The United States and Israel launched major airstrikes against Iran beginning on February 28, killing dozens of senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and inflicting extensive damage to the country’s military infrastructure. Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Lebanon have since escalated attacks in response. Yet nearly two weeks later, one of Tehran’s most capable and disruptive regional allies, Yemen’s Houthi movement, has not entered the fight. Despite deploying missile launchers along the Red Sea and warning its “fingers are on the trigger,” the group has so far held fire.
The Houthis’ restraint reflects a strategic calculation by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Decisions of how and when to intervene are determined by the Axis of Resistance Joint Operation room, run by the IRGC’s Quds Force, which oversees its foreign military, intelligence, and unconventional warfare activities. For Tehran, the overriding objective is regime survival. In response to the US-Israeli campaign, Iran has expanded the confrontation across at least a dozen countries, including the Gulf states, targeting energy infrastructure and other civilian and military facilities. By widening and prolonging the conflict, Tehran hopes to raise the economic and political costs of the war, betting that sustained pressure will eventually push Washington to seek an off-ramp.
Internal disagreements about when to bring in the Houthis
Reports suggest there are disagreements among IRGC operatives working with the Houthis inside Yemen over how to respond. According to sources the author spoke to, some have advocated for the Houthis to enter the fight, while others argue that the group should be preserved for a later and more decisive stage of the conflict. This hesitation stems from concerns within the IRGC and the Houthis themselves about the risk of exposure to another round of sustained US military pressure. The US and Israeli airstrikes carried out during Operation Rough Rider in 2025 inflicted significant losses on the Houthis, killing senior commanders and experts in missile and drone units, disrupting internal communications and command-and-control structures, and destroying key military infrastructure. The killing of their top military leader, Mohammed al-Ghamari, who was the main liaison between the Houthis and the IRGC, was particularly significant. Nonetheless, the Houthis withstood the US bombing campaign and avoided the scale of leadership decapitation and organizational disruption suffered, for example, by Lebanese Hizballah at the hands of the Israelis. Since then, the Iran-backed Yemeni militia has been regrouping and rebuilding its capabilities.
Given Israel’s renewed, high-tempo campaign to militarily neutralize Hizballah, and as the Iraqi militias themselves come under intense suppressive airstrikes, the Houthis are now Iran’s last major proxy standing and best positioned to restore Iran’s regional leverage. As such, the Houthis are not only Iran’s final line of defense but potentially also the IRGC’s strategic lifeline should the Islamic Republic regime itself collapse. Involving them in the current conflict, therefore, is a step Iran is approaching cautiously. Esmail Kowsari, a former senior IRGC commander and current member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, recently stated that the Houthis will have a “special role” in the regional war that would be carried out “at the appropriate time.”
Over the past decade, the IRGC’s Quds Force has helped the Houthis build an increasingly sophisticated military-industrial and smuggling network, enabling the group to produce weapons domestically while sourcing components through a global web of procurement and illicit trade. Preserving this infrastructure is critical for the IRGC as it seeks to consolidate and expand its asymmetric influence across the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. The Houthis’ position inside Yemen and their ability to project power in the region lie at the heart of this network.
It remains unclear when and how the Houthis will ultimately respond. What is clearer, however, is that their intervention will likely be shaped by Tehran’s evolving strategy rather than purely local calculations in Sana’a. As long as Iran believes it can impose economic and political pressure on the United States and its allies through broader regional escalation, the Houthis may remain largely in reserve. But the longer the conflict continues, the more likely it becomes that the group will be drawn more directly into the fight.
Possible scenarios of Houthi involvement
One possibility is a measured escalation. In this scenario, the Houthis would seek to signal solidarity with Iran and raise the costs of the war without triggering a massive US military response that could threaten their hold over northern Yemen. This could include renewed attacks on vessels linked to Israel in the Red Sea, or missile and drone strikes launched toward Israel.
The Houthis could also resume cross-border attacks against Saudi Arabia, which the group has repeatedly threatened since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, accusing Riyadh of serving the “American and Israeli” agenda to take control of the region. The group might perceive this option as a relatively safe one. Previous Houthi strikes deep inside Saudi territory helped push the kingdom toward negotiations that ultimately led to a UN-brokered truce in 2022, which significantly reduced cross-border attacks. Targeting Saudi Arabia could maintain the Houthis’ legitimacy as a member of the Axis of Resistance and increase regional pressure in support of Iran while minimizing the risk of large-scale retaliation.
A second, more consequential scenario would involve full escalation. In this case, the Houthis could deploy their considerable arsenal of missiles, drones, naval mines, and anti-ship weapons to disrupt maritime traffic across the Red Sea and target a wider range of regional actors in an effort to raise the economic costs of the war and prolong the conflict. Such actions could include sustained missile and drone attacks on Israel, widespread disruption of commercial shipping, and strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure. Combined with Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, intensified Houthi attacks in the Red Sea could worsen an already unprecedented disruption of global maritime trade, further driving up shipping and energy costs and increasing international pressure to end the conflict.
Yet such escalation would carry significant risks. It could provoke renewed US and Israeli airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen and potentially push Saudi Arabia to abandon its fragile détente with the group and support the Yemeni government in taking military action to dislodge it. In that sense, full escalation would represent a far more dangerous phase of the conflict and one Iran may seek to avoid. Tehran is less likely to activate this option unless it believes the survival of the Iranian regime itself is at stake and other strategies have failed to generate sufficient pressure on Washington.
Axis partner of last resort
The Houthis appear to function within Iran’s broader strategy as a strategic reserve. Decades of IRGC investment have helped the group establish a domestic military production capacity through a smuggling network that anchors Tehran’s influence across the Red Sea and into the Horn of Africa. Beyond providing Iran with a capable proxy force, this infrastructure offers a platform for projecting influence along maritime routes linking the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Prematurely exposing this system through reckless escalation would therefore carry significant costs for the IRGC.
For these reasons, the Houthis may represent far more than just another Iranian proxy. They may instead constitute Iran’s most strategically positioned regional partner, one that Tehran will likely deploy carefully and selectively. Their eventual entry into the conflict may therefore say less about the Houthis’ own ambitions and more about Tehran’s assessment of how the war is unfolding.
Nadwa Al-Dawsari is an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Institute.
الصورة من تصوير محمد حمود/Getty Images
معهد الشرق الأوسط (MEI) هو منظمة تعليمية مستقلة وغير حزبية وغير ربحية. لا يشارك المعهد في أي أنشطة دعوية، وآراء الباحثين فيه تعبر عن آرائهم الشخصية. يرحب المعهد بالتبرعات المالية، لكنه يحتفظ بالسيطرة التحريرية الكاملة على أعماله، ولا تعكس منشوراته سوى آراء المؤلفين. للاطلاع على قائمة المتبرعين للمعهد، يرجى النقر هنا.
Why Iran’s Militant Kurds Stayed out of the US-Iran War
