appeared to mistakenly include an Atlantic Magazine journalist, a user believed to be Vance expressed skepticism about the US strikes.
Vance argued that Europe is more affected by the disruption of shipping in the Red Sea than America.
“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices,” the vice president is reported to have written.
The apparent mistake of including a journalist to a Signal chat for war planning has brought more scrutiny against the offensive – especially from Democrats.
“Yemen was already facing a humanitarian crisis connected to prior bombing. Then the Trump Admin leaked plans to continue strikes…on Signal,” Democratic Congressman Congressman Chuy Garcia said.
“This isn’t just incompetence, it’s cruelty – resuming an illegal war without Congressional approval in one of the poorest places on earth.”
Progressives as well as some right-wing legislators have argued that Congress needs to authorise any strikes abroad, including against the Houthis.
Houthis defiant
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy raised three issues that he said should be discussed after the Signal debacle: “a decade old war that the US has … badly bungled; how US policy helped make the Houthis a regional menace; how Trump’s actions are illegal without a congressional authorization.”
The growing opposition to the bombing of Yemen highlights the bipartisan opposition to more US wars in the Middle East that have proven futile.
For now, the Houthis have shown defiance with both rhetoric and continuing attacks.
Head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council Mahdi al-Mashat warned Trump that Yemen has historically delivered the “final blows of arrogant empires.”
“Our positions in support of Gaza will not change until the aggression stops and the blockade is lifted no matter the consequences or results,” he said.
It is not clear whether further bombing will get the Houthis to stop their operations. The Yemeni group is demanding an end to the assault on Gaza to cease its attacks.
And Trump has said he fully backs the Israeli war, which has killed hundreds of Palestinians since it resumed earlier in March.
“Tremendous damage has been inflicted upon the Houthi barbarians, and watch how it will get progressively worse — It’s not even a fair fight, and never will be,” Trump said on March 19. “They will be completely annihilated!”
The Houthis launched two missiles at Israel in the 24 hours after that statement.
