Iran International
An Iranian plane landing in Houthi-controlled Yemen looked like an oddly minor victory for Tehran. But it may have been the opening move in an effort to rebuild the allied force capable of threatening a second global maritime chokepoint alongside the Strait of Hormuz.
As the US-Iran memorandum of understanding unravels and the confrontation shifts toward the Strait of Hormuz, renewed fighting in Yemen is raising a broader question: is Tehran preparing another source of maritime pressure at Bab al-Mandab?
Hezbollah and Hamas have been severely weakened by Israeli military operations. The Houthis, by contrast, remain armed, entrenched and positioned astride one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Even a credible threat to Bab al-Mandab could unsettle shipping, energy markets and global supply chains. For Iran, that threat alone may be valuable.
The fight over one airplane
The latest escalation followed Yemen's decision to block an Iranian aircraft carrying a Houthi delegation returning from the funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran. Yemen's internationally recognized government accused Iran of attempting to enter its airspace without authorization.
The dispute quickly escalated. An attack damaged Sanaa International Airport's runway. The Houthis blamed Riyadh before targeting Saudi Arabia's Abha International Airport with missiles and drones.
Senior Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti later warned of what he described as a "siege" of the Kingdom and openly identified Bab al-Mandab as a strategic pressure point.
"The key thing here was the precedent," Chatham House fellow Thomas Juneau told Iran International. "Iran and the Houthis are trying to force open the air bridge between Tehran and Sanaa."
Iran has long supplied the Houthis through maritime smuggling routes stretching around Oman and the Horn of Africa. Those routes are slow, costly and vulnerable to interdiction.
A direct air bridge would dramatically improve Tehran's ability to move sensitive military components into Houthi-controlled territory. That is why one apparently ordinary passenger flight mattered.
Rebuilding the Houthis
Farzin Nadimi, a defense and security analyst at the Washington Institute, believes Iran's urgency reflects another problem: after years of Red Sea operations and repeated US and Israeli strikes, the Houthis are running low on some of their more advanced military capabilities.
"They are very much eager to help the Houthis rebuild their strategic inventory in order to be a viable player again," he said.
Nadimi suspects the aircraft may have been carrying critical weapons components, although there is no independent confirmation of its cargo.
Modern missile and drone forces depend less on complete weapons than on a steady flow of electronics, guidance systems, engines and other specialized components.
If the Houthis are running low, a direct air link would offer Tehran a faster and more reliable route to replenish those capabilities.
A second chokepoint
The strategic importance extends well beyond Yemen.
The dispute between Tehran and Washington is already centered on the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has demonstrated the leverage that can be created by threatening one of the world's most important energy corridors.
A revitalized Houthi force capable of disrupting Bab al-Mandab would force Washington, Saudi Arabia and their regional partners to consider the security of two strategic waterways simultaneously.
"Iran, having demonstrated the extraordinary value for itself of closing the Strait of Hormuz, absolutely understands that if it closes both Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab at the same time, the effect would be magnified," Juneau said.
"The effect on the global economy, the ability to pressure the US, to pressure Saudi Arabia and to pressure all of their allies."
Juneau cautioned that neither Tehran nor the Houthis appear poised to close Bab al-Mandab in the near term. But the ability to credibly threaten it would give Iran another source of strategic leverage.
Yemeni-American researcher and author Fatima Abo Alasrar believes the latest confrontation was deliberately engineered by Tehran.
"I think, honestly, Iran has engineered this escalation," she said.
In her view, widening the potential cost of confrontation creates another avenue through which Tehran can shape future negotiations with Washington.
Saudi Arabia's red line
The confrontation also threatens to upset the fragile balance that has prevailed in Yemen since the 2022 truce.
Saudi Arabia has spent years trying to extricate itself from a costly war that increasingly looked unwinnable.
"It's really Saudi Arabia that's been absorbing a lot of the pain here," Juneau said.
The Houthis understood Riyadh's reluctance to return to full-scale conflict and repeatedly tested how far they could push.
