The Houthis (Yemen) enter the war

As reported in The Guardian:

The US-Israeli war with Iran has expanded with the entry of Houthi forces in Yemen, representing a dangerous spread of the conflict and bringing with it the threat of more damage to the global economy...

Multiple outlets reported that the Houthis, the Iran-aligned militant group in Yemen, had attacked Israel for a second time in less than 24 hours, after joining the war on Saturday.

Despite US claims to have devastated Iran’s military, Reuters cited intelligence sources as saying Washington could only be certain it had destroyed a third of Iran’s missile and drone arsenal.

US media reported that a missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia wounded at least 12 US soldiers, two of them seriously. Drones also struck Kuwait international airport on Saturday, causing significant damage to its radar system...

The entry of the Houthis, who control Yemen’s most populous areas, poses a direct threat to the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, a second major choke point in the supply chain of energy supplies and other trade in and out of the Middle East.

With Iran’s near total closure of the strait of Hormuz, a shutdown of the Bab al-Mandab, located between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, would amplify the already grave impact of the war on the global economy, and could also reignite a Saudi-Yemen conflict that caused huge humanitarian suffering for seven years before a 2022 truce.

Since the US-Israeli attack on Iran on 28 February, Saudi Arabia has been able to divert some of its oil exports by pipeline to the Red Sea. Saudi commentators have said that if this route was also threatened, Riyadh could also enter the war directly.

More at the link.  And more re the Houthis.

I think it's clear to anyone not relying on U.S. news sources that this war is not winding down anytime soon.   The Trump/Netanyahu preemptive attack on Iran has unleashed longstanding grievances in the Middle East.   Some readers here will be old enough to remember the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980s that resulted in 500,000 deaths.  Now the Saudis are encouraging Trump to strike a definitive blow.  Yemen may have the capability of significantly impairing access to the Red Sea/Suez Canal.  The Kurds are being encouraged to join the regional assault.  Iran will attack its Gulf neighbors who are assisting the U.S. and they know that impairing oil transport through the Strait of Hormuz will severely hurt European economies, putting pressure on the U.S. not to proceed with a land war.  The U.S. is no longer in a position to "declare victory and go home."  I've heard more than one analyst say that "when you kick a hornet's nest, the hornets decide when it's over."

And where does Iran get the resources to continue the war after sustaining so much damage from aerial bombinb?  Probably from Russia, which is treating this as a "proxy war" and is accumulating immense wealth from its oil reserves (including potentially selling to Europe!), which it can use to resume its assault on Ukraine.  China also has vast oil reserves stored and has military capacities probably equal to the United States.  Any involvement by them so far appears to be deeply behind the scene.

Informed discussion of the advice "never to get involved in a land war in Asia."

Word for the day:  "Clusterfuck" is a vulgar slang term for an extremely chaotic, disorganized, or severely mismanaged situation, often where multiple things go wrong simultaneously. Originating as U.S. military slang in 1969, it describes a "total mess" or "shitshow". It is sometimes used to describe a complex, messy, and unproductive endeavor.