Renewed Houthi Maritime Strikes Highlight Difficulties Eliminating Iran's Regional Proxy Network

In early July, Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels resumed maritime strikes on vessels passing through the Red Sea, abandoning a US ceasefire that had held since May. The attacks—and the similar skirmishes that have followed in the intervening weeks—follow a familiar Houthi playbook: impose costs on international shipping to pressure Israel and its Western partners to end the conflict in Gaza. Their resumption was closely followed by reports of stepped-up Iranian efforts to rearm its various proxies and rebuild its proxy network that has been decimated by Israeli efforts and the fall of Syria's Assad regime. The Houthis' resurgence exemplifies the structural obstacles to meaningfully eliminating Iran's various proxies and the likelihood of continued challenges to the stability of the Middle East, its economy, and global logistics.