The attempt to establish a direct air bridge between Tehran and Sanaa appears to have crossed a different threshold.
Saudi Arabia may still prefer de-escalation. But allowing Iran an easier route to replenish Houthi military capabilities would strengthen an armed group positioned directly on its southern border and potentially restore its ability to threaten Saudi cities, airports and energy infrastructure.
Alasrar described Saudi Arabia and the Houthis as pieces on a much larger geopolitical chessboard.
"Houthis and Saudis are almost like pieces on a chessboard that are fighting with each other right now," she said. "But it's Iran and the US that get to impose everything."
Whether the Houthis intend to launch a renewed campaign around Bab al-Mandab remains uncertain. Juneau cautions they are not simply Iranian proxies waiting for orders, while Nadimi expects de-escalation unless the wider US-Iran confrontation expands significantly.
Hormuz has already demonstrated the leverage created by maritime chokepoints. Iran may not even need the Houthis to close Bab al-Mandab. If it succeeds in rebuilding their capabilities, simply making the threat credible could become a source of strategic pressure in its own right.
"We're taking over the strait. They've got nothing," Trump said in a phone interview with Fox News.
Trump said the United States would assume responsibility for protecting shipping through the strait and expected other Middle Eastern countries to pay for the mission.
"And we're going to keep the strait, and we'll probably run it. We'll become the guardian of the strait. Maybe we'll call it the 'guardian angel of the strait.' And we should be reimbursed for that. When we do that, we're going to be reimbursed because the other nations are very wealthy, they're on our side."
He later elaborated on the proposal in a Truth Social post, saying Washington would restore a blockade targeting Iranian shipping while allowing all other commercial traffic to pass.
"The Hormuz strait is open, and will remain open, with or without Iran. We are reinstating the Iranian blockade, so named because it is only stopping Iran's ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the strait," he said.
"The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as 'the guardian of the Hormuz strait,'" Trump added.
He also said the United States would charge countries using the waterway a fee equal to 20% of the value of cargo shipped to cover "any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World." It was not immediately clear whether US allies had agreed to such an arrangement.
Trump said his administration had believed it had reached a lasting understanding with Tehran before deciding Iran had violated it.
"What nobody knows, we had a deal. It was a done deal, and then they broke it. They always break it. We've had 10 deals with these people, and so we're just going to hit them very hard."
The remarks came after the United States carried out another round of strikes against Iran following Iranian attacks on US facilities across the Persian Gulf and Tehran's renewed declaration that the Strait of Hormuz was closed.
The exchange has effectively collapsed the interim memorandum of understanding reached in June, which had aimed to reopen the waterway and provide a framework for further negotiations.
Iran says it charges less
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected Trump's statement that Washington would become the strait's guardian.
"POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service," he said. "Iran has always been the guardian of the Strait and will remain so forever. 20% is of course too much. We will be fair."
New attacks on nuclear sites
Trump also said on Monday that Iran's Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site could soon become a US target.
Speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said the United States was closely monitoring the deeply buried facility.
"A nice big fat shot right in the front door," Trump said, adding the United States would "probably give Pickaxe a shot relatively soon."
Trump also indicated further military action was imminent.
"It was a test. We didn't know," he said of the memorandum of understanding with Iran. "Memorandums of understanding, when you're dealing with sleazebags, don't mean much. It was sort of a test, and they weren't there. They didn't honor the test."
The renewed campaign has also reignited opposition in Congress.
Democratic Senator Adam Schiff said he would introduce a new War Powers Resolution this week to force another Senate vote on ending US military involvement in Iran, while Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump's "so-called understanding" with Iran had collapsed.
"Enough is enough. End the war," Schumer wrote on X.
Critics from both parties also argued the administration was stretching its legal authority. "The president can't just wish away months of war he said would last only four to six weeks," a senior Democratic aide in the House of Representatives told Reuters.
Meanwhile, the US military operation has continued alongside Trump's remarks. US Central Command said American forces have struck more than 300 Iranian military targets over the past week and announced additional attacks on Monday.
"These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz," CENTCOM said.
