The minimum you must know

According to President Trump, the Houthis said, “Please don't bomb us any more and we're not going to attack your ships.” This resolved the matter from the perspective of the United States. President Trump agreed to a complete cessation on May 6, 2025 as a result.

Yemen is unintentionally giving the United States and NATO the rhetorical gift of civilian air travel deterrence, because by publicly taking responsibility for aviation incidences, the Houthis rebels are granting airplane executives and regulators a full and complete release from liability resulting from any past or future aviation incidences. The Houthis are nearly aligned with NATO in deterring this way.

The current and previous U.S administrations both intervened militarily in Yemen in March 2025 and January 2024, respectively. Yemen is an important shipping route that all sides wish to remain free. The U.S. also sides with Saudi Arabia when proxy disputes seem to develop for Saudi Arabia with Iran there.

According to the United States, Iran has been arming groups in the region with very advanced weapons. And they have used them to sink several ships, according to newspaper reports. They may have been local vessels originating from Persian Gulf countries. "The level of support…. here is the Houthis have incredibly sophisticated air defenses, and they also have anti-shipping cruise missiles, drones, sea-skimming types of attack drones and other ballistic missiles even; they've launched dozens of attacks on multiple warships; dozens of attacks — over 175 on global commerce — sank multiple ships; I just think the American people need to understand what has happened here."

President Trump is leading on peaceful Abraham Accords for Israel, which the United States hopes can improve the U.S. relationship with the entire region, and return parties within the region to peaceful cooperation. (Please scroll down the Vatican peace page for more information on the interfaith peace agreement written by President Trump's family, personally.) Perhaps that can be an opportunity to resolve matters in Yemen as well.

The tough attitude to protect the water route is understandable from all sides. But it always helps when countries globally surface peace in the news - or at least neglect to surface concepts to the contrary. And that possibility exists here.

There have been no U.S. casualties in the area whatsoever, and losses on the other side. So ethical concerns may develop if reason doesn’t prevail. There’s every reason for the United States to prefer peace. This writer urges Muslim countries to introduce the Islamic concepts about “peace” and “mutual surrender” to the U.S. media. That may help communication a lot. Telling the media that “slam” means “peace” and “Islam” means “mutual surrender” would be an astonishingly helpful thing to do right now. (The Yemen leadership regularly sets a great example at the United Nations.)

CNN heroically used the word “surrender” that way in graphics writing recently. That doesn’t mean that peace and mutual surrender will necessarily follow. But this reflects a bipartisan desire for peace.

All sides in the Yemen civil conflict are aligned with the Palestinians, and therefore - for a short time - made shipping near the Yemeni coast difficult for U.S. and European vessels in response to the conflict in Gaza. There are sometimes local conflicts. But the Palestinian matter probably unified the groups there. Resolving the Palestinian matter may make U.S.-Iranian relations easier to improve in the water ways there.

The Yemeni people have worked tireless for peace, and clearly want and deserve peace. Peace and reconstruction of Yemeni cities would benefit the population substantially. That's the right way for the region to proceed with international support.

The United States and Europe do need commodities and goods to pass easily through the water ways there. So one strategy that might become successful is for all sides in Yemen to promise to protect trade routes for NATO. That way NATO doesn't have a reason to be in the region anymore. The United States prefers not to be drawn into foreign state affairs, as we learned from the recent voluntary NATO departure from Afghanistan first promised by the Trump administration and later followed through on by the Biden administration. Groups in the region could simply offer to protect trade ships that pass through.

Here are President Rashad Mohammed Al-Alimi's comments to the United Nations.

The United States and China were both leading on peace for Yemen for several years prior to the events in Israel. Iran (traditionally a security competitor of the United States) and Saudi Arabia (traditionally a security alliance for the United States) made peace between them in Yemen. Probably that improvement in relations can continue and benefit the area.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are regional superpowers that were supporting opposing proxies in a civil conflict. But that past isn't becoming the future. They were encouraged by the United States and China to achieve peace. Hostilities dramatically reduced and the international community started looking at ways to help the population economically.