Our chronically clueless press was obsessed by the fact that a left-wing journalist somehow found himself part of a Signal conversation about planned attacks on the Houthis. Maybe someday we will find out how Jeffrey Goldberg turned up in that chat group, but frankly I don’t much care. The conversation conducted by Trump administration officials was terrific, and it had the right result–a long overdue, and devastating, attack on the terrorist Houthis.
The American press isn’t interested, but the Telegraph brings us up to date: “Iran abandons Houthis under relentless US bombardment.”
Iran has ordered military personnel to leave Yemen, abandoning its Houthi allies as the US escalates an air strike campaign against the rebel group.
A senior Iranian official said the move aimed to avoid direct confrontation with the US if an Iranian soldier was killed.
The official said Iran was also scaling back its strategy of supporting a network of regional proxies to focus on the direct threats from the US instead.
Tehran’s primary concern, the source said, was “Trump and how to deal with him”.
“Every meeting is dominated by discussions about him, and none of the regional groups we previously supported are being discussed,” the source said.
Excellent. If what follows is correct, it is huge:
The regime source in Iran said: “The view here is that the Houthis will not be able to survive and are living their final months or even days, so there is no point in keeping them on our list.
“They were part of a chain that relied on Nasrallah [the former secretary-general of Hezbollah] and Assad, and keeping only one part of that chain for the future makes no sense.”
More at the link, including a discussion of the “defensive” position taken by the Biden administration toward the Houthis, which included delisting them as a terrorist organization in 2021. The measures Trump and his team are now taking should have been taken long ago.
